Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1941-06-13
New Court Appointees Accentuote Liberal Trend
COMPOUNDED Critics of Conservative Background Early Decisions;
Jackson Were RooseveIts 1887 Reform Bottle
By J. A. FOX.

| Harlan F1Ske stone as the twelfth
Chief Justice of the United States
and brought to the Supreme Court
James Francis Byrnes and Robert
Houghwout Jackson served further
to accentuate the liberal complexion
of the high tribunal-and illustrated
once more the vagaries of politics.
When the new Chief Justice was
nominated for the court by Presi-
dent Coolidge in 1925, the liberal
bloc in the Senate Immediately
opened fire on the appointment. The
massive New Englander's back
ground as an advocate for big bust
ness" furnished one opening for at
tack, and the fact that he had been
Attorney General in an era when
the Justice Department still was in
bad repute for past misdeeds was
another. The record of 6 years
shows how wrong that unfriendly
| appraisal was.
A few months back, Jimmy"
| Byrnes, long President Roosevelt's
chief lieutenant in the Senate, was
being doomed first for the chair
manship of the Democratic National
Committee and next for the vice
presidency. The fates, however, had
other things in store for the slender
South Carolinian.
So it was with Bob" Jackson. At
a time when he was being discussed
as a likely candidate for the role of
heir-apparent of Franklin D. Roose-
welt, administration plans to start
him out as Governor of New York
miscarried and, instead, he found
his niche as Attorney General.
Stones Promotion Surprises.
The promotion OF Justice Stone
was a surprise, his name having
figured only infrequently in the
speculation surrounding a successor
to Charles Evans Hughes. Earlier
predictions were that the post of
Chief Justice would 90 to Mr.. Jack
son-Who was among the first to
express qualification that the choice
had fallen on the senior member
of the bench.
Like sentiment was general in
the Capital yesterday as news of
the appointment spread and it was
taken for granted that the selection
would be welcomed throughout the
country.
Coming to the court at the age
OF So, when the conservatives were
strongly entrenched, Justice Stone,
confounding critics, aligned him
self with those other two famed
observation-disclosures and Brandeis-
In expounding the principles of So
cial justice that later were to be-
come the law.
Famous Stone Dissent.
One of the most famous of all the
Stone dlSsentS was that in the New
York minimum wage case, when
the Supreme Court declared the law
unconstitutional on the ground that
1t impaired freedom of contract.
There is grim irony" he said
with sarcasm, in speaking of the
freedom of contract of those who,
because OF their economic necessi-
ties, give their services for less than
is needful to keep body and soul
together. But if this is freedom
OF contract, no one has ever denied
that it is freedom wf1acs1 may be
restrained, Notwithstanding the
Fourteenth Amendment, by a stat
ute passed in the public interest"
1t was only a few months later
that the court, changing front in
the midst of the bitter controversy
stirred by the Presidents reorganiz-
ing plan, reversed itself in an
epochal decision.
Wrote Wage-Hour Decision.
At the last session of court he
wrote the opinion in which the con-
stitutionality of the wage and hour
law was upheld, and his likewise
! was the opinion when the court
ruled that employers must sign con-
tracts when they have reached
agreement with employees by collec-
tive bargaining under the Wagner
Act.
In the Wage and Hour Act de-
cision in which the broad principle
was laid down that Congress can
regulate the production of goods
for interstate commerce." Justice
Stone declared that "the power of
Congress over interstate commerce
is not confined to the regulation of
commerce among the States. It ex-
tends to those activities interstate
which so affect interstate commerce
or the exercise of the power of Con-
gress over it as to make regulation
Of them appropriate means to the
attainment of legitimate end the
exercise of the granted power of
Congress to regulate interstate COM
merce."
In equally terse language he
brushed away the contention raised
in the Heinz case that a written
contract is not necessary compile
ment to collective bargaining.
"A business man who entered into
negotiations with another for an
agreement having numerous provis-
ions, with the reservation that he
would not reduce it to writing or
sign it, could hardly be thought to
have bargained in good faith" said
Justice Stone. This is even more
so in the case of the employer who,
by his refusal to honor, with his
signature, the agreement he has
made with labor organization, dis
credits the organization, impairs the
bargaining process and tends to
Illustrate the aim of the statute to
secure industrial peace through COL
lective bargaining"
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