I talked with families who had lost their wheat crop, lost their
corn crop, lost their livestock, lost the water in their well, lost
their garden and come through to the end of the summer without one
dollar of cash resources, facing a winter without feed or food--
facing a planting season without seed to put in the ground.
That was the extreme case, but there are thousands and thousands of
families on Western farms who share the same difficulties.
I saw cattlemen who because of lack of grass or lack of winter feed
have been completely compelled to sell all but their breeding stock
and will need help to carry even these through the coming winter. I
saw livestock kept alive only because water had been brought to
them long distances in tank cars. I saw other farm families who
have not lost everything but who, because they have made only
partial crops, must have some form of help if they are to continue
farming next spring.
I shall never forget the fields of wheat so blasted by heat that
they cannot be harvested. I shall never forget field after field of
corn stunted, earless and stripped of leaves, for what the sun left
the grasshoppers took. I saw brown pastures which would not keep a
cow on fifty acres.
Yet I would not have you think for a single minute that there is
permanent disaster in these drought regions, or that the picture I
saw meant depopulating these areas. No cracked earth, no blistering
sun, no burning wind, no grasshoppers, are a permanent match for
the indomitable American farmers and stockmen and their wives and
children who have carried on through desperate days, and inspire us
with their self-reliance, their tenacity and their courage. It was
their fathers' task to make homes; it is their task to keep those
homes; it is our task to help them win their fight.
First let me talk for a minute about this autumn and the coming
winter. We have the option, in the case of families who need actual
subsistence, of putting them on the dole or putting them to work.
They do not want to go on the dole and they are one thousand
percent right. We agree, therefore, that we must put them to work
for a decent wage; and when we reach that decision we kill two
birds with one stone, because these families will earn enough by
working, not only to subsist themselves, but to buy food for their
stock, and seed for next year's planting. Into this scheme of
things there fit of course the government lending agencies which
next year, as in the past, will help with production loans.
Every governor with whom I have talked is in full accord with this
program of doing work for these farm families, just as every
governor agrees that the individual states will take care of their
unemployables but that the cost of employing those who are entirely
able and willing to work must be borne by the federal government.
If then we know, as we do today, the approximate number of farm
families who will require some form of work relief from now on
through the winter, we face the question of what kind of work they
should do. Let me make it clear that this is not a new question
because it has already been answered to a greater or less extent in
every one of the drought communities. Beginning in 1934, when we
also had serious drought conditions, the state and federal
governments cooperated in planning a large number of projects--many
of them directly aimed at the alleviation of future drought
conditions. In accordance with that program literally thousands of
ponds or small reservoirs have been built in order to supply water
for stock and to lift the level of the underground water to protect
wells from going dry. Thousands of wells have been drilled or
deepened; community lakes have been created and irrigation projects
are being pushed.
Water conservation by means such as these is being expanded as a
result of this new drought all through the Great Plains area, the
Western corn belt and in the states that lie further south. In the
Middle West water conservation is not so pressing a problem. Here
the work projects run more to soil erosion control and the building
of farm-to-market roads.
Spending like this is not waste. It would spell future waste if we
did not spend for such things now. These emergency work projects
provide money to buy food and clothing for the winter; they keep
the livestock on the farm; they provide seed for a new crop, and,
best of all, they will conserve soil and water in the future in
those areas most frequently hit by drought.
If, for example, in some local area the water table continues to
drop and the topsoil to blow away, the land values will disappear
with the water and the soil. People on the farms will drift into
the nearby cities; the cities will have no farm trade and the
workers in the city factories and stores will have no jobs.
Property values in the cities will decline. If, on the other hand,
the farms within that area remain as farms with better water supply
and no erosion, the farm population will stay on the land and
prosper and the nearby cities will prosper too. Property values
will increase instead of disappearing. That is why it is worth our
while as a nation to spend money in order to save money.
I have used the argument in relation only to a small area. It holds
good in its effect on the nation as a whole. Every state in the
drought area is now doing and always will do business with every
state outside it. The very existence of the men and women working
in the clothing factories of New York, making clothes worn by
farmers and their families; of the workers in the steel mills in
Pittsburgh, in the automobile factories of Detroit, and in the
harvester factories of Illinois, depend upon the farmers' ability
to purchase the commodities they produce. In the same way it is the
purchasing power of the workers in these factories in the cities
that enables them and their wives and children to eat more beef,
more pork, more wheat, more corn, more fruit and more dairy
products, and to buy more clothing made from cotton, wool and
leather. In a physical and a property sense, as well as in a
spiritual sense, we are members one of another.
I want to make it clear that no simple panacea can be applied to
the drought problem in the whole of the drought area. Plans must
depend on local conditions, for these vary with annual rainfall,
soil characteristics, altitude and topography. Water and soil
conservation methods may differ in one county from those in an
adjoining county. Work to be done in the cattle and sheep country
differs in type from work in the wheat country or work in the corn
belt.
The Great Plains Drought Area Committee has given me its
preliminary recommendations for a long-time program for that
region. Using that report as a basis we are cooperating
successfully and in entire accord with the governors and state
planning boards. As we get this program into operation the people
more and more will be able to maintain themselves securely on the
land. That will mean a steady decline in the relief burdens which
the federal government and states have had to assume in time of
drought; but, more important, it will mean a greater contribution
to general national prosperity by these regions which have been hit
by drought. It will conserve and improve not only property values,
but human values. The people in the drought area do not want to be
dependent on federal, state or any other kind of charity. They want
for themselves and their families an opportunity to share fairly by
their own efforts in the progress of America.
The farmers of America want a sound national agricultural policy in
which a permanent land-use program will have an important place.
They want assurance against another year like 1932 when they made
good crops but had to sell them for prices that meant ruin just as
surely as did the drought. Sound policy must maintain farm prices
in good crop years as well as in bad crop years. It must function
when we have drought; it must also function when we have bumper
crops.
The maintenance of a fair equilibrium between farm prices and the
prices of industrial products is an aim which we must keep ever
before us, just as we must give constant thought to the sufficiency
of the food supply of the nation even in bad years. Our modern
civilization can and should devise a more successful means by which
the excess supplies of bumper years can be conserved for use in
lean years.
On my trip I have been deeply impressed with the general efficiency
of those agencies of the federal, state and local governments which
have moved in on the immediate task created by the drought. In 1934
none of us had preparation; we worked without blueprints and made
the mistakes of inexperience. Hindsight shows us this. But as time
has gone on we have been making fewer and fewer mistakes. Remember
that the federal and state governments have done only broad
planning. Actual work on a given project originates in the local
community. Local needs are listed from local information. Local
projects are decided on only after obtaining the recommendations
and help of those in the local community who are best able to give
it. And it is worthy of note that on my entire trip, though I asked
the question dozens of times, I heard no complaint against the
character of a single work relief project.
The elected heads of the states concerned, together with their
state officials and their experts from agricultural colleges and
state planning boards, have shown cooperation with and approval of
the work which the federal government has headed. I am grateful
also to the men and women in all these states who have accepted
leadership in the work in their locality.
In the drought area people are not afraid to use new methods to
meet changes in Nature, and to correct mistakes of the past. If
overgrazing has injured range lands, they are willing to reduce the
grazing. If certain wheat lands should be returned to pasture they
are willing to cooperate. If trees should be planted as windbreaks
or to stop erosion they will work with us. If terracing or summer
fallowing or crop rotation is called for, they will carry them out.
They stand ready to fit, and not to fight, the ways of Nature.
We are helping, and shall continue to help the farmer to do those
things, through local soil conservation committees and other
cooperative local, state and federal agencies of government.
I have not the time tonight to deal with other and more
comprehensive agricultural policies.
With this fine help we are tiding over the present emergency. We
are going to conserve soil, conserve water and conserve life. We
are going to have long-time defenses against both low prices and
drought. We are going to have a farm policy that will serve the
national welfare. That is our hope for the future.
There are two reasons why I want to end by talking about
reemployment. Tomorrow is Labor Day. The brave spirit with which so
many millions of working people are winning their way out of
depression deserves respect and admiration. It is like the courage
of the farmers in the drought areas.
That is my first reason. The second is that healthy employment
conditions stand equally with healthy agricultural conditions as a
buttress of national prosperity. Dependable employment at fair
wages is just as important to the people in the towns and cities as
good farm income is to agriculture. Our people must have the
ability to buy the goods they manufacture and the crops they
produce. Thus city wages and farm buying power are the two strong
legs that carry the nation forward.
Reemployment in industry is proceeding rapidly. Government spending
was in large part responsible for keeping industry going and
putting it in a position to make this reemployment possible.
Government orders were the backlog of heavy industry; government
wages turned over and over again to make consumer purchasing power
and to sustain every merchant in the community. Businessmen with
their businesses, small and large, had to be saved. Private
enterprise is necessary to any nation which seeks to maintain the
democratic form of government. In their case, just as certainly as
in the case of drought-stricken farmers, government spending has
saved.
Government having spent wisely to save it, private industry begins
to take workers off the rolls of the government relief program.
Until this administration we had no free employment service, except
in a few states and cities. Because there was no unified employment
service, the worker, forced to move as industry moved, often
travelled over the country, wandering after jobs which seemed
always to travel just a little faster than he did. He was often
victimized by fraudulent practices of employment clearing houses,
and the facts of employment opportunities were at the disposal
neither of himself nor of the employer.
In 1933 the United States Employment Service was created--a
cooperative state and federal enterprise, through which the federal
government matches dollar for dollar the funds provided by the
states for registering the occupations and skills of workers and
for actually finding jobs for these registered workers in private
industry. The federal-state cooperation has been splendid. Already
employment services are operating in thirty-two states, and the
areas not covered by them are served by the federal government.
We have developed a nationwide service with seven hundred district
offices and one thousand branch offices, thus providing facilities
through which labor can learn of jobs available and employers can
find workers.
Last spring I expressed the hope that employers would realize their
deep responsibility to take men off the relief rolls and give them
jobs in private enterprise. Subsequently I was told by many
employers that they were not satisfied with the information
available concerning the skill and experience of the workers on the
relief rolls. On August 25th I allocated a relatively small sum to
the employment service for the purpose of getting better and more
recent information in regard to those now actively at work on
W.P.A. Projects--information as to their skills and previous
occupations--and to keep the records of such men and women up-to-
date for maximum service in making them available to industry.
Tonight I am announcing the allocation of two and a half million
dollars more to enable the Employment Service to make an even more
intensive search then it has yet been equipped to make, to find
opportunities in private employment for workers registered with it.
Tonight I urge the workers to cooperate with and take full
advantage of this intensification of the work of the Employment
Service. This does not mean that there will be any lessening of our
efforts under our W.P.A. and P.W.A. and other work relief programs
until all workers have decent jobs in private employment at decent
wages. We do not surrender our responsibility to the unemployed. We
have had ample proof that it is the will of the American people
that those who represent them in national, state and local
government should continue as long as necessary to discharge that
responsibility. But it does mean that the government wants to use
resource to get private work for those now employed on government
work, and thus to curtail to a minimum the government expenditures
for direct employment.
Tonight I ask employers, large and small, throughout the nation, to
use the help of the state and Federal Employment Service whenever
in the general pick-up of business they require more workers.
Tomorrow is Labor Day. Labor Day in this country has never been a
class holiday. It has always been a national holiday. It has never
had more significance as a national holiday than it has now. In
other countries the relationship of employer and employee has been
more or less been accepted as a class relationship not readily to
be broken through. In this country we insist, as an essential of
the American way of life, that the employer-employee relationship
should be one between free men and equals. We refuse to regard
those who work with hand or brain as different from or inferior to
those who live from their property. We insist that labor is
entitled to as much respect as property. But our workers with hand
and brain deserve more than respect for their labor. They deserve
practical protection in the opportunity to use their labor at a
return adequate to support them at a decent and constantly rising
standard of living, and to accumulate a margin of security against
the inevitable vicissitudes of life.
The average man must have that twofold opportunity if we are to
avoid the growth of a class-conscious society in this country.
There are those who fail to read both the signs of the times and
American history. They would try to refuse the worker any effective
power to bargain collectively, to earn a decent livelihood and to
acquire security. It is those short-sighted ones, not labor, who
threaten this country with that class dissension which in other
countries has led to dictatorship and the establishment of fear and
hatred as the dominant emotions in human life.
All American workers, brain workers and manual workers alike, and
all the rest of us whose well-being depends on theirs, know that
our needs are one in building an orderly economic democracy in
which all can profit and in which all can be secure from the kind
of faulty economic direction which brought us to the brink of
common ruin seven years ago.
There is no cleavage between white collar workers and manual
workers, between artists and artisans, musicians and mechanics,
lawyers and accountants and architects and miners.
Tomorrow, Labor Day, belongs to all of us. Tomorrow, Labor Day,
symbolizes the hope of all Americans. Anyone who calls it a class
holiday challenges the whole concept of American democracy.
The Fourth of July commemorates our political freedom--a freedom
which without economic freedom is meaningless indeed. Labor Day
symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the
average man which will give his political freedom reality.
March 9, 1937.
Last Thursday I described in detail certain economic problems which
everyone admits now face the nation. For the many messages which
have come to me after that speech, and which it is physically
impossible to answer individually, I take this means of saying
"thank you."
Tonight, sitting at my desk in the White House, I make my first
radio report to the people in my second term of office.
I am reminded of that evening in March, four years ago, when I made
my first radio report to you. We were then in the midst of the
great banking crisis.
Soon after, with the authority of the Congress, we asked the nation
to turn over all of its privately held gold, dollar for dollar, to
the government of the United States.
Today's recovery proves how right that policy was.
But when, almost two years later, it came before the Supreme Court
its constitutionality was upheld only by a five-to-four vote. The
change of one vote would have thrown all the affairs of this great
Nation back into hopeless chaos. In effect, four Justices ruled
that the right under a private contract to exact a pound of flesh
was more sacred than the main objectives of the Constitution to
establish an enduring Nation.
In 1933 you and I knew that we must never let our economic system
get completely out of joint again--that we could not afford to take
the risk of another great depression.
We also became convinced that the only way to avoid a repetition of
those dark days was to have a government with power to prevent and
to cure the abuses and the inequalities which had thrown that
system out of joint.
We then began a program of remedying those abuses and
inequalities--to give balance and stability to our economic
system--to make it bomb-proof against the causes of 1929.
Today we are only part-way through that program--and recovery is
speeding up to a point where the dangers of 1929 are again becoming
possible, not this week or month perhaps, but within a year or two.
National laws are needed to complete that program. Individual or
local or state effort alone cannot protect us in 1937 any better
than ten years ago.
It will take time--and plenty of time--to work out our remedies
administratively even after legislation is passed. To complete our
program of protection in time, therefore, we cannot delay one
moment in making certain that our national government has power to
carry through.
Four years ago action did not come until the eleventh hour. It was
almost too late.
If we learned anything from the depression we will not allow
ourselves to run around in new circles of futile discussion and
debate, always postponing the day of decision.
The American people have learned from the depression. For in the
last three national elections an overwhelming majority of them
voted a mandate that the Congress and the President begin the task
of providing that protection--not after long years of debate, but
now.
The courts, however, have cast doubts on the ability of the elected
Congress to protect us against catastrophe by meeting squarely our
modern social and economic conditions.
We are at a crisis in our ability to proceed with that protection.
It is a quiet crisis. There are no lines of depositors outside
closed banks. But to the far-sighted it is far-reaching in its
possibilities of injury to America.
I want to talk with you very simply about the need for present
action in this crisis--the need to meet the unanswered challenge of
one-third of a Nation ill-nourished, ill-clad, ill-housed.
Last Thursday I described the American form of government as a
three horse team provided by the Constitution to the American
people so that their field might be plowed. The three horses are,
of course, the three branches of government--the Congress, the
Executive and the courts. Two of the horses are pulling in unison
today; the third is not. Those who have intimated that the
President of the United States is trying to drive that team,
overlook the simple fact that the President, as Chief Executive, is
himself one of the three horses.
It is the American people themselves who are in the driver's seat.
It is the American people themselves who want the furrow plowed.
It is the American people themselves who expect the third horse to
pull in unison with the other two.
I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States
in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again
and again.
It is an easy document to understand when you remember that it was
called into being because the Articles of Confederation under which
the original thirteen States tried to operate after the Revolution
showed the need of a national government with power enough to
handle national problems. In its Preamble, the Constitution states
that it was intended to form a more perfect Union and promote the
general welfare; and the powers given to the Congress to carry out
those purposes can be best described by saying that they were all
the powers needed to meet each and every problem which then had a
national character and which could not be met by merely local
action.
But the framers went further. Having in mind that in succeeding
generations many other problems then undreamed of would become
national problems, they gave to the Congress the ample broad powers
"to levy taxes. . . and provide for the common defense and general
welfare of the United States."
That, my friends, is what I honestly believe to have been the clear
and underlying purpose of the patriots who wrote a federal
constitution to create a national government with national power,
intended as they said, "to form a more perfect union. . . for
ourselves and our posterity."
For nearly twenty years there was no conflict between the Congress
and the Court. Then Congress passed a statute which, in 1803, the
Court said violated an express provision of the Constitution. The
Court claimed the power to declare it unconstitutional and did so
declare it. But a little later the Court itself admitted that it
was an extraordinary power to exercise and through Mr. Justice
Washington laid down this limitation upon it: "It is but a decent
respect due to the wisdom, the integrity and the patriotism of the
legislative body, by which any law is passed, to presume in favor
of its validity until its violation of the Constitution is proved
beyond all reasonable doubt."
But since the rise of the modern movement for social and economic
progress through legislation, the Court has more and more often and
more and more boldly asserted a power to veto laws passed by the
Congress and state legislatures in complete disregard of this
original limitation.
In the last four years the sound rule of giving statutes the
benefit of all reasonable doubt has been cast aside. The Court has
been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body.
When the Congress has sought to stabilize national agriculture, to
improve the conditions of labor, to safeguard business against
unfair competition, to protect our national resources, and in many
other ways, to serve our clearly national needs, the majority of
the Court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of
these acts of the Congress--and to approve or disapprove the public
policy written into these laws.
That is not only my accusation. It is the accusation of most
distinguished justices of the present Supreme Court. I have not the
time to quote to you all the language used by dissenting justices
in many of these cases. But in the case holding the Railroad
Retirement Act unconstitutional, for instance, Chief Justice Hughes
said in a dissenting opinion that the majority opinion was "a
departure from sound principles," and placed "an unwarranted
limitation upon the commerce clause." And three other justices
agreed with him.
In the case of holding the A.A.A. unconstitutional, Justice Stone
said of the majority opinion that it was a "tortured construction
of the Constitution." And two other justices agreed with him.
In the case holding the New York Minimum Wage Law unconstitutional,
Justice Stone said that the majority were actually reading into the
Constitution their own "personal economic predilections," and that
if the legislative power is not left free to choose the methods of
solving the problems of poverty, subsistence, and health of large
numbers in the community, then "government is to be rendered
impotent." And two other justices agreed with him.
In the face of these dissenting opinions, there is no basis for the
claim made by some members of the Court that something in the
Constitution has compelled them regretfully to thwart the will of
the people.
In the face of such dissenting opinions, it is perfectly clear
that, as Chief Justice Hughes has said, "We are under a
Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is."
The Court in addition to the proper use of its judicial functions
has improperly set itself up as a third house of the Congress--a
super-legislature, as one of the justices has called it--reading
into the Constitution words and implications which are not there,
and which were never intended to be there.
We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must
take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court
from itself. We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme
Court to the Constitution itself. We want a Supreme Court which
will do justice under the Constitution--not over it. In our courts
we want a government of laws and not of men.
I want--as all Americans want--an independent judiciary as proposed
by the framers of the Constitution. That means a Supreme Court that
will enforce the Constitution as written--that will refuse to amend
the Constitution by the arbitrary exercise of judicial power--
amended by judicial say-so. It does not mean a judiciary so
independent that it can deny the existence of facts which are
universally recognized.
How then could we proceed to perform the mandate given us? It was
said in last year's Democratic platform, "If these problems cannot
be effectively solved within the Constitution, we shall seek such
clarifying amendment as will assure the power to enact those laws,
adequately to regulate commerce, protect public health and safety,
and safeguard economic security." In other words, we said we would
seek an amendment only if every other possible means by legislation
were to fail.
When I commenced to review the situation with the problem squarely
before me, I came by a process of elimination to the conclusion
that, short of amendments, the only method which was clearly
constitutional, and would at the same time carry out other much
needed reforms, was to infuse new blood into all our courts. We
must have men worthy and equipped to carry out impartial justice.
But, at the same time, we must have judges who will bring to the
courts a present-day sense of the Constitution--judges who will
retain in the courts the judicial functions of a court, and reject
the legislative powers which the courts have today assumed.
In forty-five out of the forty-eight states of the Union, judges
are chosen not for life but for a period of years. In many states
judges must retire at the age of seventy. Congress has provided
financial security by offering life pensions at full pay for
federal judges on all courts who are willing to retire at seventy.
In the case of Supreme Court justices, that pension is $20,000 a
year. But all federal judges, once appointed, can, if they choose,
hold office for life, no matter how old they may get to be.
What is my proposal? It is simply this: whenever a judge or justice
of any federal court has reached the age of seventy and does not
avail himself of the opportunity to retire on a pension, a new
member shall be appointed by the President then in office, with the
approval, as required by the Constitution, of the Senate of the
United States.
That plan has two chief purposes. By bringing into the judicial
system a steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood, I
hope, first, to make the administration of all federal justice
speedier and, therefore, less costly; secondly, to bring to the
decision of social and economic problems younger men who have had
personal experience and contact with modern facts and circumstances
under which average men have to live and work. This plan will save
our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries.
The number of judges to be appointed would depend wholly on the
decision of present judges now over seventy, or those who would
subsequently reach the age of seventy.
If, for instance, any one of the six justices of the Supreme Court
now over the age of seventy should retire as provided under the
plan, no additional place would be created. Consequently, although
there never can be more than fifteen, there may be only fourteen,
or thirteen, or twelve. And there may be only nine.
There is nothing novel or radical about this idea. It seeks to
maintain the federal bench in full vigor. It has been discussed and
approved by many persons of high authority ever since a similar
proposal passed the House of Representatives in 1869.
Why was the age fixed at seventy? Because the laws of many states,
the practice of the Civil Service, the regulations of the Army and
Navy, and the rules of many of our universities and of almost every
great private business enterprise, commonly fix the retirement age
at seventy years or less.
The statute would apply to all the courts in the federal system.
There is general approval so far as the lower federal courts are
concerned. The plan has met opposition only so far as the Supreme
Court of the United States itself is concerned. If such a plan is
good for the lower courts it certainly ought to be equally good for
the highest court from which there is no appeal.
Those opposing this plan have sought to arouse prejudice and fear
by crying that I am seeking to "pack" the Supreme Court and that a
baneful precedent will be established.
What do they mean by the words "packing the Court"?
Let me answer this question with a bluntness that will end all
_honest_ misunderstanding of my purposes.
If by that phrase "packing the Court" it is charged that I wish to
place on the bench spineless puppets who would disregard the law
and would decide specific cases as I wished them to be decided, I
make this answer: that no President fit for his office would
appoint, and no Senate of honorable men fit for their office would
confirm, that kind of appointees to the Supreme Court.
But if by that phrase the charge is made that I would appoint and
the Senate would confirm justices worthy to sit beside present
members of the Court who understand those modern conditions, that I
will appoint justices who will not undertake to override the
judgment of the Congress on legislative policy, that I will appoint
justices who will act as justices and not as legislators--if the
appointment of such justices can be called "packing the Courts,"
then I say that I and with me the vast majority of the American
people favor doing just that thing--now.
Is it a dangerous precedent for the Congress to change the number
of the justices? The Congress has always had, and will have, that
power. The number of justices has been changed several times
before, in the administration of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson--
both signers of the Declaration of Independence--Andrew Jackson,
Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.
I suggest only the addition of justices to the bench in accordance
with a clearly defined principle relating to a clearly defined age
limit. Fundamentally, if in the future, America cannot trust the
Congress it elects to refrain from abuse of our Constitutional
usages, democracy will have failed far beyond the importance to it
of any king of precedent concerning the judiciary.
We think it so much in the public interest to maintain a vigorous
judiciary that we encourage the retirement of elderly judges by
offering them a life pension at full salary. Why then should we
leave the fulfillment of this public policy to chance or make
independent on upon the desire or prejudice of any individual
justice?
It is the clear intention of our public policy to provide for a
constant flow of new and younger blood into the judiciary. Normally
every President appoints a large number of district and circuit
court judges and a few members of the Supreme Court. Until my first
term practically every President of the United States has appointed
at least one member of the Supreme Court. President Taft appointed
five members and named a Chief Justice; President Wilson, three;
President Harding, four, including a Chief Justice; President
Coolidge, one; President Hoover, three, including a Chief Justice.
Such a succession of appointments should have provided a Court
well-balanced as to age. But chance and the disinclination of
individuals to leave the Supreme bench have now given us a Court in
which five justices will be over seventy-five years of age before
next June and one over seventy. Thus a sound public policy has been
defeated.
I now propose that we establish by law an assurance against any
such ill-balanced court in the future. I propose that hereafter,
when a judge reaches the age of seventy, a new and younger judge
shall be added to the court automatically. In this way I propose to
enforce a sound public policy by law instead of leaving the
composition of our federal courts, including the highest, to be
determined by chance or the personal indecision of individuals.
If such a law as I propose is regarded as establishing a new
precedent, is it not a most desirable precedent?
Like all lawyers, like all Americans, I regret the necessity of
this controversy. But the welfare of the United States, and indeed
of the Constitution itself, is what we all must think about first.
Our difficulty with the Court today rises not from the Court as an
institution but from human beings within it. But we cannot yield
our constitutional destiny to the personal judgment of a few men
who, being fearful of the future, would deny us the necessary means
of dealing with the present.
This plan of mine is no attack on the Court; it seeks to restore
the Court to its rightful and historic place in our constitutional
government and to have it resume its high task of building anew on
the Constitution "a system of living law." The Court itself can
best undo what the Court has done.
I have thus explained to you the reasons that lie behind our
efforts to secure results by legislation within the Constitution. I
hope that thereby the difficult process of constitutional amendment
may be rendered unnecessary. But let us examine the process.
There are many types of amendment proposed. Each one is radically
different from the other. There is no substantial groups within the
Congress or outside it who are agreed on any single amendment.
It would take months or years to get substantial agreement upon the
type and language of the amendment. It would take months and years
thereafter to get a two-thirds majority in favor of that amendment
in _both_ Houses of the Congress.
Then would come the long course of ratification by three-fourths of
all the states. No amendment which any powerful economic interests
or the leaders of any powerful political party have had reason to
oppose has ever been ratified within anything like a reasonable
time. And thirteen states which contain only five percent of the
voting population can block ratification even though the thirty-
five states with ninety-five percent of the population are in favor
of it.
A very large percentage of newspaper publishers, Chambers of
Commerce, Bar Association, Manufacturers' Associations, who are
trying to give the impression that they really do want a
constitutional amendment would be the first to exclaim as soon as
an amendment was proposed, "Oh! I was for an amendment all right,
but this amendment you proposed is not the kind of amendment that I
was thinking about. I am therefore, going to spend my time, my
efforts and my money to block the amendment, although I would be
awfully glad to help get some other kind of amendment ratified."
Two groups oppose my plan on the ground that they favor a
constitutional amendment. The first includes those who
fundamentally object to social and economic legislation along
modern lines. This is the same group who during the campaign last
Fall tried to block the mandate of the people.
Now they are making a last stand. And the strategy of that last
stand is to suggest the time-consuming process of amendment in
order to kill off by delay the legislation demanded by the mandate.
To them I say: I do not think you will be able long to fool the
American people as to your purposes.
The other groups is composed of those who honestly believe the
amendment process is the best and who would be willing to support a
reasonable amendment if they could agree on one.
To them I say: we cannot rely on an amendment as the immediate or
only answer to our present difficulties. When the time comes for
action, you will find that many of those who pretend to support you
will sabotage any constructive amendment which is proposed. Look at
these strange bed-fellows of yours. When before have you found them
really at your side in your fights for progress?
And remember one thing more. Even if an amendment were passed, and
even if in the years to come it were to be ratified, its meaning
would depend upon the kind of justices who would be sitting on the
Supreme Court bench. An amendment, like the rest of the
Constitution, is what the justices say it is rather than what its
framers or you might hope it is.
This proposal of mine will not infringe in the slightest upon the
civil or religious liberties so dear to every American.
My record as Governor and President proves my devotion to those
liberties. You who know me can have no fear that I would tolerate
the destruction by any branch of government of any part of our
heritage of freedom.
The present attempt by those opposed to progress to play upon the
fears of danger to personal liberty brings again to mind that crude
and cruel strategy tried by the same opposition to frighten the
workers of America in a pay-envelope propaganda against the Social
Security Law. The workers were not fooled by that propaganda then.
The people of America will not be fooled by such propaganda now.