'QUILT CRISIS' FACES AMERICA

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 47, 11 March 1937, Page 5

'QUILT CRISIS' FACES AMERICA

Absxu— Copyright.)

Couri a Policy Maker, Says President CONSTITUTION'S DANGER

(By Telegraph— Press

(Received 11, 8.45 a.m.) WASHINGTON, March 10. Prgsident Eoosevelt, in % radio fire-i side chat, appealed directly to the people to support his judiciary proposals. "I am reminded that in March, four years ago, when I made my first radioreport, we were then in the midat of a; great banking crisis. Now we aro faced with a quiet crisis. There are no lines of depositors outside tho elosed banks, but to the far-sighted this crisis has far-reaching possibilities of injury to America, "We are faced with the fact that thei SupTeme Court has more and more often and more and more b'oldly aaserted its power to veto laws passed by Congress and State legislatures in the past four years. The sound rule giving statutes the beuefit of all reasonable doubt has been cast aside. The Court is acting) not as a judicial but a policy-making body. That is not only my accusation but that of the justices who dissentod1 from the majority opinions vetoing the recent laws designed to meet modern; needs, The Oourt has ijnproperly seti itsolf as a third House of Congress, aj super-legislature. " We have, therefore, reached a point; in the nation Where we must aot to savei the Constitution from the Court and thei Court from itself. "Our o-pponents seek to arouse pxe-j judice and fear by crying that I am| seeking to pack the Court. If the! meaning of that phrase is that I wishj to place on the bench spineless puppetswho will disregard the law and decidel cases in the way I wish, then no Presi- 1 dent fit for the office would appoint and; no Senate of honourable men would, Confirm this type of appointee. But if' j they rne&n that I will appoint and the I Senate confirm justices who understandl modern conditions, and act as justices and not legislators, then I and the vaet •majority of the American people will favour doing just that thing. • "Our opponents urge a constitutional amendment, but it takes months and years to agree to the type of language, more months and years to get & twothirds majority of the House and Senate, and then a long course of xatification by three-fourths of the States. "This process is too long and too uncertain. My proposal will not in--fringe the slightest on the civil and religious liberties dear to every American. You who know me cannot fear that I will tolerate the destruction by any branch of the Government of any part of our heritage of freedom."