JUDICIARY CHANGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23136, 11 March 1937, Page 9

JUDICIARY CHANGES

THE PRESIDENT’S PROPOSALS APPEAL FOR SUPPORT (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) WASHINGTON Mar. 10. (Received Mar 10, at II p.m.) President Roosevelt, in a radio preside chat, appealed directly to the people to support his judiciary proposals “ I reminded you in March four years ago when I made my first radio report, that we were then in the midst of a great banking crisis Now we are faced with a quiet crisis There are no lines of depositors outside closed banks, but to the farsighted it is a crisis with far-reaching possibilities of injury tc America. We are faced with the fact that the Supreme Court more and more often and more and more boldly has asserted its power to veto laws passed by the Congress and the State Legislatures during the past four years, Sound rule, giving the statutes the benefit of all reasonable doubt, has been cast aside The court is acting, not as a judicial, but as a policy-making body. That is not only my accusation, but that of justices who dissented from majority opinions vetoing recent laws designed to meet modern needs The court improperly set itself as a third house of Congress, a super Legislature. We have, therefore, reached a point where we must act to save the Constitution from the court and the court from itself. My opponents seek to arouse prejudice and fear by crying that I am seeking to pack the court. If the meaning ol that phrase is that I wish to dace on the Bench spineless puppets who would disregard the law and decide cases in the way I wished them, no President fit for the office would appoint and no Senate of honourable men would confirm this type of appointees. But if it means that I would appoint and the Senate confirm justices who understand modern conditions and act as justices, not legislators, then I and the vast majority of American people favour doing just that thing. Now my opponents urge a constitutional amendment, but It would take months, even years, to agree to the type of language, and more months and years to get a two-thirds majority in the House and the Senate, and then the long course of ratification by threefourths of the States. This process is too long and too uncertain. My proposal will not infringe in the slightest on the civil or religious liberties dear to every American. You who know me cannot fear that I would tolerate destruction by any branch of the Government of any cart of our heritage of freedom.”