Carol and I were reading for the RFB&D last Thursday from a textbook chapter on the Depression and the New Deal.  Franklin D. Roosevelt had a plan to get the U.S. out of the depths of Depression following several years of Hoover inaction.  His “Brain Trust” (progressively Liberal and leftist) thought up new programs that would help business, farmers, workers and the elderly.  The wisdom of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court was such that the Court during that time decided that some, if not most of the initialed programs, AAA, NRA, WPA, CCC and such were Unconstitutional.  In other words, if it wasn’t in the Constitution, it was not O.K. for America. There was a different Constitution before the Depression.

Mr. Roosevelt and his brainy bunch of Liberals thought that in place of doing nothing, these programs seemed to hold out some kind of relief.  So, the President turned to Congress to help change a court filled with nine old men who could not see that disaster had hit America and much needed to be done.  He did make a mistake, however.  He went too far.  He had a plan to have Judges who were appointed for life to be automatically retired at age 70.  At that time 70 was really antique and seemed reasonable for people to stop working.  Mr. Roosevelt’s plan was to force these old codgers to voluntarily retire.  He then had a new plan and that one was to “pack” the court by appointing up to six additional members and many more Judges in the lower courts.  What he was doing was manifestly unconstitutional but the audacity of his plan changed the tenor of decisions in the court and much of the New Deal was salvaged in something called the second New Deal. A new court seemed to appear to replace the old one. The Constitution was new again.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was called a traitor to his CLASS.  He was wealthy, from a Dutch family from the first days Europeans settled this country. They had enlightened ideas of noblesse oblige (the moral obligation of the rich or highborn to display honorable and generous conduct).  In other words, he was trying to help the “third of the nation” that was ill housed, ill clad and ill nourished.

He was fought by the rich, the hoping to be rich and those who did not know they were fighting against their own interests in opposing the plans advanced by a Liberal administration.  They went at it hip and thigh, smiting each other with words and there was momentous change in the winds created by the pro-active New Deal.  Since that time a new Court was created by appointments of conservatives and those in opposition to Liberalism.  A highly vocal moral minority has co-opted the White House and the next new court will turn history around. We will have forgotten the ill clad, the ill housed, the ill nourished and the ill educated.  We should read about our history; it tells us where we have been and where we could be going. Different Courts create different Constitutions.