Evening star., 1940-05-06
Stresses Need for Curb
On Bureaucratic Agencies.

On Bureaucratic Agencies.
10 the Editor of The Star: -
Please allow me to make . few OBJ
servatisns regarding the pending Lo-
gan-Walter bill in the present Congress,
q bill giving the people the right to
appeal from the rulings of an irrespon-
sible bureaucracy. This bill is right In
principle. OF course, 1t is an instance
of legislative pioneering which never
should have been necessary.
The Logan Walter bill sounds like
second Bill of Rights, seeking to restore
the rights of the people as guaranteed
by the first 10 amendments of our Con-
stitution. The ninth amendment spe-
cifically reserves every right not spe-
officially surrendered to the Federal Gov
ernment, to the States and the people,
thus retaining every, right guaranteed
to free men by Magma Carta.
Neither the Congress nor the Federal
courts have any constitutional authority
to destroy or strike down these consti-
tutional guarantees Of our citizens. The
people should understand their rights
as guaranteed under the ninth amend
ment, which says:
1.-THE enumeration In the Constitution
of certain rights shall not be construed
to deny or disparage others retained by
the people"
Our citizens have never once sur
rendered their right of appeal. to the
courts from any tyrannical bureaucratic
ruling, and not until recent years has
the Congress Of the United States ever
attempted to overthrow the constitu-
tional rights II he people, this trouble
having had its origin in the Supreme
Court of the United States and not the
Congress.
Our Supreme Court has agreed to the
immunity doctrine as proclaimed by our
Court Of Appeals to the effect that .
citizen cannot hold bureaucratic offi-
cial liable in damages for the unlawful
and wrongful destruction Of his property,
an invasion of Article I, section 8, Of
our Constitution, which restricts i'm
munity to Senators and Representatives
for debate only in their respective
houses. From what source does our Su-
preme Court derive its authority to
grant immunity to any class Of our citi-
zens or our officials? Without the right
of appeal the citizen Is utterly helpless
and at the mercy Of Federal bu-
reaucracy, very properly described by
the Hon. Hatton w. Summers, chairman
of the House Judiciary Committee, in
the Congressional Record \of Thursday,
April 1S, 1910, as "a type Of government
in many respects the least efncient, the
most expensive, the most susceptible Of
corruption and tyranny Of any Of the
known systems Of government. Nobody
can deny that"
Not only has our Supreme Court done
violence to our Constitution in annihi-
lating the rights Of our people under the
ninth amendment, as already explained,
Z but 1t has disregarded the common law
Of England on the same subject matter.
Subsequent to the signing Of Magma
Carta by King John 800 years ago, the
King of England could not lawfully do
an injury to subject. Says Cooley's
Blackstone (4th ed, 1899, Vol. I, p. 23o) !:
"The King hath . prerosative in all
things that are not injurious to the
subject; for in them all it must be re-
membered that the Kings prerogative
stretcheth not to the doing Of an in
jury"
In Outlines Of Constitutional Law" !"
~ ohainsss and Asq,nth tltA 3D.,