Evening star., 1944-04-28
Colossal Blunder'
Montgomery Ward Seizure
Sure to Bring Law Chanae
By David Laurence

By David Laurence
If seizure Of Montgomery Ward Is
lawful, then President Roosevelt has the
right to seize every newspaper and
magazine and every other business
which refuses to grant maintenance
of-membership" clauses in contracts
with labor unions.
The President has made a colossal
blunder. 1t will not only injure him
politically, but 1t viii bring about the
amendment of the price-control law
and the Wage and Salary Sterilization
Act so that the powers hitherto exer-
cised will be sharply curtailed
The episode is most regrettable from
the standpoint of the administration
because the Attorney Generals opinion
is worded so as to endeavor to establish
the supreme right Of the President to
act as dictator.
"War Powers" Unlimited.
What the Attorney General has said
will astound the Nation. 1t means that
there is no constitutional protection any
more-the President can do as he
pleases. There Is no reason now why
he cannot order anybody to do as the
administration directs and use the
f1imsy pretext that the war powers" he
holds give the authority to back him up.
Mr.. Biddle's opinion uses the fiction
that the Commander In Chief possesses
some peculiar war powers. Under the
Constitution, he is Commander in Chief
OF the Army and Navy and has no au-
thority over civilians unless martial law
1t declared. Civil rights have not been
suspended, yet Mr.. Biddle claims that
the statutes do invest the Commander
in Chief with powers to seize plants.
He makes the point that Congress,
under the Smith Connally law, author
lied seizure of war plants and then
goes on to try to prove that Wards is
part of the war effort. If Congress
had intended any such meaning, 1t
would have said so. It could easily have
said "any and all plants directly or in
directly related to the war effort" But
1t used no such broad language.
Mr.. Biddle. evidently fearing that the
courts might construe the Smith-Con-
nally law not to apply to Wards, then
said 1t wasn't necessary to invoke Just
that statute because all the laws relat-
ing to war powers gave the President
the needed authority. No precedents
were cited and no detailed explanation
to the Nation was made-it's simply the
arbitrary claim of the Attorney General
that the law is what he says 1t is. Opin-
ions from an Attorney General who de-
clines to justify the action taken by
citing the basis in law for his action
are valueless.
The Case as q Precedent.
If the Attorney General is right
namely, that the President in time of
war can exercise any authority he
wishes. can conflscate property and use
force to eject from his own ONCE the
head Of company who asks to be shown
the legal authority for such acts-then
constitutional rights in America can be
said to have vanished.
AL over the country and throughout
the world the news sooner or later viii
be transmitted that, in order to help a
labor union get a maintenance of -nnem-
bership clause, the Roosevelt adminis-
tration was willing to use troops and
take away civil rights granted under
the Constitution. sff
Members Of Congress for the most
part stand aghast at the action. They
have seen their own acts again and
again misinterpreted in regulations and
Government orders but not until the
Ward case was the full effect brought
home to them.
The Constitution says something
about seizures. It Is In the fourth ar
ticle of the Bill of Rights, which says:
THE right of the people to be secure
In their persons, houses, papers and ef-
fects. against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated"
The newspapers show pictures of
Sewell Avery, chairman of Wards, be-
ing forcibly elected because he asked the
Attorney General and the troops for
their authority to remove him.
The whole country can understand the
issue-and it will be heard from in the
election campaign. The administration
has made a mistake that may be re-
fiected in protest votes not only from the
Middle West but from other parts Of
the country next autumn. For it will
be asked, What is the use Of winning
war against totalitarianism abroad
and succumbing to totalitarianism at
homer" And it will be hard question
to answer