Evening star., 1941-09-06

David Lawrence. considered his
Supreme Court plan unWise.
The President reopens wounds
that might well be healed by now.
For example, he puts on record a
denunciation OF three decisions of
the Supreme Court which were ar
rived at unanimously and which
were voted for by such liberals as
the late Justice Cardozo, Justice
Brandeis, and the present Chief
Justice, Harlan F. Stone.
1t does not seem possible that the
President himself prepared all the
article which is just published in
Golfers Weekly. For it contains
some misleading references to pre-
vious Supreme Court decisions.
Thus the Presidents article says:
Then came all in one day, May
81, 1885, a unanimous decision that
the President could not remove a
Federal Trade commissioner al
though in an earlier case, in 1926,
the court had stated that the Ex-
ecutive could remove any officer he
could appoint, even one with quasi
judicial powers ="
Concerned Postmaster.
The 1926 case referred to was that
of a postmaster named Myers and
the court said a postmaster could be
removed by the President and cer-
tainly the duties and functions of
postmaster are clearly adminiStra-
tive. whereas those of a member of
the Federal Trade Commission are
customarily quasi-judicial This was
the differentiation which the Su-
preme Court unanimously made in
comparing the 1885 and 1926 de-
cisions, but no hint of this distinc-
ton is given in the Roosevelt manu-
script.
More disconcerting perhaps is the
statement made py the President
that he regards his fight to enlarge
the Supreme Court from to Is
members "as among the most i'm
portant domestic achievements OF
my first two terms of Office"
To proclaim openly that a Chief
Executive who intimidated the
judges on the bench and drove some
OF them into retirement by a radio
campaign is entitled to character
lie such a campaign as "an achieve
ment" is to set a precedent for the
future so that whenever a President
doesn't like the decisions of a court
he may seek to have legislation
passed to humiliate such justices by
putting alternates alongside of them
to deprive them of the effectiveness
of their votes.
Mr.. Roosevelt justif1es his strange
conception of the executive Office by
the expression of a fear that if he
had not done what he did America
might have lost her present form of
government through seizure of
power under some alien form of
government. The Presidents exact
words are important to reproduce:
For this was the year Q93O
which was to determine whether the
kind Of government which the peo-
pie had voted for in 1882, 1884 and
1885 was to be permitted by the
supreme Court to function. If it
had not been permitted to function
as a democracy, it is my reasoned
opinion that there would have been
great danger that it might have
been ultimately compelled to give
way to some alien type of govern
ment-in the vain hope that the
new form of government might be
able to give the average men and
women the protection and co-opera-
tive assistance which they had the
right to expect"
From His Clique.
ASIDE from the fact that the
american people never had a chance
to vote in 1882 or 1884 or 1886 on
the issue of tampering with judicial
decisions by threatening and in
tlmidatlng judges on the bench, not
a word about the Supreme Court
issue being mentioned in any of
these three campaigns, the fact re-
mains that Mr.. Roosevelt feels he
was justified in breaking down the
independence of the judiciary be-
cause of a fancied fear of ultimate
dictatorship.
What has happened since Mr.
Roosevelt by pressure, exerted in
public, forced the retirement of the
older judges? The court today is
composed of seven out of nine
justices who came from Mr.. Roose-
velt's own official or unofficial group
of advisers-the intimate members
of his political clique. These men
instead of judges from the Circuit
Court of Appeals or from the ranks
of the Nations best lawyers, were
chosen to fill the vacancies. And
what have been the decisions by
some of the Presidents appointees
thus far? In one case the New Deal
court ruled that an employer was
compelled to give employment to
some one who applied for job be.
cause the employer may have hac
an objection in his mind concerning
the union affiliation of the applicant
In another case, Justice Frank
furter said that although the
statute passed by Congress didn't
say particular thing, nevertheless
he knew what Congress meant tc
say. This art of supplying word:
not only to the Constitution but nov