Supreme Court as Second Fiddle

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 5

Supreme Court as Second Fiddle

Roosevelt’s Appeal to Nation SEEKING SUPPORT FOR JUDICIARY PROPOSALS. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Friday, 7.30 p.m, WASHINGTON, March 5. Although he did not mention the Supreme Court by name, President Roosevelt, in an address at a Democrat victory dinner, opened a series of radio appeals throughout the nation in support of his judiciary proposals as the quickest and surest way to obey the election mandate and remedy the conditions under which a third of the nation is still ill-nourished, ill-clad and ill-housed. He said his greatest ambition was to surrender the pffice of President to his successor in 1941 secure in the knowledge that the nation was intact, peaceful and prosperous. Slavery took at least forty years of argument, discussion and futile compromise before it came to a head in the tragic civil war, but the economic freedom of the wage earner, farmer and small business man would . not wait forty years or even four. It would not wait at all. Various forms of government had failed iu the world and even democracies had failed for the time being to meet human needs. Demo cracy had not failed in the United States, however, and they proposed nor to let it fail.

“1 cannot say with candour that democracy in the United States during the past few years has fully succeeded nor can I tell you just where it is headed. I can only hope, for there is no definite assurance, that the three-horse team of the American system of government, will pull together. If one horse lies down in the traces or plunges in another direction, the field will be unploughed,’* added the President. Mr. Roosevelt painted a picture of farmers burdened with debt, men and women labouring in factories with inadequate pay, children working in mines and mills, labour strikes costing millions of dollars, threatening floods and blowing dust. He said none of these problems could be adequately met while uncertainties continue with regard to the legality of the Congressional attempts to remedy them. This speech is considered tantamount to an announcement that no new effort will be made to meet these conditions until the Supreme Court is brought into better harmony with the legislative executive and branches. He placed support for the plan to remake the Court squarely on the basis of party loyalty and responsibility and warned Democrats that if they did not have the courage to lead the American people in the way they want to go, someone else will. He said he would continue the discussion in a fireside chat on March 9 and subsequent addresses.