Full Circle

For the first time in its 163 years of constitutional government, the U.S. seemed headed for a decision by its Supreme Court on the limits of a President's power. Harry Truman's seizure of the steel mills had raised the issue. A forthright judgment by Federal District Judge David A. Pine had brought the issue to a head. Whatever the Supreme Court's ruling, Judge Pine's decision came as a sharp check to the persistent expansion of presidential powers which began--and was warmly welcomed by most of the U.S.--in the early days of the New Deal.

In times of past crises, strong U.S. Presidents have always asserted broad definitions of their power. Judge Pine quoted from the autobiography of Republican Theodore Roosevelt: It was "not only [a President's] right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws . . ." Even Republican William Howard Taft, Roosevelt's successor in the White House, who held a much narrower view of presidential authority, could foresee the necessity for weighing "the practical considerations that crowd upon one charged with executive responsibility."

Wrote Taft: "The President can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power or justly implied within such grant . . ." But, Taft added: "The Constitution does give the President wide discretion and great power and it ought to do so ... Having selected him, [the people] should entrust to him all the power needed to carry out their governmental purpose, great as it may be."

The fact was that only the steelworkers still seemed really willing to entrust to Harry Truman all the power he thought necessary to forestall a strike in steel. One reason, clearly, was his failure to exhaust the laws of the land before stepping into the shadowy area between government of laws and government of men. More than that, the public attitude seemed to be a vote of no-confidence in the Administration's ability _to deal with an emergency largely of its own making.

So this week, after the steel mills had changed hands three times in 23 days, after the steelworkers had walked out on strike after all, the whole dispute was back at its starting point. The best that any White House official could offer was the dutiful comment by Acting Defense Mobilizer John Steelman: "The Government will continue its efforts to find a solution . . ."

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