Show F D roosevelt accepts 1936 election returns As mandate to continue supreme court battle by special arrangement with colliers weekly and western newspaper union this newspaper presents in condensed form a series of articles article by president roosevelt currently appearing in that magazine THE FIGHT GOES ON the constitution prevail Preval lisl part 11 II by franklin D ro roosevelt cosevelt copyright 1941 by bi franklin D Ho ovelt and an by y lh he crowell crowels collier publishing co reproduction he pr in whole or in part art orb iddon this 1 Is the second half of f the presidents own story of the fight for supreme court reform it Is part of the newly written introduction series to a forthcoming volume of his state papers N NOVEMBER 1930 came the IN presidential and congressional ele elections c eions it was a hard fought campa campaign ign in which the issue was joined without reserve in which no punches were pulled the issue was a single one the new deal its objectives jec tives its methods its future proposals the opposition pointed to the court as the only obstacle which had stood to in our way on the other hand I 1 made it clear that if 11 reelected I 1 intended to continue to press harder and harder for or our objectives jec tives to in order to carry put the will of the people the spirit of the democratic campaign was expressed in my speech at madison square garden in new york city on october 31 1936 that for all our objectives many of which had al 0 tu luminous numinous coal act the national industrial du recovery act the new mew york minimum wage act and decide just what w hat we could do in the future tor for the exploited laboring man and w woman MR n or what we could do tn in the way of flood control and drouth control or what we could do to in all the other fields where we had promised progress pro grese help for or the blind and crippled unemployment insurance and old age pensions total abolition of child labor protection against monopolies no building decent housing for or the lowest income groups slum eradication cheaper electricity intelligent tell igent handling ol of industrial disputes through collective bargaining in minimum wages maximum hours the challenge ot of a third of a nation ill clad ill housed ill nourished was still with us and we seemed to b be w without the necessary weapons to meet the challenge court blocks progress the reactionary members of the court had apparently determined to remain on the bench as long as life continued for the sole purpose oj of blocking any program 0 of reform this was nothing new tn in our national life the sam samp thing had happened in earlier days of our history it had happened during president wilsons Wll Wil sons administration it was happening again these men seemed to have a definite mission in life t to 0 block our social and economic progress and dedicated to that a new judge would be appointed the old judge could retire on full salary lor for we life it if he wished ik bif be preferred ed not to retire he M might ht continue to remain on the benh bench but he would be counterbalanced counterbalance there by the new man who had bad had an active contact with life about b out him time and again during the fight I 1 made it clear that my chief concern was with the objective namely a modernized modernised nied judiciary that w would uld look at modern problems through modern glasses the exact kind of legislative method to accomplish the objective was not important I 1 was willing to accept any method proposed which would accomplish that ultimate objective constitutionally and quickly I 1 received howe however ver no reasonable guarantee or assurance that some other definite method would obtain congressional approval rumors of compromise were plenty but nevera never a definite agreement or offer furthermore it was clear that the hopponen opponents ts of t the he plan suggested by me would never be able to agree among themselves on a plan of their own and the best legislative advice which I 1 could get from the congressional leaders was that my own suggestion would woul ua ultimately U be approved no compromise offered that is the reason why no so called compromise was ever submitted by me to the congress that is why it was necessary to persist in the plan originally proposed had any satisfactory compromise been definitely offered which would have been effective in atta attaining irling the objective j stiney ey F owen J william 0 harlan F stone felix huga L frank reed roberts douglas chit ch e awk jun frankfurter Fran black murphy the nine supreme court judges shown here constitute the present sitting members of the high U S tribunal four and one half years after the date mr roosevelt first presented his plan for supreme court reform during the intervening years death and I 1 retirements took a barid in the bitter an controversy tro versy removing seven of the nine members thus further aiding the presidents hand who replaced them with jurists more heavily clothed in liberalism and with sympathies more in line with the progressive ideology doctrines of the new deal ready been blocked by the supreme court we had only just begun to fight the election returns of 1938 1930 left little room tor for doubt as to whether the people of the united states wanted that fight to continue forty six states out of the 48 voted for the new deal the popular vote tor for the new deal was votes or a plurality of over votes out of the cast As I 1 returned to washington after election day I 1 knew that the great interests and the great newspapers which had opposed my any reelection election re in 1936 by violently attacking the policies and objectives of the last four years were all ready ind and set again to transfer the scene of battle from the legislative halls to the ibe court room defeat at the polls would never deter them from seeking ultimate victory from the courts dictatorships growing in fact many of the later new deal measures were already even then working their way up to the supreme court the social security act the national labor relations act the public utility holding company act the the problem was a simple one to state but an almost impossible one to solve to stand still was to invite disaster across the seas democracies had bad even then been yielding place to dictatorships because they had proven too weak or too slow blow to fulfill the wants of their citizens social forces in our day gather headway with ever increasing speed it would have been dangerous to block too long the just and irresistible pressure of human needs yet it was hard bard to read the opinion of the court on the agricultural adjustment act and say what we were going to be able to do for the farmer or the opinions outlawing the railroad retirement act the bl mission they clung to their places although it had become on the average the most aged court in our history although six justices had passed the age of 70 not a single vacancy had occurred during my first term in office the bench had been created almost entirely by appointments point ments by conservative dents and it was now continually passing economic and po political 11 judgments almost month by month on a liberal program ol of recovery and reform time would not allow us to wait for vacancies acan cles things were happening NOW that same element of time was also most important in considering the question of passing a constitutional amendment to meet the court crisis I 1 considered that remedy very carefully and rejected it the program of the new deal involved the most controversial social questions in the last 75 years of our history tremendous interests were at stake interests which would hesitate at nothing to gain their ends it would only be necessary to prevent ratification in 13 states to in order to block any proposed amendment men t to the constitution I 1 knew how long it would take to get the approval of 36 states I 1 had bad seen the long year after yeat year ordeal of the proposed child labor amendment which involved opp opposition which was only picayune in comparison with the In trenched antagonism to the new social program not it would take years aali years to get a constitutional amendment which would meet our difficulties time was too pressing tor for that retire members at TO 70 the plan which I 1 finally proposed provided for a continuous and recurrent addition of new blood new vigor new experience and new outlook for under my plan as soon as a judge reached the age of 70 and which would have been capable of quick passage it would have been accepted by me events happened in the midst ot of the fight to becloud the chief issue there was first the retirement of justice van devanter in june 1937 some have said that it was strategically timed but of course that Is incapable ot of proof at the present time there came then the death of senator robinson the senate democratic leader of the members in favoron favo the plan supreme court yields fields but the startling fact which did more than anything else to bring about the defeat of the plan in the halls balls of the co congress 11 gress was a u t victory on an the bench ot of the court for the objectives of the fight the court yielded the court changed the court began to interpret the constitution instead of torturing it it was still the same court with the same justices no new appoint ments had been made hd yet beginning shortly after the message of february 5 3 1937 what a change whether this change came as a result of the election returns of 1935 1936 whether it came as a result of my message whether it came as a result of public discussion during the course of the fight or a combination of all these those are important questions for the later historians ot of the period these need not be discussed here on march 29 1937 the court completely reversed itself on the constitutional tut ional power of a state to pass a minimum wage law for women just nine months alter after denying this power to the states the court unequivocally decided five i to tour four to uphold the power and in so many words it expressly overruled its earlier contrary decisions and thus a new interpretation was placed on the doctrine of freedom of contract it was not until alter after the end of the judicial term in in june 1937 that a single vacancy anthe on the court actually occurred the about tace face in the decisions ot of the court had come from the very same personnel that daame had been on the th court sinie since my first inauguration the victory therefore cannot be attributed to the n new ew justices it was rather a realization by one or two members of thi the court that the court had exceeded its powers that it had strayed away from the constitution itself and that the liberal minority of the court had bad been correct in its comi conclusion V slops |