PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: FIRESIDE CHAT #9
{PROPOSAL FOR THE REORGANIZATION OF THE JUDICIAL
BRANCH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT} (RADIO)
Summary
This radio program is a broadcast of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt's ninth Fireside Chat from the White House
in Washington, D.C. on March 9, 1937, regarding his
proposal to reorganize the judicial branch of the
federal government. Declaring that "we must take action
to save the Constitution from the court and the court
from itself," the president proposes that measures be
taken to ensure that the courts do not exercise an
unrestrained ability to counteract legislature approved
by Congress. Roosevelt voices his concern that the
continual intervention of the courts over Congress will
hamper the nation's attempt to enact laws which will
ensure economic security and make a recurrence of the
recent Great Depression impossible. He fears that
justices are not interpreting the letter of the
Constitution, but are imposing their own viewpoints and
prejudices upon that foundational document. The
president proposes that a mandatory retirement age of
seventy years of age be enacted for all federal judges,
in order to bring into the system "new and younger
blood," and to permit the judicial process to remain in
the hands of younger jurists who have had greater
contact with the problems facing the average citizen.
Roosevelt appeals for support in his efforts to secure
these ends through legislation, thereby avoiding the
difficult process of amending the Constitution. Through
the addition of younger justices who are dedicated to
the Constitution and not their own personal
interpretations of the nation's legal code, Roosevelt
avers that we can have a "government of laws and not of
men."
(The Museum has numbered the "Fireside Chat"
broadcasts in accordance with the book, "FDR's Fireside
Chats," edited by Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy.)
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: March 9, 1937
- RUNNING TIME: 0:35:30
- COLOR/B&W: N/A
- CATALOG ID: R:11405
- GENRE: Radio - Specials
- SUBJECT HEADING: Constitutional courts; Courts; Courts of last resort; Presidents - Messages;
- SERIES RUN: CBS - Radio, 1937
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Franklin D. Roosevelt … Speaker