Debtors Denied

Last autumn the Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank was stayed from foreclosing a $9,000 mortgage on William W. Radford's 170-acre Kentucky farm by a brand-new device for scaling down farm debts and forestalling foreclosures--the Frazier-Lemke Act, a non-Administration measure filibustered to passage by Senator Huey P. Long in the last days of the 73rd Congress. That law permitted a farmer to declare himself bankrupt and keep his farm by having its current value appraised, then paying this sum to his creditors within five years. Farmer Radford got his debt scaled down to $4,445, arranged to pay $325 rental for the first year. Charging a rape of its rights, the Louisville Land Bank went to law, was twice rebuffed by Federal Courts. Last week the U. S. Supreme Court reversed those rulings, unanimously held the Frazier-Lemke Act unconstitutional.

No die-hard reactionary Justice, but famed Liberal Louis Dembitz Brandeis read the opinion. Prime point: in depriving a creditor of his just property the Act clearly violated the Constitution's "due process of law" clause. Brushing aside social considerations, Justice Brandeis declared:

"We have no occasion to consider either the causes or the extent of farm tenancy; or whether its progressive increase would be arrested by the provisions of the Act. Nor need we consider the occupations of the beneficiaries of the legislation. These are matters for the consideration of Congress."

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