Form Letter Response from Senator Harry S. Truman

CARTER GLASS, VA., CHAIRMAN KENNETH MC KELLAR, TENN. FREDERICK HALE, MAINE ROYAL S. COPELAND, N.Y. GERALD P. NYE, N. DAK. CARL HAYDEN, ARIZ. FREDERICK STEIWER, OREG. ELMER THOMAS, OKLA. JOHN G. TOWNSEND, JR., DEL. JAMES F. BYRNES, s.c. H. STYLES BRIDGES, N. H. MILLARD E. TYDINGS, MD. United States Senate RICHARD B. RUSSELL, JR., GA. ALVA B. ADAMS, COLO. COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS PATRICK MCCARRAN, NEV. JOHN H. OVERTON, LA. JOHN H. BANKHEAD, ALA. JOSEPH c. O'MAHONEY, WYO. WILLIAM GIBBS MC ADOO, CALIF. HARRY S. TRUMAN, MO. F. RYAN DUFFY, WIS. EDWARD R. BURKE, NEBR. HERBERT E. HITCHCOCK, S. DAK. THEODORE F. GREEN, R. I. KENNEDY F. REA, CLERK JOHN W. R. SMITH, ASST. CLERK I appreciated your views regarding the controversy over the increase in the size of the Supreme Court. I am always glad to hear from people in Missouri and to get their point of view on any pending legislation. I have given the matter of the rehabilitation of the Courts a great deal of study, and I have come to the conclusion that the simplest and easiest way to meet an impossible situa- tion is the one suggested by the President. There are seventy- odd proposed amendments to the Constitution pending in the Congress at the present time, and it would be an impossibility to get a two-thirds majority in either branch of the Congress to agree on any one of these proposed amendments. Even if that could be done, to get three-fourths of the States to ratify such an amendment in a reasonable time is an impossibility. Besides that, it is my honest opinion that the Con- stitution doesn't need an amendment at all. It merely needs a liberal interpretation. Under the two great Chief Justices, John Marshall and Roger Taney, it was the policy of the Court to so interpret the Constitution as to give the Federal Government the power that the Constitutional Convention intended that it should have; that is, to function for the welfare of the people. Along in the late '80's and early 1890's, the policy of the Court changed, as a result, I think, of the growth of the great corporations, and they began to tie the hands of both the Federal Government and the States in the regulation of interstate commerce. They have made decisions that prohibit the Federal Government from regulating hours and wages, and in the New York Minimum Wage Case they prohibit the States from making such