Evening star., 1940-04-19
Curb on Power

SuiO Ou TOWST
The vote of nearly three to one by
which the House passed the Logan
Walter bill to check the excessive
power of administrative agencies is
measure of the resentment that
has been growing throughout the
country in recent years over the arbi-
trary exercise of authority in matters
affecting the public interest by the
vast array of quasi-legislative and
quasi-judicial establishments max
Ing up the executive branch of the
Government.
1t is a setback, also, for the Presi-
dent, who recently expressed dis
agreement with the principle of the
bill which would give the Federal
courts wider latitude in treating
appeals from the decisions of these
hundred and thirty or so units whose
functions reach deep into the eco
nomic structure of the Nation.
What the bill actually seeks to do
is to bring some semblance of uni
formity into the administrative pro-
cedure of the departments and the
"headless fourth branch of the
Government" as the Presidents own
reorganization advisers termed the
independent agencies three years
ago. The extent of the need may be
gauged by the fact, brought out in
the House debate, that the rules and
regulations of these agencies now are
being codified and that the work will
require twenty-three volumes of ap-
proximately twelve hundred pages
each.
Briefly, the bill requires notice and
public hearings before administra-
tive regulations are promulgated:
vests in the United States Court of
Appeals here the right to void rule
found in conflict with the Constitu-
tion or the statute under which it
was issued; gives courts of appeal
authority to set aside decisions which
they deem to have been reached i'm
properly and provides for intra-
agency appeals boards.
AS the measure neared the vote for
passage, Chairman Summers of the
judiciary Committee summed up the
case for its advocates:
1--WE have only this choice: Either
to turn the American people loose,
subject to the governmental power
of an appointed person who has all
three powers Of Government under
his control. insofar as the average
citizen Is concerned, or we have got
to make it possible for the citizen to
resort to the only place under Anglo
Saxon systems of Government that
an aggrieved person can come to,
and that is the courts of the
country"
Excluded from the bills provisions
are the War, Navy, State and Justice
Departments; Federal Reserve Board,
Interstate Commerce and Federal
Trade Commissions, all Federal lend
ing agencies and a few other units.
Within its scope are the National
Labor Relations Board and Wage
Hour Administration, which were
the targets aimed at by some pro-
ponents, although Representative
Walter, Democrat, of Pennsylvania,
the sponsor, denied it was directed
at those two agencies.
The fate of the measure in the
Senate is in doubt. The administra-
ton again may be expected to attempt
to head it off there, for it slipped by
the Senate in the closing days of
the last session, and was passed
unanimously, only to be called back
when administration forces realized
what had happened.
But the emphatic vote of approval
given by the House reflects demand
for the legislation that should not be
ignored. In the course of the House
debate, the view was expressed that
the bill, in Furnishing" some agencies,
worked unnecessary hardship on
others whose operations are outside
the field of controversy, and it is
therefore toward the correction Of
possible inequities that the Senate
should work.
Pigeonholing the measure simply
would serve to delay a reform that
sooner or later is bound to come.