Unemployment in the United States

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1828236179

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-226169

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Unemployment in the United States

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States, Government Printing Office

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: II, 193 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of James A. Emery, Washtington, D.C., representing the National Association of Manufacturers, and others

Collection:: Economics Books

120 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES right whatever to take it, and the State has no right whatever to give it. For, said the Supreme Court of the United States in that case, ‘‘this power”’—that is, the police power—‘‘can neither be abrogated ‘nor bargained away. It is inalienable, even by express grant.” I know it may be said, as was remarked this morning, that the police power of the States may be exchanged for Federal appropriation, as indicated in the maternity act, but I wish to direct your attention to the fact that upon the express recommendation of the President of the United States the policy expressed in the maternity act was properly abandoned by Congress, therefore it constitutes no precedent for the continuation of this policy. It was also remarked in the course of discussion this morning that the cases which went to the Supreme Court in connection with the maternity act—that 1s, Frothingham ». Mellon and Massachusetts ». Mellon, in the Two hundred and sixty- second United States—were authority for the validity of legislation of this character. Well, of course, the court declined in that case to entertain jurisdiction, which was naturally the first case raised, and in declining to entertain jurisdiction on behalf of a private citizen undertaking to inquire into a general appropriation act, or on the application of the state of Massachusetts, they said they did not show a sufficient property interest to justify the court in taking jurisdiction, but the court said expressly: We have reached the conclusion that the cases must be disposed of for want of jurisdiction, without considering the merits of the constitutional questions. They were therefore not passed upon at all. Mr. Summers. Under the Frothingham decision, who could litigate the question of the extent of authority on the part of the Federal Government to make that character of appropriations? Mr. Emery. Nobody, as I see it, under the form of the bill. If the bill had been different in form—let us suppose, for example, that Congress had levied a special tax upon the people of the United States for the purpose of creating a fund out of which to pay the appropria- tions to the various States, which were provided for in the maternity act, and then the individual taxpayer might either have paid the tax and brought an action for its recovery, or might have undertaken to restrain the payment, the enforcement of the law, and might on that ground have been able to contest it, for there there would have been a specific issue, but this was merely a trifling item in a very large appropriation bill. Mr. SumneRs. I recognize that Congress must be the judge of its own constitutional powers and must decide that question upon the point as to whether or not a question can be litigated. Mr. Emery. Well, you realize the reason I emphasize the thing is that in the many questions of legislation that come before you, you can exercise many powers in a form that they can not be questioned, and as I have said, the protection of the constitutional authority is not reposed solely in the court; it is reposed in the legislative and executive officers who act under its terms, and it is in the hands of the citizens, who must himself undertake to provide political factors. Suppose, for example, that you gentlemen provided tomorrow a 3- hour day for Government employees. Nobody could question the exercise of your power in a court. The remedy would have to be political.

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