Alito, Roberts and the ghost of nine old men

Rebirth of a Realist ---excerpts from his books and comments by David Truskoff
With the confirmation hearings over judge Alito's appointment to the Supreme court now going on
it is important that we liberals put it in its proper perspective. Republicans launched a vicious attack against President Roosevelt when they claimed he tried to "Pack " the court in 1935.
The Truth is that America could have advanced much faster out of the depression of 1929 had it not been for the resistance of the All male Court that FDR called the "Nine Old Men."
Elected by a hopeful public in 1932, FDR promised a New Deal and a way out of the misery of the great depression gripping the land, but the Republican stacked court, fearing a move toward real social reforms, blocked his efforts, usually by a 5-4 vote.
In May 1935, it killed the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934, a law that had established pensions for railway workers. Next on the kill list came the very important National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. "We have been relegated to the horse-and-buggy definition of interstate commerce," FDR said
The president was later frustrated by "The Nine Old Men (Most 70 or older) When he tried to rescue America's starving farmer, but his efforts were thwarted in January 1936 when the court ruled the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 unconstitutional. Ironically the Justice who fired the last shot at Roosevelts New Deal efforts was named Roberts.
Today Bush appointees Roberts and Alito will stack the court again to block the much needed social reforms and realistic economic planning America needs to regain world respect.

CHAPTER SEVEN --Rebirth Of A Realist by David Truskoff
"We of the Progressive Party must-and will-carry on where Roosevelt, Norris, and La Guardia left off. They preserve for us all that was most precious, the old-fashioned Americanism that was built for us by Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson."
Henry Wallace acceptance speech Philadelphia July 24,1948

Yes, I felt good about calling myself a liberal in 1947 and even better when I moved up to Warrens description of a ‘‘Progressive" and joined the Progressive Party to help get Henry Wallace get elected in 1948. Actually what I joined was the Young Progressives Of America. The YPA had as its honorary chairperson Gene Kelly, who always was and still is one of my favorite movie stars. I still get a thrill out of seeing his old musicals on the cable channels. His brilliant and lovely wife, Betsy Blair, was our leader. It is sad that even today poor Gene Kelly is remembered by Liberals as a "coward" who gave in to the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. Like the woman being raped, Gene had to choose between surviving as an actor, or professionally dying. He chose to survive. I still love him for what he was.
I did not enjoy the Conventions in Philadelphia and most of the local meetings that followed. The wrangling was unbearable. During the sixties, I tried to tell my own children who were becoming active in the anti- establishment culture that protest was fine, but being for something and being politically directed was better. While speaking to an audience of young people at a University, I was booed for saying that if I had to chose between Richard Nixon and the "crazies" trashing in the street, and using drugs, or if I had to chose between the media babies like Abby Hoffman and that lunatic that was screaming at Yale University ‘we have to kill our parents,’ I would have no choice to make."
I follow only those who have a plan and a direction for bettering the world. If I agree with their plan I give them all the support that I can, and Henry Wallace had a plan.
In view of the great depression suffered by the people of Russia and most of Eastern Europe today, I am more convinced than ever that if Roosevelt had not been forced to play his political game and caved in to the racists in the southern block of the Democratic Party and fully supported the man that he wanted to carry out his policies, (Vice President Wallace) we, and perhaps the people of the world, would be enjoying a much more equitable and less violent lifestyle than the bloodshed and devastation that has become the legacy of the shallow, "Get tough" policy of Harry Truman.
Now, let us try and make that case. First, we have to recreate the atmosphere that engulfed Wallace when he made his decision to run for the presidency on the "Progressive Party" ticket. Anyone who decides to run on a third party slate gets the knee jerk, oddball, treatment from the media. If you can not practice what wily old Abe Ribicoff (Ex Senator from Connecticut) once described as the "Art of concession" when referring to politics, and you believe strongly in the principle for which you are fighting, the party hacks will see you as a danger and immediately launch an attack. So it was from the outset with Henry Wallace. He could not find, nor did he bother to look for a concession that would save his Vice Presidency and allow Roosevelt to demand that he remain on the ballot in the 1944 election. It wasn’t just his commitment to civil rights that bothered the party regulars and the behind the scene power brokers, it was the extraordinary vision of Wallace that frightened them.
As a young YPA (Young Progressives of America) I can remember being given much literature to read. One piece was a pamphlet of a speech Vice President Wallace made on May 8,1942. He had just been in office a little over one year (January 1941) and he had both political party leaders after his scalp. The anti Communist post war policies were already being formulated by the old robber barons who knew that Roosevelt would not live out his last term. Their plan was obviously to see that America would control the seas and emerge from the war ready to assume full guardianship of the New World. Imagine the shock that must have struck Cordell Hull, then the Secretary of State and old time party chairman, when he heard the man he must have thought of as a loose cannon, the Vice President say . . ." No nation will have the God-given right to exploit other nations. Older Nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there must be neither military nor economic imperialism. . . . Cartels, in the peace to come, must be subjected to international control for the common man, as well as being under adequate control by the respective home governments . . .With international monopoly under control, it will be possible for inventions to serve all the people instead of just a few. . . We can not perpetuate economic warfare without the planting of seeds of military warfare."