Show Inside Stuff St ff By PAUL MALON WASHINGTON March 2 The 2 The lickings which the new dealers have been taking lately lr from m the lower courts have caused remarkably little pain on the inside here The new deal lawyers arc maintaining a nonchalance nonchalance nonchalance non non- chalance which certainly suggests that they have hae boards appropriately placed somewhere They cannot af- af New Deal ford to say so out Lawyers loud but they real real- Nonchalant ly believe that th five members of the supreme court can be counted on to support them whenever they put up upa a reasonably respectable case For this reason they fear not the reversal suffered by the Tennessee valley vaHey authority in the Grubb decision deci deci- sion They believe the lower court will ill be reversed About the N R A adversities Wier Wier- ton coal they arc are not so sure The truth huth is the best legal leal authorities have differed for some time about application of the N R A to businesses busi busi- nesses which arc not in interstate commerce You may recall that the D. D of J J. J ducked the Weirton prosecution prosecution prosecution tion more or less Jess openly for months until organized labor br brought such pressure as to force it to prosecute S S What makes the new dealers so 50 certain that the court will uphold them whenever Hidden they give it a leg Paragraph to stand on is a Promising hidden paragraph in its de decision ision nearly a year ago in the Minnesota mor mortgage case The language then employed by the court was Neither property nor contract rights arc are absolute for government c cannot exist if the citizen ma may at atwill atwill atwill will use his property to the detriment detriment detriment detri detri- ment of his fellows or exercise his freedom of contract to work them harm Equally fundamental with the private right richt Is that of the public to b regulate it in the common interest inter inter- est l That sounds like an excerpt from froma a Roosevelt speech but the co court rt said it last March What the new deal thinks about the constitution was disclosed recently recent recent- ly Iy in a speech privately delivered before before before be be- fore a local club of attorneys by the new deal coordinator Donald Rich- Rich berg No record of the talk exists A congressman tried to get a copy from Mr office and found the remarks had not been o officially I set down It would be accurate to say however however however how how- ever that wanted the preamble preamble pre pre- preamble amble of the con con- Greater Good and the For Greater declaration of in in- Number dependence incorporated incorporated in that document in a judicial way He protested protested protested pro pro- tested against narrow legal He wanted the government to move unrestrained by legal technicalities technicalities tech tech- to produce the greater good for the greater reater number One lic line lice ran something like this A government must fulfill the obligation obligation ob oh- not only to protect its citizens citi dU- zens from fire flood lood pestilence domestic do do- mestie violence violen e and foreign aggression aggression sion but also from ec economic forces equally destructive and Intolerable lit 0 o 0 S Absurd rumors now arc are going around suggesting that President Roosevelt would have ha appealed any adverse gold decision to the higher r court of public opinion As a matter of fact one paragraph of a statement which had been prep prepared prepared pre pre- p pared ired in advance to be issued if the gold decision went against him read as follows The right of the supreme court to declare acts of congress unconstitutional unconstitutional unconstitutional is 13 not found Plan for in the constitution Adverse Gold But without this Rulin Ruling right those who make the laws would also pass on them so that nothing could ever be found I Therefore It seems an inherent inherent inherent in in- herent function of a written e constitution constitution that somebody separate from the he legal body shall have the right to review their acts In other words the new deal was prepared in that statement which now may never be published to up up- hold the hold the supreme court even en if the court did not uphold the new deal S S S The White House has hils been very secretive about what it would have done had the decision gone the other way It makes rio no difference now but a hour five-hour program had been planned almost minute by minute to offset any ill effects of an adverse decision A flash statement would have been issued at once It contained two paragraphs and was addressed pr m manly to the financial markets assuring as as- suring them there was no cause for alarm An executive order was prepared prepared prepared pre pre- pared and accompanied by a statement statement state state- ment to the press as was also a message message message mes mes- sage to congress and the draft of a abill bill A time schedule had been worked out so this bill would have become a law within five hours after the decision was announced Mr Roosevelt elt may some day in in- elude dude these inthis memoirs S S S SA A member of ot the house suggested in a secret Democratic party conference conference conference confer confer- ence recently that Father Coughlin be invited to address the house The leaders froze the suggestion and the with silence a a The F FER E R A received a request from Crom in St. St Louis not long go asking that relief relict wages wagS be raised so that workers could pay their back union dues S SI The relief relic diet may not encourage gout but F FER E R A reports indicate it is curing pellagra in certain sections sec see of the south because it Is a change from the customary menu I lit S S The new deal has won two out of three cases so f far r from the supreme court It won a gold hoarding case last year and the gold case this year It lost on hot oiLS oil S S S SA A peculiar culiar thing about the gold case is that the government go had to I argue arcue that its gold policy was a fail fail- Ul uie uze e and won by so doing I e SI Vice President Garner became Irritated t ted at noise in the gallery a few days ago and said This noise has pot got lt to stop or I will put you out Next day the always socially correct Congressional Record edited the vice presidents president's announcement to read The occupants of the gallery will wil refrain ln- ln from any demonstrations o. o of approval or disapproval I Copyright 1935 for The Telegram I |