The Future of the Supreme Court The Supreme Court issue
in the United States is gradually becoming clearer. Discussion is bringing home to American opinion the essentially political character of the right exercised by the Court to veto the acts of Congress By pronouncing them unconstitutional ; and realisation of this fact is helping to put President Roosevelt's proposals in a more favourable perspective. Nobody really believes that it is either possible or desirable to entrust to " nine old men " the supreme legis- lative function in the most burning social and political issues of the day. There seems at the moment to be a fairly wide- spread desire to find a compromise which will give the Presi- dent what he needs by some method less drastic and less shocking to conservative opinion than that of drowning the existing Court in a flood of new appointments. The Senate Judiciary Committee are at present exploring the path of constitutional amendment. This is an approach which in the course of American history has more often started difficul- ties than solved them ; but it has at least the merit of a frontal attack on a problem whose existence is now everywhere admitted. Any undue fumbling by the politicians on the issue of the Court can only add bitterness to the struggle between capital and labour which is the hard reality under- lying every issue of American politics at the moment.
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