'Lame duck' Chief Justice
Many have attacked lame duck Presidents who make last minute appointments to vacant high government posts before they leave office.
It appears that Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren has now made a similar lame duck decision.
The Supreme Court collided with Congress again Monday by declaring the House of Representatives had no authority to bar Rep. Adam Clayton Powell from his seat two years ago.
That 7-1 ruling, written by Chief Justice Warren, overruled the decision made by Circuit Judge Warren E. Burger of the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, the man who will succeed Warren after the present Supreme Court term ends next Monday.
Burger and Warren took almost completely opposite stands in the Powell case.
Warren agreed with Powell's argument that the House and Senate can refuse admission to an elected member only if he fails to meet three qualifications—age, residency and citizenship.
Burger also agreed that the courts should have jurisdiction over Congress in its dealings with members. But the next chief justice expressed opposition to the two branches of government being thrown into conflict. Burger declared strongly that Congress and the courts as two coequal branches of government should not place themselves on a collision course. "That each
branch may thus occasionally make errors for which there may be no effective remedy is one of the prices we pay for this independence, this separateness, of each co-equal branch and for the desired supremacy of each within its own assigned sphere," he said.
Warren, on the other hand, said, "Our system of government required that federal courts on occasion interpret the Constitution in a manner at variancy with the construction given the document by another branch. The alleged conflict that such an adjudication may cause cannot justify the Court's avoiding the Constitutional responsibility . . . it is the responsibility of this Court to act as the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution."
With this decision, Warren has hopefully made his last attack on the Constitution. His term as Chief Justice has been marked by decisions which go against a strict interpretation of that document. Decisions of the Warrenled court have been made on the basis of how the court members felt the Constitution should have been written, rather than strictly interpreting the face of the document.
The particular case on which this last decision was based is not in question here. Lame duck Presidents have come under fire many times in the past for making decisions which their successors must live with. Many feel they should be restrained from making such moves. The question, therefore, arises—Shouldn't
officials such as Chief Justice Warren also refrain from making such decisions? We think they should.
The Warren court, by its decision in this case, has set a precedent just before leaving office which may never be corrected. Such moves should somehow be prevented.
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
While on my way to the late elections, I picked up a booklet entitled The Case for Abolishing ROTC (rotsy as it is commonly known). Being rather a wishy-washy liberal, the absolutism of the radical demand was quite shocking. By that I mean I still buy the argument that if a student wishes to learn a certain body of knowledge of military import, an accredited course should be within the University; and if he wishes to learn to goose-step with a gun, such a club should be allowed. However, those intensely concerned with transforming imperialistic America into some Utopia of Peace and Goodwill shall never be content with the above.
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As my moderate friends exclaim, "They're getting downright totalitarian about it." Therefore, if the 'administration' is to avoid another 'Harvard' (Columbia, etc.), I would urge two proposals which may appease the growing discontent. One is for 'counter-courses.' For example: let's have a History or Philosophy of Love course, whereby freshmen, instead of being indoctrinated with logic, could choose to ply their brains more enjoyably with the Symposium, Kama Sutra, the Art of Loving, etc. Another possibility would be a Philosophy of Nonviolence, which might have an immediate relevance in bringing about an end to campus 'violence.'
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The second proposal is a bit more extreme, yet I feel it would do much more to quell the extremists. That is, to revise the titles of military courses so that they more aptly describe the course content. For example: The Manifold Art of Eliminating Human Life. Or perhaps: History of the Destruction of Western Civ. from the Beginnings to the Present. Or best: Destruction, Extermination, and Assorted Tortures of Humanity. Granted, these may not look too good in the University Catalogue, but on the other hand there sure wouldn't be much left to bitch about.
Eugene F. Simon Lawrence Graduate Student
The Lighter Side T.V. snozers
I said, "Do you mean that you sleep better in front of color television than you did in front of your old black-and-white set."
By Dick West
"That's right," Wimprey replied. "I don't know how to explain it, but I enjoy napping in the den much more since we got the color set. And Ethelgreen does, too."
At 11, they arouse themselves turn off the TV set and go to bed.
UPI Columnist
The other day Wimprey was telling me how much he and Ethelgreen have enjoyed the color set they bought about a year and a half ago.
Then they have dinner, clear away the dishes, put on their pajamas and retire to the den to watch television. At some point during the viewing period, Wimprey drops off to sleep in his chair. Occasionally, Ethelgreen dozes off, too.
Wimprey Plankton gets home from work about 5:30 and putters around the house awhile. At 6, he and Ethelgreen have cocktails. The cocktail hour usually is over by 8:00.
WASHINGTON — My neighbors, the Planktons, have a fairly fixed routine in the evening.
It occurred to me that TV
manufacturers have been overlooking a good point in their advertising.
If I were a TV manufacturer, I would hire George Gallup or some other pollster to make a survey to ascertain whether the Planktons' experience is common along color set owners.
My next step as a TV manufacturer would be to underwrite a research project to determine why it is more gratifying to sleep through a television program in color.
"Survey shows that going to sleep watching color television is 48.9 per cent more enjoyable."
If I may hazard a supposition, I would suppose that it has something to do with the way light rays effect the unconscious mind.
This theory could be easily tested by attaching electrodes to the head of a sleeping televiewer and then comparing the brain waves emitted during color programs to those recorded during black-and-white reception.
Assuming I am on the right track here, the experiment probably would show that black-and-white light rays agitate the sleeper's brain whereas colored rays assuage it.
This could be the start of something big.
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