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The New 



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Program 



By Chester C. Davis 



CHESTER C. DAVIS 



There are barriers to surmount; the fight may take 

 years." 



THE American people overwhelm- 

 ingly support their Constitution. 

 They believe the great principles 

 it sets forth live today as the charter of 

 their Union and their liberties. 



Its preamble is an immortal state- 

 ment of the purposes of the men who 

 wrote the Constitution and of the peo- 

 ple who adopted it. No clearer and no 

 finer statement of the principles which 

 are the ultimate basis of this nation's 

 existence can be found. 



But to me there is the widest dis- 

 tinction between the simple funda- 

 mentals of the Constitution on the one 

 hand and the vast, complicated and 

 often contradictory legal labryinth of 

 judicial interpretations of it on the 

 other hand. And, I know of no law or 

 ethics that make it improper for an 

 individual respectfully to question the 

 reasonings of the honorable Court. 



I hope I may not be thought disre- 

 spectful if I turn to high authority for 

 a considered opinion which expresses 

 the thoughts of many on this important 

 decision. I quote: 



"If this important decision had been 

 made by the unanimous concurrence 

 of the judges and without any appar- 

 ent partisan bias, and in accordance 

 with legal public expectation, and with 

 the steady practices of the departments 

 throughout our history, and had been 

 in no part based on assumed historical 

 facts which arc not really true; or, if 

 wanting in some of these, it had been 

 before the Court more than once, and 

 had there been affirmed and reaffirmed 



through a course of years, it then 

 might be, perhaps would be, factious, 

 nay, even revolutionary, not to ac- 

 quiesce in it as a precedent. But when, 

 as is true, we find it wanting in all 

 these claims to the public confidence, 

 it is not resistance, it is not factious, it 

 is not even disrespectful, to treat it as 

 not having quite established a settled 

 doctrine for the country." 



These words were spoken nearly 80 

 years ago by a great man whose loyalty 

 to the genuine American principle of 

 government has not been questioned 

 in this generation. They are quoted 

 verbatim from an address uttered only 

 40 miles from here (Decatur), on June 

 26, 1857, when Abraham Lincoln spoke 

 his mind about the Dred Scott decision 

 of the Supreme Court. 



Nevertheless, we all recognize that 

 the Supreme Court has spoken, and 

 that, while its opinion stands it is the 

 law of the land under which we live. 



The Court, in the Hoosac Mills Case, 

 held: 



1. That control of agricultural pro- 

 duction is a local matter, reserved to 

 the states under Article X of the Con- 

 stitution; 



2. That the Federal government may 

 not enter into voluntary contracts with 

 individual citizens, to that end; and 



3. That processing taxes, as one step 

 in a plan to regulate production, were 

 illegal. 



Some of you may recall that at Chi- 

 cago, on December 10, I stated my con- 

 viction that, if farmers stood firm, and 



if Congress was willing," a policy could 

 be developed under which fanners 

 could carry on their constructive pro- 

 gram, no matter what grounds the Su- 

 preme Court selected for an adverse 

 opinion. 



I believe the brief bill reported by 

 the Senate Committee on Agriculture 

 yesterday, introduced in the House by 

 Chairman Marvin Jones, and now be- 

 fore the House Committee, complies 

 fairly and substantially with the ma- 

 jority opinion of the Supreme Court. 



It was thoughtfully and carefully 

 designed to conform to principles which 

 the court either expressly sanctioned 

 or expressly refrained from condemn- 

 ing in its decision, and drives straight 

 through gates expressly held wide open 

 by the court's decision. 



The declared purpose of the Act is 

 to conserve the soil, prevent its waste 

 and the loss of its fertility, assure an 

 adequate supply for domestic and 

 available foreign markets of the future 

 at fair prices, and to promote and 

 maintain, for the general welfare, the 

 purchasing power of the farmers. I 

 submit that each of these objectives is 

 a matter of proper concern to the fed- 

 eral government. 



It proposes to further these purposes 

 by making conditional grants of funds 

 to the states which by appropriate ac- 

 tion, will designate an approved agency 

 to enter into cooperative agreements 

 with the federal government, leaving 

 to the states the task of dealing with 

 its own citizens, in the field which the 



I. A. A. RECORD 



