Evening star., 1944-04-29
Courts Brushed Aside
Congress Inquiry Is Certain in
Montgomery Ward Case
BY David Laurence

By David Laurence
The House of Representatives will pass
and perhaps the Senate also will adopt
resolutions of inquiry to determine ex-
actly what prompted the Roosevelt adj
ministration to defy the will Of Con-
gress and seize a mail-order merchan-
dising house on the ground that 1t Is
indirectly related to the war effort.
Members Of Congress are up in arms,
so to speak, and rightly so. For If the
procedure used by the Attorney General
Is unchallenged and unrestrained, then
any corner drugstore and any dry goods
store or the business of any employer
of labor who refuses to kow-tow to the
administrations prolabor policy on the
maintenance membership" clauses
can be seized by the Government.
Congress never intended the provi-
sions of the Smith, Connally law, re-
lating to the seizure of war plants where
labor disputes occur, to be interpreted
as giving authority to the Government
to take over and operate retail estab-
lishments, or any other businesses which
do not themselves manufacture NUM-
tions or weapons Of war.
Scope Of Definition.
If the definition of war plant" is
stretched as the Attorney General uses
it, then all American businesses of every
kind and description and all their en-
ployes are subject to the DEGREES and
orders Of the President. No further leg
islation then Is needed to draft workers,
to prohibit the right to strike or to
deprive citizens of their civil liberties.
For these liberties are gone-that is, If
the Attorney Generals amazing opinion
Is sustained.
1t is important for the public to know
and Congress will bring out the facts
by its investigations-that Wards has
been trying for months to get the War
Labor Board into court to establish by
legal means whether another section of
the Smith, Connally law relating to Ma
tional Labor Relations Act orders was
being adhered to be the War Labor
Board. The War Labor Board has re-
sisted every effort to allow the Ward
management chance to test the issue
Of constitutionality or lawfulness In
courts. But then when the Govern
ment wants a court order, 1t gets a
judge in Chicago out of bed at night
and obtains an order in a jiffy restrain
ing Wards from pursuing its business
even though the company feels that the
order seizing its property is unlawful
and that the individuals who are oc-
cupying its offices are trespassing.
There are many people who shake
their heads dolefully and say that in
time Of war, when the Government
issues an order, it should be promptly
obeyed. But Wards wanted to get into
court to test the order, and the only
way to get hearing was to take the
risks of refusing to recognize the law
fulness of the order.
Legal Jockeying.
The theory that court action must be
brushed aside in wartime implies that
it was a matter of life and death to the
war effort to seize Wards. The dispute
has been dragging on for several months
and the administration has been jockey
ing for legal position and finally ordered
the seizure to be carried out by civilian
government official acting for an agency
OF the Government that is not connected
directly with the war-the Department
Of Commerce.
Hitherto all seizure cases have been
undertaken by the Army or Navy and
have usually been applied to war plants
where war products were being manu.
factured. To be able to write on a piece
OF paper an order to take retail mer-
chandising business and to give no more
legal justification than the flirnsy gen.
eralities contained in the Attorney Gen.
erals so-called opinion is to illustrate
the extent to which the totalitarian
Instinct has crept into the minds of
some of the bureaucrats who run the
Government in Washington.
The courageous attitude of Sevell
Avery will be applauded widely because
he had the will to bring the issue into
the courts and to bring it also to the
attention of the lawmaking body whose
laws are being distorted into the claimed
right arbitrarily to seize any business.
store or building which, in the imaeina-
ton OF some one in Government, is es-
sentlal to the war effort. The episode
mas become national sensation.
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