Evening star., 1939-12-12

randa which S
were presented
by Edmund David Lawrence.
Toland, general counsel for the
committee These are:
l. Do the labor unions feel that
they own the labor board because
they made campaign contributions
to the present administration?
2. Was testimony taken by trial
examiners in the field distorted to
produce so-called findings of
fact?
Since the new member appointed
by President Roosevelt, namely, w.
M. Leiserson. has testified to the
authenticity of memoranda which
he wrote to other members of the
board charging that he could not
trust" the findings of fact" in Ger
tain cases because of irregularities"
in the office of the secretary of the
labor board. there is bound to be
further searching of these cases to
get at the true facts.
Thus. the courts have ruled that
the findings of fact" of the labor
board are conclusive if based on
Substantial evidence" but if the
evidence is distorted, no court of
review can tell what is surmise and
what is proof. Lately there have
been signs that New Dealers want
to do away with judicial review
altogether, and only last week some
OF the justices of the Supreme
Court of the United States engaged
In a colloquy on the importance of
judicial review, with Justices
Frankfurter and Black rather in
dicating that they did not feel
judicial review of the administra-
tive tribunals was as necessary as
Chief Justice Hughes did.
Case for Judicial Review.
If the disclosures before the
House committee telling how find
ings of fact" are really made are
further analyzed in subsequent
hearings, it may we'll be that the
case for comprehensive judicial re-
view will be compelled by an
aroused public opinion which will
not tolerate irregularities" in
boards or commissions.
Mr.. Leiserson did not initiate the
public attack on his fellow board
members or on the Office of the
secretary of the board. He was
summoned to testify with reference
to documents found by the investi-
gators on the staff of Committee
Counsel Toland. These memoranda.
however, disclosed the friction in
side the board and the evident
determination of Mr.. Leiserson as
a new member to carry out quietly
and without publicity what is
believed in Washington to have
been an informal instruction from
the President to get at the bottom
OF the charges of unfairness leveled
at the board by various unions and
employers.
The mere fact that Mr.. Leiserson
wrote his colleagues repeatedly
about the 'partisanship" in the San
Francisco Office, and that he was
1nsistent on rules of fairness In
handling evidence shows that two
members of the hoard did not accept
his objections and attempt to clean
up situations which, to use Mr..
Lelserson's terms. actually "smelled."
Up to now the general feeling
among disinterested observers has
been that the board simply had
within its membership the GUS
tomary differences of opinion on
matters of Interpretation of the law,
and that such abuses in the ad-
mlnlstratlve line were incidental to
the enforcement of an ambiguously
phrased law. But the committees
revelations already show that some
thing fundamental in the attitude
Of the field personnel toward their
responsibility caused them to be
either economic or political parti-
sans, though a certain amount of
this is inevitable when Congress
writes a law giving as broad dis
cretlonary powers as the Wagner
Act has given the board.
Severe Employer Critic.
Even Mr.. Leiserson, who, Incl
dentally, is as severe a critic of en-
ployer attitudes as any one in WASH
tngton, having served for several
years as chairman of the Railway
Mediation Board, says that he does
not believe Congress intended to
give the National Labor Relations
Board the power to decide in its
own discretion what is or is not an
appropriate unit. but to take the
customary form of organization and
see that collective bargaining was
assured.
The House committee is appar-
emily about to do thorough Job OF
investigation, as the House resolu-
ton requires, of both the operations
of the board and the law. It will
run up against good deal of evi-
dence of the nature of innuendo
and 1t will be an ironical commen-
tary on the habits of some of the
trial examiners in batting attorneys
and employer witnesses when new
surmises and inferences based on
testimony will produce impressions
unfriendly to the board itself. Thus,
when memorandum says that the
head of a major union telephoned
an official Of the board and said in
complaint about an adverse decision,
mats not what we pay our money
,or' 1t will be improperly assumed
IN some quarters that this means