A decision of far-reaching importance demolishing the code system set up under the National Industrial Recovery Act was handed down by the Supreme Court today on the basis of the appeal of the Schechter Brothers—Joseph, Martin, Alex and Aaron—Brooklyn wholesalers of kosher poultry, from a conviction under the Live Poultry Code for the metropolitan area.
In a long-awaited decision which affects a large part of the New Deal legislation, the Supreme Court declared that under the Constitution, Congress has no right to delegate to the President the legislative powers of creating codes and that, further, the Schechter brothers’ poultry business was not interstate commerce and not there fore subject to the control of the federal government.
TWO APPEALS COVERED
The case involved appeals by both the government and the Schechter brothers. The administration was seeking reversal of the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals overruling the conviction of the four brothers on minimum wage and hour provisions, and the Schechters were seeking a Supreme Court ruling annulling the original convictions on seventeen other counts in the live poultry code.
The decision served to set aside fines and convictions against the Schechter brothers.
The four Jewish brothers and two corporations, the A.L.A. Schechter Live Poultry Corporation and the Schechter Live Poultry Market, Inc., were first drawn into the case which was later to test the whole NRA set-up, when they allegedly disregarded provisions of the live poultry code in regard to rules for fair competition, minimum wages and maximum hours.
INDICTED ON 60 COUNTS
As a result they were haled into Brooklyn Federal Court on indictments containing sixty counts. The four brothers were charged with selling diseased poultry, slaughtering fowl by illegal methods, coercing and intimidating NRA inspectors and failing to post prices. The
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
