Helpful

Ten months ago President Roosevelt took pen in hand, wrote a letter to Representative Samuel Billingsley Hill of Washington:*

"Your subcommittee of the Ways & Means has pending . . . [the Guffey] bill to stabilize the bituminous coal mining industry. . . . All doubts should be resolved in favor of the bill leaving to the courts, in an orderly fashion, the ultimate question of constitutionality. A decision by the Supreme Court relative to this measure would be helpful as indicating, with increasing clarity, the constitutional limits within which this Government must operate. . . . I hope your committee will not permit doubt as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation."

Congress helpfully sped the bill to passage. Last week the U. S. Supreme Court also proved itself helpful by once again defining the constitutional limits of Federal power and by deciding (6-to-3) that the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act was outside those limits.

The aim of the Guffey Act was to revive the NRA Coal Code. To do so it: 1) imposed a 15% tax on coal production but granted a rebate of all but one-tenth of the tax to producers who abided by the coal code; 2) directed that the code should stipulate minimum wages and hours of labor in the mines; 3) empowered the code to fix minimum and, in some cases, maximum prices for coal.

Last week's majority opinion, written by Mr. Justice Sutherland, held that: 1) the tax was not a real tax but a penalty and hence illegal because Congress has not the power to regulate mining; 2) Congress has no power to regulate hours and wages in mining since mining is not interstate commerce; 3) price-fixing, . although neither approved nor disapproved as to its separate legality, was part of an unconstitutional scheme to regulate mining and therefore illegal.

Said the Court: "The only perceptible difference between [the NRA Schechter] case and this is that in the Schechter case the Federal power was asserted with respect to commodities which had come to rest after their interstate transportation, while here, the case deals with commodities at rest before interstate commerce has begun. The difference is without significance.

"The Federal regulatory power ceases when interstate commercial intercourse ends; and, correlatively, the power does not attach until interstate commercial intercourse begins."

Chief Justice Hughes wrote a convincing opinion agreeing to the decision of the majority with qualifications, and the usual three liberals, Justices Brandeis, Stone and Cardozo dissented.

The Guffey Coal Act is now as completely through as NRA and AAA. Further Federal attempts to regulate industry are seemingly doomed. A dark shadow of doubt is cast on the validity of the National Labor Disputes Act. There may be a serious coal strike this summer.

*President Roosevelt last week sent to the Senate the nomination of Representative Hill to be a member of the Board of Tax Appeals, a $10,000 job, good for twelve years.

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