Evening star., 1949-07-29
Donald Richberg Hits
Nations STUMBLING
Advance in Socialism
BY the Associated Press

BY ths Associated Press
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS,
W. Va. July 29.-The one-time
head Of the National Recovery
Administration today attacked
what he called the Federal Gov
ernment's stumbling advances
into socialism"
Donald r. Richberg declared in
an address before the annual
meeting of the Virginia State Bar
Association that moves toward
socialism ARE step by step being
sanctified by Congress and courts
as within the constitutional objec-
||tives Of the National Government" ;"
The former NRA chief said too
much power is being centered in
Federal Government at the ex-
pense of State and local govern
ment and individual liberty.
Hits "Politicar' Hypocrisy.
Mr.. Richberg. now a practicing
attorney in Washington and a
resident of Albemarle County,
Va, asserted that:
THE impediments to tyran-
nical authority. created by di-
vision Of powers between the
executive, legislative and judicial
branches. have been gradually de-
stroyed by creating commissions
in which laws are made, inter-
preted and executed by one body
Of men,"
Although the NRA was held un-
constitutional by the Supreme
Court. later legislation in the
fields Of agriculture, labor, price
control and social security "in-
dicates that the destruction of
the NRA was only a stumble in
the onward march of paternal-
ism," he said.
Il detest the political hypocrisy
that proclaims that murders and
organized crime by gangsters and
labor gorillas in Northern cities
must be dealt with by the local
police because a Federal law
would be unconstitutional and in
the next breath demands the
passage Of a Federal law to curb
the comparatively rare outbreaks
of lawlessness in the South"
Attacks Proposed FEPC Law.
Turning to proposed legislation
which would forbid employers to
discriminate against employees be-
cause of race. Mr.. Richberg said:
Every lawyer knows that the
Constitution does not grant sin
gle right to any minority of per-
sons. It only grants right to in
dividuals; and every liberty guar
anteed is the liberty of an in
dividual. And SO it follows that
your rights and mine must be ex-
actly the same.
yet we hear solemnly proposed
=. a Federal law to compel busi-
nessmen to employ workers whom
they do not want to employ and
compel workers to work with men
with whom they do not want to
work. This is called in uncon-
scious irony sa-s.1sir employment
practiee~Acts - .~e.~.4ss
Mr.Richberg SddSd "the over
all freedom Of association in work
or play is clearly a right retained
by the people of the United
States"
He also said sFEPc. legislation
would fft unconstitutional free
dom q contract ITO asdegree never
before attempted"
Warns on Other Issues.
And Mr.. Richberg added that
national tentacles (are) stretch
ing out to control education. the
practice of medicine and the un-
known, glimmering, beckoning OBJ
jectives Of social and economic
security"
A central government spending
billions of dollars on social legisla-
ton, he said, has a questionable
responsibility of satisfying
those pressure groups that may
deliver more votes than the pres
sure groups unsatisf1ed (an6
Of paying for the votes of classes
and communities that viii support
the party in power, out of the
pockets of the opposition.
This Is, bluntly, that present
corruption of government which
Jefferson warned was inevitable
after centralization," Mr.. Richberg
said