14th Year

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" Last week, visitors to the Supreme Court were surprised to see a new face, to hear a fresh young voice. It was the first appearance of Thomas Perry Lippitt, 23, appointed court crier to succeed Thomas E. Waggaman (promoted to marshal). Unlike his predecessors, Crier Lippitt (officially assistant marshal) joined the Court three years ago as a clerk, now breaks tradition because he never served as one of the downy-lipped pages who fetch papers for the sitting Justices. "Oyez! Oyez!" piped Crier Lippitt, and he might have added "here opens the last sitting of an eight-month term; here closes the 14/th year of Supreme Court history. God save the United States and this honorable Court!"

Reporting to the Attorney General, Solicitor General Robert Houghwout Jackson showed at a glance how, in contrast to other years, the New Deal had fared in its first year under the "modernized" Court. His table:

Term Cases won Cases lost % won

1933-34 46 21 69

1934-35 33 22 60

1935-36 29 30 49

1936-37 46 16 74

1937-38 69 12 77

Since the constitutionality of no major New Deal law had been called in question, this year many an observer felt that the fundamental "liberality" of the present Court was yet to be tested. (Such a test may come next year on this year's wages-&-hours legislation.) But in 56 cases involving constitutionality of minor statutes or ordinances, or the actions of public officials, the Court sustained the law or the officials in all but ten, and many a significant clue to the Court's future course lay in the record of its rulings this session:

NLRB, the New Deal's most contentious child, dragged into the Court most often, won in every case (see p. 14).

Power. Still on the Court's docket for next session is the test case of 18 Southern power companies which have appealed from a three-judge Federal Court decision holding TVA constitutional, but this session on three major power cases involving similar principles, the Court found for the Government every time. It ruled that PWA loans and grants to municipalities to build their own power plants (biggest present and potential market for TVA power), do not violate any legal rights of existing private companies (Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes). The Court also helped clear up the old controversy over historical cost v. reproduction cost (higher, therefore preferred by the utilities) as the proper base for utility rates by ruling that the method does not matter so long as the resulting rates are not confiscatory (California State Railroad Commission v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.).

SEC won what it wanted from the Court, the right to compel utility holding companies to file statements showing their corporate structure and activities in detail (Electric Bond & Share Co. v. SEC).

Taxation, The Court made three significant loopholes in its ancient doctrine that the Government cannot tax the '"instrumentalities" of a sovereign State. The Justices ruled that the Federal Government could collect taxes on: 1) the profits of operators leasing oil lands from the State of California, 2) the salaries of employes of the Port of New York Authority, 3) Football-receipts at the University of Georgia and the Georgia School of Technology.

Administrative Law, When the Court ruled that Secretary Henry Agard Wallace had not given a "full, fair, and open hearing" to a group of Kansas City Stockyards commission men before fixing the rates, they were directed to charge farmers for their services, Mr. Wallace angrily retorted that the Court had reversed a position it took in the same case two years ago. got Solicitor General Jackson to petition the Court for a rehearing (TIME, May 30). On its closing day the Court refused the rehearing, sharply denied the Secretary's "unwarranted" assertions that it had reversed itself, intimated that the quasi-judicial, quasi-legislative prerogatives of Government administrators were still far from settled in its judicial mind.

Only official answer of the Justices to the Administration's onslaughts during the Great Court Battle was a dignified letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, signed by Chief Justice Hughes and approved by Liberal Brandeis and Conservative Van Devanter. pointing out that while Justices may be old they are not necessarily slow, always leave their docket in apple-pie order. This year the Justices went off to pack for their vacations, having disposed of 1.012 cases, leaving 78 on the docket (compared to 65 last year) to be heard when they reconvene next October.

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