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Show would not hold some of his social legislation constitutional. That set of reasons was knocked into a cocked hat when the Supreme court upheld the Washington state minimum wage law, the Wagner labor relations rela-tions act and the social security taxes. Then came the resignation of Justice Van Devanter. Justice Van Devanter was one of the men whom Mr. Roosevelt had in mind as unwilling and unlikely to see social so-cial legislation through the same glasses as Mr. Roosevelt saw the situation in the country. The Van Devanter resignation gave the President an opportunity to appoint a new member to the court. It also gave the senate an opportunity opportu-nity to burst forth with expressions of its own ideas concerning the type of man who should succeed Justice Van Devanter and the senators were not backward in promoting the name of the Democratic leader, Senator Robinson. But Mr. Roosevelt thus far has failed to fill the vacancy, and this failure has been interpreted interpret-ed by the opposition among the President's own party as an unwillingness unwill-ingness to select anyone but a radical radi-cal for the highest court. In any event, those opposed to the court bill contend that the President's delay de-lay constitutes only another reason why he should accept "the inevitable inevi-table defeat" of the court revision program. When it became apparent that the original bill for six new justices could not be passed because the Democratic-dominated senate judiciary judi-ciary committee reported the bill with a scathing denunciation, the late Senator Robinson astutely offered of-fered a substitute bill in the nature of a compromise. This substitute' bore the authorship of Senators Logan Lo-gan of Kentucky and Hatch of New Mexico. Even the substitute which provided for one additional judge a year until the Supreme court numbered num-bered eleven members has received the same bitter criticism that characterized char-acterized the first measure. Many members of the senate say they will fight it as long as they would have fcught the original because it will give the Chief Executive control of the Supreme court just as the earlier ear-lier one would have done. Frankly, the substitute appears to be losing ground because in the house of representatives the other day. Chairman Sumners of the house judiciary committee, a Texas Democrat, announced that if the senate should pass the bill and if it reached his committee, it would never be reported to the house. Mr. Sumners is a long time member of the house and a highly respected one. He dominates his committee. There were few who believed that, after the chairman's declaration, the Supreme court bill ever could reach the floor of the house. There is yet another phase of this picture. I refer to the line of cleavage cleav-age that has been drawn within the Democratic party on account of the court legislation. It was this about which Sumners spoke but which ht never mentioned directly in his speech. He talked about splitting the Democratic party and that was as near as he ever got to saying that if the President forces the court bill through congress (which he might yet be able to do) there will result a Democratic party and a New Deal party. President Roosevelt vetoed a little known and little discussed bill the " other day. It was Star Route known as "H. R. Bill Vetoed 4408- an Act t0 Provide for the Renewal of Star-P.cute Contracts at Four Year Intervals." The title, of course, will mean little to most of those who read these lines. But, this was a bill intended to do justice tc those underprivileged classes WashingtonMany times in these columns I have had occasion to Great I Write Vraise of ureaf Leader Senator Joe Rob- Passes On inson of Arkansas . the Democratic leader In the senate. His magnificent magnifi-cent qualities, his capacity as a statesman and the regard with which he was held by Republicans and Democrats alike were such that further praise from this pen would be of little value. Sufnce it to say that in Joe Robinson's death the nation na-tion is the loser because "be fought tho good fight." But Senator Robinson's sudden death a few days ago has precipitated precipi-tated a political condition of gravest Importance. Although none of us who knew him nor those with whom ne was associated in an official capacity could have foreseen his sudden death, I think it is proper to say that the passing of Joe Robinson Robin-son may have more far-reaching influence in-fluence upon his country's history than all of his long and distinguished distin-guished career in public life. That is to say, fate possibly has turned in this instance to the role it sometimes some-times plays the role of master strategist The answer is simple. Joe Robinson Robin-son was the field marshal for the Roosevelt administration. Particularly, Particu-larly, he was the field marshal in the greatest legislative battle to reach the floors of congress since the days of slavery, and this coincided coin-cided with the daring adventure of an epochal administration. President Roosevelt leaned upon Senator Robinson to put through the senate a bill that would permit the Chief Executive to appoint additional addition-al justices of his own choosing to membership in the Supreme court of the United States. He leaned upon the Arkansas senator for many other things as well, but it seems to be the consensus of opinion that Mr. Roosevelt's administration may well stand or fall by the success or failure of his program to reorganize the judiciary of the United States. It seems further that if the President Presi-dent fails to obtain congressional approval for this plan which would give the President domination over the court system of the country, he will have lost control of the legislative legisla-tive branch of the government for the remainder of his term. Few Presidents have been able to carry on successfully without the co-operation of the legislative branch. It is too early, of course, to say whether the death of Senator Robinson Robin-son means defeat of the court packing pack-ing program. . Nevertheless, most of the astute political observers in Washington indeed, many of the President's own party in the senate believe that the passing of the Democratic leader was a fatal blow to the President's power in congress. con-gress. This results from the fact that Joe Robinson was able to mold together many groups and cliques and hold them by the sheer power of his lovable personality in a cohesive, co-hesive, workable unit. The country never will know how well and faithfully Joe Robinson fought for the President and his policies. I have said in these columns col-umns heretofore and I repeat that I do not believe Senator Robinson favored aD of the New Deal policies, poli-cies, in his heart. He was progressive progres-sive but he had sound ideas; he stood by the President and the New Deal with courage and capacity, but on many occasions, I have reason to believe, he fought for those principles prin-ciples because he believed he should either fight as a member of his party or retire. Further, he knew that if he would retire he would not have the opportunity nor the influence to persuade the radical radi-cal wing -if the New Dealers to propose pro-pose reasonable policies. In other words, the late Democratic leader was attempting to be a leader in fact as well as in name and many are the indications where he was able to pull the theorists and the radical New Dealers back from the brink of political destruction. In view of the facts I have reported re-ported and the observations I have made above, it be-Court be-Court Bill comes perfectly Doomed Plain thal. b e President is in a position where he can lose the present pres-ent court battle with ease. In fact, there are many observers who believe be-lieve the court legislation will have to be abandoned and that congress will be quickly overwhelmed by that annual desire of representatives and senators to conclude their work and adjourn. Let us review the situation as regards re-gards the court legislation. The President got off to a very bad start when the original bill to add ix new justices to the Supreme tourt was presented. The original reasons he gave for demanding the new power he sought were shattered shat-tered within a few days after the draft of the bill reached the Capitol. Capi-tol. He was forced to abandon them Mr. Roosevelt then came forward for-ward with a second set of reasons, namelv. that the Supreme court as present constituted could not and about which Mr. Roosevelt has often spoken in his fireside chats over the radio. The men who would have benefited by this piece of legislation legisla-tion were the star route carriers of the mails the service that dates t-ck to the stagecoach days of America and the service from which originated the Postal department's depart-ment's famous phrase, "the mails must go through." The star route is the only means by which a good many thousand persons are aole to receive mails on anything like a modern basis because this service reaches the out-of-the-way inland towns where railroads are not yet and possibly never will be in operation. opera-tion. I watched this legislation go through the house without dissenting dissent-ing vote; I saw Senator McKellar, Democrat, of Tennessee, attack the bill in vicious language and then I ss.w the senate pass it by a vote of nearly two to one. In addition, I know thai the representatives rep-resentatives of these little known carriers (little known except to those whom they directly serve) had tried for a number of years to obtain a basis of pay tha. will let them live. They finally were able to convince Postmaster General Farley (hat unless they were paid more money the -number that would go bn ke in carrying out tl-'iir con tracts would be amazingly large, i Western Kewscaper laion. |