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MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT WHO WILL DECIDE THE FATE OF THE AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ACT AND 

 other measures within the coming months. Left to right, front row, are Associate Justices Louis Dembitz Brandeii, Willis Van Oevanter; Chief Jus- 

 tice Charles Evans Hughes; Associate Justices James Clark McReynolds, and George Sutherland. In the back row, left to right. Associate JusticH 

 Owen J. Roberts, Pierce Butler, Hartand F. Stone and Benjamin Cardoio. 



Decision on HHH 



Farm Bureau Brief Supports Government in Upholding 



Validity of Act 



THE United States Supreme Court 

 is expected to reach a decision on 

 the Agricultural Adjustment Act 

 sometime after the middle of January. 

 To farmers this decision transcends all 

 others now before the court, in impor- 

 tance. The Act has been held invalid 

 by a number of lower Federal courts 

 largely on the authority of the Su- 

 preme Court's decision in the NRA 

 case. Commenting on these decisions, 

 Howard L. McBain. writing in the New 

 York Times Magazine, says: "Unques- 

 tionably, the analogy which the lower 

 courts have seen has been severely 

 overstrained. It will be no surprise to 

 many students of constitutional law if 

 the Supreme Court reverses these 

 lower-court decisions. ■ ■ 



"The fundamental differences be- 

 tween the NIRA and the AAA in point 

 of constitutionality cannot be set forth 

 here at length. Suffice it to say that the 

 two main blows that floored the NRA 

 do not strike the AAA with similar 

 force. One of these concerned the dele- 



gation of legislative power to the 

 Executive. 



"The Supreme Court held that in 

 the NIRA Congress had prescribed no 

 standard or rule of conduct to guide and 

 control the President in the exercise of 

 the large discretionary powers con- 

 ferred by the act. He was, in other 

 words, given power to make law rather 

 than to supplement and apply law. 



"But the AAA does prescribe such a 

 guide. The acts of the Secretary of Ag- 

 riculture are controlled by a goal set 

 up by the law itself — namely, the goal 

 of raising the real prices of farm prod- 

 ucts to the level of prices that prevailed 

 from 1909 to 1914. This may be an un- 

 wise policy, but the courts have noth- 

 ing to do with that. It may be a goal 

 hard to attain accurately. But it is no 

 more difficult than it is to fix tariff 

 rates in accordance with an unascer- 

 tainable difference between the cost of 

 producing goods at home and abroad. 

 This standard the court regards as a 



sufficiently definite guide for the Ebc- 

 ecutive in fixing tariff duties. 



"How can it be said, then, that the 

 standard of a difference between peri- 

 od price levels offends? If it be argued 

 that the Agricultural Act gives the 

 Executive the power to impose taxes, it 

 can be answered that the flexible pro- 

 vision of the Tariff Act also confers the 

 taxing power and that the Supreme 

 Court has found this unobjectionable. 



"The NIRA was held void also on 

 another count. The Schechters' busi- 

 ness of slaughtering and selling poul- 

 try to local retailers was held to be 

 not interstate commerce. Congress had 

 no power, therefore, to tell the Schech- 

 ters how they must conduct their busi- 

 ness in the matter of labor and other 

 practices. 



"Now, it is true that Congress has no 

 more power to impose restrictions upon 

 agriculture than it has to impose re- 

 strictions upon intrastate business. But 

 the Agricultural Act does not compel 

 farmers to do or not to do anything. 

 The agreements into which they enter 

 with the government are entirely vol- 

 untary. The only compulsory feature 

 of the law is the taxes that processors 

 must pay. These are excise taxes. 

 They are levied solely for revenue 

 purposes. As such they are perfectly 

 valid. Can they be held invalid solely 

 (Continued on page 18) 



JANUARY, 1936 



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