Limited Power

Franklin Roosevelt was considerably jolted this week when the nine black-robed Justices of the Supreme Court, with unexpected unanimity, declared the Blue Eagle as dead as a slaughtered chicken (see p. 13). But this great blow to the New Deal's most enthusiastic experiment was not as personal as the blow which the nine Justices, with equal unanimity, dealt at the authority which he assumed in the days of his White House honeymoon.

In 1925, Calvin Coolidge appointed to the Federal Trade Commission a goat-bearded onetime Congressman from Seattle named William E. Humphrey. He served his six-year term, was reappointed by President Hoover in 1931 for another six years.

After Franklin Roosevelt took office, he asked commissioner Humphrey to resign. Mr. Humphrey refused. President Roosevelt thereupon removed him, not for misconduct or inefficiency but simply because "the aims and purposes of the Administration with respect to the work of the Commission can be carried out most effectively with personnel of my own selection."

Last week the nine Justices of the Supreme Court declared that the Trade Commission was created as a quasi-judicial body. Said they: "It must be free from executive control. We think the President does not have illimitable power of removal."

Thus Franklin Roosevelt lost and William Humphrey won. The only trouble was that William Humphrey has been dead for 15 months. His estate should eventually get $3,043.06 in back salary which President Roosevelt's illegal ouster deprived him of.

P: For his White House newshawks the President last week gave a gay dance at which his Daughter Anna and his new ex-newshawk Son-in-Law John Boettiger, his ex-Daughter-in-Law Elizabeth Donner Roosevelt and his Son James were present.

Next day, still in the gayest spirits, he drove down to Annapolis followed by a cortege of a dozen cars bearing his numerous family and friends (including the Morgenthaus, Hopkinses, Tugwells), to attend a regatta (see p. 37).

P: From the Fierce-Arrow plant at Buffalo two swank blue limousines were sent to Washington. Both were rated to do 110 m.p.h., both fitted throughout with bullet-proof glass, both had bodies armored with an invisible protection of bullet-proof steel plate. One was addressed to J. Edgar Hoover, chief bandit hunter of the Department of Justice, the other to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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