JUDICIARY: The Big Debate

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Secretary Wallace talking to the press, remarked, apropos of future plans for crop control (see p. 14): "All these proposals in one way or another require Federal action. Nobody knows what the fate of any of these would be under the Constitution as now interpreted." The National Grange declined to take the hint and declared it had doubts of the wisdom of the President. The more politically powerful Farm Bureau Federation which has prospered by playing ball with the New Deal delayed its answer.

Voice of the People. Preliminary results of a popular poll on the subject, published last week by the American Institute of Public Opinion, indicated on incomplete returns that although 61% voted for Franklin Roosevelt last autumn, 53% to 60% in various regions were opposed to his Court plan. Only one State, New York, gave it a majority (56%).

Hugh S. Johnson wrote last week: "In logic and law there is no answer [to the President's proposal]. But Congress has been snowed under with objections mostly in error about what the proposal really means. Why? Because it took a crack at Mr. [Charles Evans] Hughes and because it was too damned slick."

Charles the Baptist. It was just seven years ago that the U. S. Senate had another great debate on the powers and functions of the Supreme Court, on the question of "property rights v. human rights." Occasion of that debate was the nomination of Charles Evans Hughes as Chief Justice. He was finally confirmed by vote of 52-to-26. Before that took place those who opposed him thoroughly aired their opinion that he was too closely connected with conservatism and entrenched wealth. Half the Senators who voted against him are now dead or retired, but of those who remain the great majority are today opposed to President Roosevelt's Court plan: Borah, Glass, Connally, George, Hiram Johnson, Nye, Wheeler. Vice-versa, Senators Ashurst and Pat Harrison, both now pro-Roosevelt, were then both pro-Hughes, and Senator Robinson was paired in his favor. Only a few, notably Hugo Black and Bob La Follette, were against Mr. Hughes then and now.

After this demonstration of liberals against him, Mr. Hughes joined the Court and within a year not only did the Court begin to function with new celerity, but there came a number of liberal decisions, several of them by 5-to-4, such as that against Minnesota's "press gag" law, with the new Chief Justice casting the decisive vote.

These peculiar circumstances as well as the fact that he is the spokesman of the Court contrived last week to make Mr. Hughes the central, if silent, figure of the Court debate. But the Chief Justice was the central figure for a still better reason: On the lips of every liberal who objected to the Court's power was his famed dictum, "The Constitution is what the judges say it is."