A RUDE SHOCK

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12705, 9 November 1935, Page 5

A RUDE SHOCK

ROOSEVELT'S NEW DEAL. -f t\ - ■ r. .:. ■ a. : . vl l PUBLIC UTILITY LAW HELD INVALID. JUDGE’S COMMENT.

CONGRESS FLAGRANTLY EXCEEDED POWERS. (U.P.A. by Eioc. Tel. C'c-yrigho. (Received-Nov. 8, 9.10 p.in.) BALTIMORE, Nov. 7.

The 1935 Holding Company Act, designed to give the Government power for a sweeping reorganisation, of (lie utility industry, was held .invalid in entirety by Federal District. Judge William Coleman, in instructing the tiustces of the American States Public Service Company to treat the Act as invalid and of no effect.

Judge Coleman said, that Congress had flagrantly exceeded its lawful power in enacting a measure by which the elimination of most of the lidding companies in the country’s vast utilities network was sought. The matter will probably go to the Supremo Court of the United States.

Fir Roosevelt’s New Deal received another rude shock with the declaration 10-day by a Judge oT the Lower Federal Court that the public utility measure passed by Congress last session after so much travail, so many investigations and so much relentless pressure by the '.President upon legislators, was unconstitutional, since “Congiess, by its enactment, has flagrantly exceeded its lawful power under the commerce clause ol the Constitution.” The measure was considered one of the keystones of Fir Roosevelt's programme of basic reform in contradistinction to recovery, ft will sti.il have to undergo a Supreme Court test, hut the effect of the Lower Court’s decision is unmistakable, since once again it lias thrown a pull of n.nconstitutionality upon the Roosevcltian machinery for righting America's economic evils. Prices of utilities stocks soared upon the exchanges with the announcement of the good news, find the administration suffered another defeat, which even if only temporary, is too reminiscent oi the NIC A. disaster to be anything but demoralis-