Speech #860018574

This was a right which I am firmly convinced Congress intended to grant. and did grant. by law. but the Supreme Court has abrogated this right. In the Amalgamated Meatcutters case. the Supreme Court went further in its denial of the right of the National Labor Relations Board to take action against unions under Communist leadership. and in the Gold case. the Supreme Court freed a labor official who had been convicted of filing a false nonCoinmunist affidavit. on the specious ground that when an FBI agent investigating another similar case telephoned or visited three members of the jury to inquire whether they had received any propaganda literature. this was an improper interference with the privacy of the jury and so prejudicial to the defendants case as to require reversal. In the Witkovich case. the Supreme Court abrogated the right of immigration authorities. specifically granted by Congress. to keep aliens awaiting deportation from engaging in Communist activities. and to question such aliens about such activities. The Court held that the Government of the United States cannot prevent aliens who are awaiting deportation from engaging in Communist activities. even where such activities formed the basis for the original deportation order. The Supreme Court has even held that the Immigration and Naturalization Service cannot question such aliens about their Communist activities. The Court took this position in spite of the fact that there is a law on the books. passed by Congress. explicitly giving the Immigration and Naturalization Service the right to keep such deportable aliens under reasonable supervision. and to require them to answer reasonable questions. The Court said that even under this statute. all that the Immigration and Naturalization Service can ask about is the availability of the alien for deportation. not what he is doing while he is still here. In the Schware and Konigsberg cases. the Court invaded a field which it had previously said was outside its jurisdiction. and took away from the supreme courts of the individual States and the boards of bar examiners of those States the right to pass upon admissions to the State bar. As the American Bar Association committees report has pointed out in the Schware case the Court substituted its standard of fitness for the bar of New Mexico in place of the standard established by the bar and the courts of New Mexico. and in the Konigsberg case. the Supreme Court of the United States actually held that membership in the Communist Party over a period of years. and refusal to answer questions as to present and past membership in the Communist Party. put to the applicant by the California State Bar Examiners. did not rationally support the finding of the California Supreme Court that the applicant had failed to prove that he was of good moral character and that he did not advocate the overthrow of the Federal or State Government by force and violence.