The Daily Alaska empire., 1945-02-15
The Ward Decision
(New York Times)


 Whatever the ultimate outcome of the Mont gomery Ward case, the decision of Judge Philip L. Sullivan that the seizure of the properties illePa is bound to command respect It is scholarly judicious in tone and impressvey argued
 Judge Sullivan concludes for the Federal District Court that fthe President without authority, either under Section of the War Labor Disputes Act or under the war powers conferred upon him by the Constitution Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy take possesson of the plants and facilities of Montgomery Ward and Company" The court points out that the War Labor Disputes Act authorizes the President to seize a plant facility only when it is equipped for the production of articles necessary or useful in the effort But the term pro duction,' the Court holds, cannot be stretched to mean distribution also; the President, therefore, does not have the authority under it to take possess sion of an establishment, like Montgomery Wards, engaged solely in distrbution,'
 As for the Presidents general powers of wartime seizure under the Constitution, the Court concludes from long line of precedents that such seizure is valid only cases of clear and immediate necessity, not demonstrated to exist in the present case:
 The constitutional guarantees that protect
 the sacred rights, liberties and property of
 American citizens, from the humblest to the
 most exalted, still remains involate These
 rights may not be transgressed with impunity
 nor be disregarded because of expediency
 neither may they be abridged suspended,
 even for single moment, except in the man.
 ner and under the circumstances specifically
 provided by law.
 This decision remains to be tested in the Circuit Court the Supreme Court or both. The Ward prop critics will continue in the hands of the Government until these tests have been made. Meanwhile Con- gress need not be silent inactive. It may put the question beyond dispute either by specifically sus taning Judge Sullivan's interpretation of the War Labor Disputes Act or by amending the act to give the President power to seize distribution and non facilities
 Chairman Davis of the War Labor Board declares: If the decision not reversed Congress does not take appropriate action to make the War Labor Boards orders of settlement effective on everybody the whole plan of peaceful sediment of wartime labor disputes will collapse But the War Labor Board which has allowed the LewiSes and the Petrillos to ignore or defy it's orders, has not put itself in good position to take this point of view. Nor has the Board strengthened its by the maintenance-of- membership clause on which it insists and which was the crux of the original Montgomery Ward dis pute To force an employer to discharge worker who resigns from union does not respect the right of free choice on the part of the individual worker AS device ito maintain the union status quo in war time" moreover it is spurious, for it maintains merely a one-way freeze, which prevents any sfrinkage of union membership but permits indefinite expansion
 If Congress wishes to amend the Connally Smith act in view of Judge Sullivans decision, it would do we'll to clarify it in more than one respect.