Show ne new x deal laws and the courts up 4 rz ap 5 mj wa na 02 0 W aw R et aram P AMA krai 7 on 4 s 0 0 P EA Z aw the supreme court of the united states by WILLIAM C UTLEY u E new deal has been tossing tos sin TUE ta about in stormy political seas during the last few months in its it le to gain the shore of eCO economic DOMIC security and has at last run aground on the constitution of the united states from which nor even tile the throwing over of billions ballion of dollars in t ballast seems likely to be able to lift it court decisions have been falling thick and fast now that new deal le legislation has had a chance to get into application and claims against it have had a chance to find their ways to the tribunals at one time approximately cases involving new deal legis lation were pending in the courts many of these have already been do de aided upon some by the lower courts and a few finally by tile supreme court there are about 17 of them which the con census of the press has f imbued with more importance than all ah of the others of these cases 15 have t been decided against the present ad ministration and two for it all de visions but one were rendered render ed since she he beginning of the year eight of them were supreme court decisions leavan leaving 0 the others to be appealed most host important of all such decisions was that which threw out virtually tile entire structure of the knocking the props from under new deal planning this left the president with three courses of action open to yi build a new and better NKA to sim ply suspend action for a while and let em see how they like it or to campaign for an amendment to the con ution which would further cen F tralice le legislative active power to aid the ad ministration in coping with aliano changing ging j social and economic conditions I 1 for a while it looked is as if the dents policy was to be a combination combi nation bof of all three but of late weeks the fi third has emerged more and more clearly what has lei led up to the pres g ent state may be followed through a presume resume of the important cases which chave bave been decided by federal district burts and tile the supreme court test new deal legislation the first judicial straw which andl J lasted abed the way the storm winds were lowing blowing awas was the decision dec islon of the preme ireme court on january 7 of this year vear when it declared unconstitutional section oe oc of the national industrial ite ile covery act it was the first real test of 1 I the legitimacy of new deal le legisla isla on and blasted high hopes held oil out by y administration leaders that it would be c the court ruled that the executive lad lad been given legislative powers which were uncalled for that proper lules les had not been laid down for his guidance Qi dance the section had conferred upon apon the president the power to pro the transportation over state lines ines of oil which had been produced to in excess of state quotas the power was denied v hailed as a victory for the new beal was the decision 5 to 4 of tile supreme court in upholding tile gold clause lause cases rendered february 18 chile lie tile the decision upheld new deal ac acton on ot of denying the gold paymer daymen gation the opinions of the justices 16 L ire re in several cases case 9 severe rebukes 11 1 this instance there were three ties ea at stake the first resul resulted teJ from M congressional action in setting side le the obligation in private con acts to pay interest or principal la in 01 boia ido or other specific coin or currency 00 he e action was sustained by the ma conry rity of five who confirmed decisions decision 4 f t courts oi lower courts that congress haj had A ower fter to io adopt after ith the alie joint resolution edict respect esI ct to these obligations of allread es and hence that tile sol oli 1 1 tind could il not be enforced and 10 were ere payable in legal tender 16 alicy 11 br 1 hi court of claims came the second issue which involved the holder of if a federal gold certificate who claimed that he should be paid ac cording to the terms of the gold obal obliga a tion or its equivalent equiNa lent in this case the court simply said tint that tile the plaintiff had not been able to show any actual dam dain ages so the court of claims had no right ri lit to entertain the case in the first place much aluch the same was the third issue also up from the court of claims involving the holder of a liberty bond who wanted his payment in gold ani and here the court made a peculiar decision it rather hinted that new deal legislation was unconstitutional but refused to do anything about it the dictums of the court said we hold that the joint resolution of june 5 1033 so 60 far as it attempted to override the obligation of the united states created by the bond in suit Is invalid it went beyond the constitutional authority of congress but we hold that the action Is for breach of Conti contract act and that the plaintiff has failed to show cause of action for actual damages hence the court of claims could not entertain the suit about the same time a federal court in louisville ky denied that tile the had the right ri ailt to condemn con denin land for slum clearance A cincinnati court did the same another court held the lumber codes of the unconstitutional in some states state courts threw out state recovery acts which were designed to complement the national one labor relations government power to regulate labor relations anywhere in tile the country based on the constitutional statement that congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the indian tribes was discarded by judge john percy in the federal district court at wilmington lon del in alerton steel company case another jolt tor for NIZA another blow to labor relations was nn an injunction granted by federal district judge chirles charles irvin dawson at louisville to 33 35 soft coal operators rel relieving leving them from tile the rigors of minimum wage requirements federal district judge W 1 L grubb in birmingham took a pot shot at tile TVA when he fie declared that experiment unconstitutional claiming that the federal government had no right to compete with private business in any state this was of course directed at the TVA yardstick it was a new deal defeat which was turned into a victory when judge grubbs decision was reversed by the circuit court of appeals in new orleans A shadow of the destruction that was to come to the AAA processing procession pro cessin tax was cast when the supreme court on march larch 4 voided the plans of the new deal for stabilization of the milk industry to in new york in may the supreme court delivered er ed three death blows to tile the new deal one was the decision which va voided aided the railroad retirement act in another case the court put a fur tiler liter crimp in resident P pes ident Roosevel ts power powe r by denying him the right to remove a federal officer from office the president had sought to remove IV william I 1 I 1 K I 1 li humphrey umphrey from the federal power commission and another blow the third blow tile the one that left even franklin D roosevelt speechless for a while was the decision in the poultry case the decision was all the more crushing because it was unanimous in delivering the courts opinion chief justice hughes declared definitely that nil all of the code making provisions were an boal transfer ft of legislative powers from congress to the president ind and others who had no constitutional right to them about the codes chief justice hughes said section 3 of the recovery act Is without precedent it supplies no standards for any trade industry or activity it does not undertake to prescribe ribe rules of conduct to be applied to particular states of fact to be determined by appropriate administrative procedure instead of prescribing rules of conduct it authorizes the making of codes to prescribe them 4 41 we think that the code mak ing authority thus prescribed Is an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power about the power of the federal government to regulate local wages and working hours the chief justice said without in any way disparaging the administrations motive it Is enough to say that the recuperative efforts of tile the federal government must be made in a manner consistent with the authority granted by the constitution we are of the hat the attempt through provisions of the code to fix the hours and wages of employees of defendants in their intrastate business was not a valid exercise of federal power hits processing tax on july 16 the circuit court of appeals at boston declared that the processing tax of AAA was an unwarranted use of the taxing power to regulate and restrict cotton production that it was an unwarranted exercise of federal power to delegate unlimited power to the secretary of agriculture to administer the tax and that the tax violates the requirement that taxes should be uniform throughout the united states in philadelphia philadelphia a lower court ruled much the same on tile the lo 10 processing tax from packers the whole agricultural program was thrown up for grabs it Is now believed that the administration will seek to push as many of these test cases through the supreme court as possible with the view that if they are there held to be unconstitutional tut ional constitutional amendment to centralize the legislative power of tile the nation much more than it Is now will form the important part of the democratic platform for 1930 that this Is possible ml might lit be indicated by the fact eliat farmers who have so far received are directly affected by the AAA ruling with their families they might form a very substantial block of votes to change the basic law of tile the land one historian charles A beard points out that three times before has the supreme court thrown itself resolutely across currents of powerful interests and ideas once w was is in the dred scott case with Us its aftermath of the civil war and later the thirteenth fourteenth anil and fifteenth amendments effecting important changes in the federal system another was the courts attempt duran during and after the civil war to restrain th the e president and congress in several decisions ci its result was a curtaL curtailment ment of the appellate jurisdiction of the tha court and an aa increase in the number of justices from seven to nine the two new ones to be favo favorable raLle to the reversal of a decision which the administration wanted reversed and the court reversed it on the third time the court in 1805 declared invalid the tha income tax law of 1894 the decision was reve reversed V bcd by amendment of course there la is some question as to whether a parallel can be drawn between these decisions and tile the recent ones against the new deal it duct cuate a parallel can be drawn will history repeat itself c western newspaper ual 1119 |