Show inlew deal laws and the courts at K A the supreme court of the united states by WILLIAM C UTLEY HE new deal has been tossing turing about in stormy political seas during the last few months in its struggle to gain the shore of economic security and has at last run aground on the constitution of the united states from which not even the throwing over of billions of dollars in ballast seems likely to be able to lift it court decisions have been falling thick and fast now that new deal leg isolation Islat lon has had bad a chance to get into application and claims against it have had a chance to find their ways to the tribunals at one time approximate ly cases involving new deal legis lation were pending in the courts many of these have already been de elded upon some by the lower courts and a few finally by the supreme court there are about 17 of them which the con census of the press has imbued with more importance than all of the others of these cases 15 have been decided against the present ad ministration and two to for it all d de e but one were rendered since the beginning of the year eight of them were supreme court decisions leaving the others to be appealed most important of all such decisions was that which threw out virtually the entire structure of the knocking the props from under new deal plan ning this left the president with three courses of action open to build a new and better to s in 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 tralice legi legislative slathe power to aid the ad ministration in coping with changing social and economic conditions for a while it looked as if the dents policy was to be a of all three but of late weeks the third has emerged more and more clearly what has led up to the present state may be followed through a resume of the important cases which have been decided by federal district courts and the supreme court test new deal legislation th first judicial straw which andl bated the way the storm winds were blowing was the decision of the su preme court on january 7 of this year when it declared unconstitutional sec see tion pe of the national industrial recovery act it was the first real test of the legitimacy of new deal legisla tion and blasted high hopes held out by administration leaders that it would be upheld the court ruled that the executive had been given leg powers which were uncalled for that proper rules had not been laid down for his guidance the section had conferred upon the president the power to prohibit the transportation over state lines of oil which had been produced la in excess of state quotas the power wag was denied hailed as a victory for the new deal was the decision 5 to 4 of the supreme court in upholding the gold clause cases rendered february 18 while the decision upheld new deal action of denying the gold payment obligation the opinions of the justices were in several cases severe rebukes in this instance there were three issues at stake the first resulted from congressional action in setting abue the obligation in private con twits ts to pay interest or principal in gola goldi IKI or other specific coin or currency the action act on was sustained by the ma bf tot live five who confirmed decisions of lower courts that congress had power to adopt the joint resolution with respect to these obligations of railroad companies and hence that the gold clauses could not be enforced and the bonds were payable in legal tender currency from the court of claims came the second labile which involved the holder of a federal gold certificate who claimed that he should be paid according to the terms of the gold obliga tion or its equivalent in this case the court simply said that the plaintiff had not been able to show any actual dam ages so the court of claims had no right to entertain the case in the first place much the same was the third issue also up from the court of claims in bolvin evolving the holder of a liberty bond who wanted anted bis his payment in gold and here the court made a peculiar de cislon it rather hinted that new deal legislation was unconstitutional CHART OF NEW DEALS COURSE IN COURTS supreme court decisions are shown in black type for new deal government gold clause cases up held TVA declared constitutional reversing decision of lower court against new deal sec go of N RA pres dents power to prohibit interstate transport of oil in excess of state quotas de dared unconstitutional sec see aa of declared void when applied to companies not en in interstate commerce government power to regulate wages in bituminous coal industry denied right of to condemn land for slum clearance in kentucky denied again denied by cincinnati court NIRA lumber code held invalid fight right of states to form dl visions voided in some states steps for stabilizing milk industry declared tut onal railroad retirement act held in valid whole NIRA ruled tu dional frazier lemke farm moratorium act vo ded president str aped of power to re move federal off officers cers power loans voided kerr smith tobacco act voided AAA processing tax rued ruled out hog processing tax from packers voided composite score for new deal 2 against 15 but refused to do anything about it the dictums of the court said we hold that the joint resolution of june 5 1933 so far as it attempted to over ride the obligation of the united states created by the bond in suit la Is invalid it went beyond the cons titu lional authority of congress but we hold that the action Is for breach of contract and that the plaintiff has failed to show cause of action for actual damages hence the court of claims coul could not entertain the suit about the same time a federal court in louisville ky denied that the had the right to condemn 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 the country based on the constitutional statement that congress shall have power to I 1 reg wate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the indian tribes I 1 was discarded by judge join jolin percy in the fed eral district court at wilmington del in tolerton steel company case another jolt tor for blow rela eions was an injunction granted by federal district judge charles irvin dawson at louisville to 35 soft coal operators relieving them from the rigors of minimum wage requirements federal district judge W I 1 grubb in birmingham took a pot shot at the TVA when he declared that 1000 OW experiment unconstitutional claim ing that the federal government had no right to compete with private business in any state this was of course di reefed at the TVA yardstick it was a new deal defeat which was turned into a victory when judge grubb s decision was revers reversed ed by the circuit court of appeals in new or leans A shadow of the destruction that was to come to the AAA processing tax was cast when the supreme court on march 4 voided the plans of the new deal for stabilization of the milk in austry in new york in may the supreme court delia ered three death blows to the new deal one was the decision which voided the railroad retirement act in another case the court put a fur ib 1 ther crimp in president roosevelt a 8 power by denying him the right to remove a federal officer from office the president I 1 tad ad sought to remove all I 1 am E humphrey from the federal power commiss on and another blow the third blow 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 all of the code making provisions were an atonal transfer of legislative power from congress to the president and others who had no constitutional right to them about the codes chief jus tice hughes said section 3 of the recovery act Is without precedent it supplies no standards for any t trade rade industry or activity it does no not t un dentale to prescribe rules of conduct to be applied to parti particular cular states of f fact a ct to be determined by appropriate ad procedure instead of prescribing rules of conduct it author izes the making of codes to prescribe them we think that the code mab mak ing authority thus prescribed Is an unconstitutional delegation of legisla live power about the power of the federal gov gor eminent to regulate local wages and working hours the chief justice said without in any way disparaging the administrations administration s motive it Is enough to say that the recuperative efforts of the federal government must be made in aa a manner consistent with the authority granted by the Cons titu tion we are of the opinion that the at tempt through provisions of the cods code to fix the hours and wages of employees of defendants in their infra intra state business was not a valid exercise of federal power er H ts processing tax on july 16 the circuit court of appeals at boston declared that the processing tax of AAA was an unwar ranted use of the taxing power to reg and restrict cotton production that it was an unwarranted exercise of of federal 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 a lower court ruled much the same on the hal ho processing tax from packers the whole agricultural program was thrown up for grabs it Is now believed that the adminis 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 tut lonal constitutional amendment to centralize the legislative power of the much more than it Is now will form the important part of the demo cratic platform for 1936 that this Is possible might be indicated by the fact that 3 farmers who have so far received JOO are directly at af fectea by the AAA ruling with their families they might form a very substantial stant lal block of votes to change the basic law of 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 was in the dred scott case with its aftermath of the civil war and later the thir fourteenth and fifteenth amendments elf effecting acting important changes in the federal system an other was the court courts s attempt during and after the civil war to restrain the president and congress in several decisions visions its result was a curtailment of the appellate jurisdiction of the court and an increase in the number of justices from seven to nine the two new ones to be favorable to the reversal of a decision which the admin wanted reversed and the court cout reversed it on the third time the court in 1895 declared invalid the income tax law of 1894 the decision was reversed by amendment of course there Is some question as to whether a parallel can be drawn between these decisions and the recent ones against the new deal if such a parallel can be drawn will history repeat itself 0 western newspaper New union 1 afia t 2 w aadil adaa |