News Journal archives Feb. 5


“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News and the Evening Journal.

Feb. 6, 1937, Wilmington Morning News

President asks for right to increase Supreme Court to 15 members

A history-making proposal by President Franklin Roosevelt to inject “new blood” into a Supreme Court hostile to many New Deal acts, by raising the tribunal’s membership to 15 if necessary, went to a surprised Congress Feb. 5.

It produced a sensation almost beyond comparison. Congress split into warring camps, with many New Dealers rejoicing and their foes crying “dictator!”

The President’s plan, regarded generally in Congress as his long-awaited answer to the invalidation of New Deal efforts to regulate industry and farming, proposed a revamping of the entire federal judicial system, including lower courts.

Under it, six Supreme Court justices now past 70 would be given his choice of retiring or having six new judges of the President’s own choosing take places as their peers on the bench. The judges who have been most implacable in their opposition to Roosevelt’s legislation thus would be a minority of the tribunal, which would consist of 15 instead of nine justices.



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