Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T23:40:53.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Politics of Administrative Law: New York's Anti-Bureaucracy Clause and the O'Brian-Wagner Campaign of 1938

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2010

Daniel R. Ernst
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In April 1938 New York's first constitutional convention since 1915 convened in Albany. When it adjourned in late August, one of the amendments slated for a referendum that fall was an “anti-bureaucracy clause,” a provision that would greatly increase the New York courts' oversight of the state's agencies. Although voters rejected it, contemporaries saw the anti-bureaucracy clause as a harbinger of a national campaign against the New Deal. In September 1938 Charles Wyzanski, a former member of the Solicitor General's office, warned Attorney General Homer Cummings that the anti-bureaucracy clause was “the advance signal of an approaching partisan attack on a national scale.” Wyzanski was right: in early 1939 a bill endorsed by the American Bar Association's House of Delegates was introduced in Congress by Representative Francis Walter and Senator Marvel Mills Logan. Just as the New York provision “would have almost certainly destroyed the effectiveness of the state administrative agencies,” the New Dealer Abe Feller warned Cummings's successor, so would the Walter-Logan bill hamstring the federal government. When President Franklin Roosevelt vetoed the bill in December 1940, he declared it part of a national campaign that had begun with the anti-bureaucracy clause.

Type
Articles
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , Summer 2009 , pp. 331 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Charles E. Wyzanski to Homer S. Cummings, September 29, 1938, box 75, Homer Stille Cummings Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. On the Walter-Logan bill, see Shepherd, George B., “Fierce Compromise: The Administrative Procedure Act Emerges from New Deal Politics,” Northwestern University Law Review 90 (1996): 1593–1632.Google Scholar

2. Abe Feller to Frank Murphy, January 19, 1939, box 4401, entry 112, Records of the U.S. Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives II (RG 60).

3. Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 3d sess., 1941, 13942–43.Google Scholar

4. J. Warren Madden, interview by Judith Byne Seidman, October 29, 1968, 40, NLRB Oral History Project, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. (Madden, Cornell Interview).

5. Wyzanski to Cummings; Feller, A. H., “Administrative Justice,” Survey Graphic 27 (1938): 494Google Scholar; Shepherd, “Fierce Compromise”;Brazier, James E., “An Anti-New Dealer Legacy: The Administrative Procedure Act,” Journal of Policy History 8 (1996): 206–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Horwitz, Morton J., The Transformation of American Law, 1870–1960: The Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 216, 221Google Scholar; White, G. Edward, The Constitution and the New Deal (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 114–16Google Scholar; Schiller, Reuel E., “The Era of Deference: Courts, Expertise, and the Emergence of New Deal Administrative Law,” Michigan Law Review 106 (2007): 406, 413–14Google Scholar; Wang, Jessica, “Imagining the Administrative State: Legal Pragmatism, Securities Regulation, and New Deal Liberalism,” Journal of Policy History 17 (2005): 257–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Horwitz, , Transformation, 225–30Google Scholar; White, , Constitution and the New Deal, 96–103Google Scholar.

8. Charles E. Clark to Benjamin V. Cohen, December 28, 1936, box 7, Benjamin V. Cohen Papers, Library of Congress; see Keller, Morton, Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 62–65Google Scholar.

9. Dicey, Albert Venn, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 8th ed. (1885; London: Macmillan, 1902), 182–83Google Scholar; see Horwitz, , Transformation, 225Google Scholar.

10. John J. Burns to Dean Acheson, April 16, 1940, box 2, Dean G. Acheson Papers, Harry S Truman Library, Independence, Mo.;Gellhorn, Walter, “Symposium on Procedural Administrative Law,” Iowa Law Review 25 (1940): 421–23Google Scholar.

11. Skowronek, Stephen, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davis, G. Cullom, “The Transformation of the Federal Trade Commission, 1914–1929,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 49 (1962): 437–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; [John Carter Franklin], The New Dealers (New York: Literary Guild, 1934), 270Google Scholar.

12. Plotke, David, Building a Democratic Order: Reshaping American Liberalism in the 1930s and 1940s (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shefter, Martin, Political Parties and the State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 82–83Google Scholar.

13. Smith, Jason Scott, Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933–1956 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 160–78Google Scholar; Patterson, James T., Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, 1933–1939 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967), 2Google Scholar.

14. Hindman, Wilbert Losson Jr, “The New York Constitutional Convention of 1938: The Constituent Process and Interest Activity” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1940), 18Google Scholar; Ingalls, Robert P., Herbert H. Lehman and New York's Little New Deal (New York: New York University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

15. Stein, Judith, “The Birth of Liberal Republicanism in New York State, 1932–1939” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1968), 19–21.Google Scholar

16. “Robert E. Whalen, Albany Attorney,” New York Times, August 13, 1951, 17Google Scholar (NYT ); “Ochlocracy Here Is Feared,” Ibid., November 7, 1941, 22.

17. Ingalls, , Lehman, 88, 254Google Scholar; Hindman, , “Constitutional Convention,” 18Google Scholar; “Job No. 2,” Time, September 5, 1932Google Scholar.

18. Stein, , “Birth of Liberal Republicanism,” 176–78Google Scholar; Ingalls, , Lehman, 88, 254Google Scholar; Hindman, , “Constitutional Convention,” 19Google Scholar.

19. Stern, Sheila, “The American Labor Party, 1936–1944” (master's thesis, University of Chicago, 1964), 32–35, 63–64Google Scholar; Carter, Robert Frederick, “Pressure from the Left: The American Labor Party, 1936–1954” (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1965), 8–17, 93–96Google Scholar; Moscow, Warren, Politics in the Empire State (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), 105–08Google Scholar; Kim, Jin Hee, “Labor Law and Labor Policy in New York State, 1920s-1930s” (Ph.D. diss., Binghamton University-State University of New York, 1999), 264–67Google Scholar.

20. Barton, quoted in Stein, , “Birth of Liberal Republicans,” 205.Google Scholar

21. In New York County, where most of the state's large firms were located, 55 percent of all lawyers practiced individually in 1934. A national estimate in 1948 found that 61 percent of American lawyers practiced individually.Committee on Professional Economics of the New York County Lawyers' Association, Survey of the Legal Profession in New York County (New York, 1936), 11–12Google Scholar; Weil, Fred B., ed., The 1967 Lawyer Statistical Report (Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 1968), 18Google Scholar.

22. Hindman, , “Constitutional Convention,” 51Google Scholar; see also O'Rourke, Vernon A. and Campbell, Douglas W., Constitution-Making in a Democracy: Theory and Practice in New York State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943), 163–64Google Scholar.

23. Stevens, H. M., “New York's Famous Lawyers,” Harper's Weekly, July 29, 1911, 17.Google Scholar

24. Hobson, Wayne K., “Symbol of the New Profession: Emergence of the Large Law Firm, 1970–1915,” in The New High Priests: Lawyers in Post-Civil War America, ed. Gawalt, Gerard W. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984), 3–28Google Scholar; Robert W. Gordon, “‘The Ideal and the Actual in the Law’: Fantasies and Practices of New York City Lawyers, 1870–1910,” in Ibid., 51–74;Powell, Michael J., From Patrician to Professional Elite: The Transformation of the New York City Bar Association (New York: Russell Sage, 1988), 3–44Google Scholar.

25. Hughes, Charles Evans, “Speech before the Elmira Chamber of Commerce, May 3, 1907,” in Addresses of Charles Evans Hughes, 1906–1916, 2nd ed. (New York, 1916), 185–87.Google Scholar

26. “Find Service Boards Haven't Easy Tasks,” NYT, December 17, 1911Google Scholar; see Dearstyne, Bruce W., “Regulation in the Progressive Era: The New York Public Service Commission,” New York History 58 (1977): 331–47Google Scholar.

27. “To Limit Powers of Commissioners,” NYT, July 20, 1915, 9Google Scholar; “Makes Tenure Sure for Service Boards,” Ibid., July 25, 1915, 13; Root, Elihu, “Public Service by the Bar,” ABA Reports 41 (1916): 368–69Google Scholar.

28. Dicey, , Law of the Constitution, 182–83.Google Scholar

29. Isaacs, Nathan, “Judicial Review of Administrative Findings,” Yale Law Journal 30 (1921): 789CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Consolidated Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 228 (1938)Google Scholar. See Schiller, , “Era of Deference,” 399–412Google Scholar; Stason, E. Blythe, “‘Substantial Evidence’ in Administrative Law,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 89 (1941): 1026–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. Ohio Valley Water Co. v. Ben Avon Borough, 253 U.S. 287 (1920)Google Scholar; St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U.S. 38 (1936)Google Scholar; Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 54 (1932)Google Scholar.

31. Morgan v. United States, 304 U.S. 1, 19, 22 (1938)Google Scholar; “Address of Justice Hughes at Law Institute,” NYT, May 13, 1938, 8Google Scholar.

32. O'Rourke, and Campbell, , Constitution-Making, 62–68.Google Scholar

33. “Politics Ruling,” NYT, August 20, 1938, 2Google Scholar; O'Rourke, and Campbell, , Constitution- Making, 79Google Scholar; Fearon quoted in O'Rourke, and Campbell, , Constitution-Making, 71Google Scholar; Hindman, , “Constitutional Convention,” 40–44Google Scholar.

34. Ernest D. Leet to Roscoe Pound, March 30, 1938, part 1, reel 34, Roscoe Pound Papers, Harvard Law School Library;“Arthur Eugene Sutherland, Jr., 1902–1973,” Contemporary Authors Online (Gale, 2002), visited January 27, 2008Google Scholar; Griswold, Erwin N., “Arthur E. Sutherland,” Harvard Law Review 86 (1973): 933–35Google Scholar.

35. New York State Bar Association, Administrative Law in New York (Albany, 1940), 224Google Scholar; Leet to Pound, March 30, 1938.

36. Leet to William A. Searle, March 28, 1938, reel 34, part 1, Pound Papers; Leet, Ernest D., “Address on Some Proposed Changes to the Constitution of New York State, Delivered before the Council of the Federation of Bar Associations of Western New York,” Buffalo Daily Law Journal, December 21, 1937, 1, 3, 4, December 22, 1937, 1, 3.Google Scholar

37. Leet sent excerpts from Jaffe's draft to NYSBA president Joseph Rosch on March 30, 1938; see reel 34, part 1, Pound Papers; see also Leet to Pound, April 28, 1938, box 3, Committee Correspondence Hearings, Minutes and Proposals Files, New York State Constitutional Convention of 1938, New York State Archives, Albany, N.Y (NYSCC Papers). For the published version of Jaffe's report, see New York State Constitutional Convention Committee, Problems Relating to Judicial Administration and Organization (Albany, 1938), 781–845Google Scholar.

38. NYSBA, Administrative Law, 7, 112, 141, 189, 224–25.Google Scholar

39. Revised Record of the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York (Albany, N.Y., 1938), 3: 2064–65 (“Revised Record”).Google Scholar

40. Ibid.

41. Resolution Adopted at the Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Bar Association, January 5, 1938, reel 77, Felix Frankfurter Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (FF-LC). On the ABA's committee, see Shepherd, , “Fierce Compromise,” 1569–79, 1582–83, 1588–93Google Scholar.

42. Henry L. Stimson to Felix Frankfurter, March 8, April 13, 1938, Dulles to Frankfurter, April 18, 1938, reel 77, FF-LC; see Dulles, John Foster, “Administrative Law: An Address Given on January 14, 1939, at Langdell Hall, Cambridge,” reel 59, John Foster Dulles Papers, Princeton University Library, Princeton, N.J.Google Scholar; “Joint Report of the Committees on Administrative Law and on Federal Legislation on S. 915 (76th Congress) introduced by Mr. Logan,” May 2, 1939, reel 4, Dulles PapersGoogle Scholar; Dulles, , “Administrative Law: A Practical Attitude for Lawyers,” ABA Journal 25 (1939): 275–82, 352–53Google Scholar.

43. “Statement of John Foster Dulles before the Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure,” July 12, 1940, reel 59, Dulles Papers.

44. Hindman, , “Constitutional Convention,” 50, 74–75Google Scholar; Stein, , “Birth of Liberal Republicanism,” 185, 189–93Google Scholar; O'Rourke, and Campbell, , Constitution-Making, 115, 205–6Google Scholar.

45. Food For Forums (February 1938): 17–18; Constitutional Convention Almanac, 1938 (New York: New York Times, 1938), 7–9.Google Scholar

46. Leet to Searle, March 28, 1938; NYSBA, Administrative Law, 8, 114–35, 188–90Google Scholar; Leet to Pound, June 8, 1938, reel 34, part 1, Pound Papers.

47. NYSBA, Administrative Law, 8–11, 149–55, 161–62, 192–93Google Scholar. For the ABA Board of Governors' approval of the bill, see O. R. McGuire to Homer S. Cummings, May 12, 1938, box 4401, entry 112, RG 60.

48. Dulles to Charles B. Sears, June 23, 1938, reel 3, Dulles Papers; Revised Record, 3: 2058–59.

49. Frankfurter to Dulles, June 27, 1938, Dulles to Frankfurter, June 28, 1938, reel 3, Dulles Papers.

50. Leet to Pound, May 19, 1938, reel 34, part 1, Pound Papers; Diary, June 14, 1938, reel 42, part 2, Ibid.;“Urges Court Reviews on Official Decisions,” NYT, June 15, 1938, 12Google Scholar; “Report of the Special Committee on Administrative Law,” ABA Reports 63 (1938): 346–51Google Scholar; Minutes, June 14, 22, 1938, Judiciary Committee, box 2, NYSCC Papers.

51. “Bureaucracy Issue Splits Committee,” July 20, 1938, 9Google Scholar; “Report of the Committee on the Judiciary,” Document No. 8, Journal and Documents of the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York (Albany, 1938)Google Scholar; Revised Record, 3: 2041; Hindman, , “Constitutional Convention,” 313–14Google Scholar.

52. Report of the Committee on Administrative Agencies and Tribunals, ABA Reports 63 (1938): 625, 627, 631Google Scholar; Warren Tubbs to Sears, July 18, 1938, box 3, NYSCC Papers; NYSBA, Proceedings, 1939: 193–94Google Scholar.

53. NYSBA, Administrative Law, 159–60, 208Google Scholar; “Judiciary Section Seen as Menacing All State Boards,” NYT, August 14, 1938, 2Google Scholar; Revised Record, 3: 2069–70.

54. Revised Record, 3: 2088.

55. “Anti-Bureaucracy Clause,” NYT, August 4, 1938, 6.Google Scholar

56. Revised Record, 3: 2064, 2091, 2101, 2106.

57. Ibid., 3: 2046–50, 2092–2100.

58. Ibid., 3: 2079–81, 2085–86, 2090. On Fertig, see Hindman, , “Constitutional Convention,” 57–58Google Scholar; “Maldwin Fertig, Legislator, Dies,” NYT, July 24, 1972, 30Google Scholar. On the functionalist approach at Yale, see Kalman, Laura, Legal Realism at Yale, 1927–1960 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1986)Google Scholar, and Gordon, Robert W., “Professors and Policy- makers: Yale Law School Faculty in the New Deal and After,” in History of the Yale Law School: The Tercentennial Lectures (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 75–137CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59. Revised Record, 3: 2110;“Curb on Bureaucracy Is Accepted at Albany after New Deal Fight,” NYT, August 4, 1938, 1Google Scholar; “Judiciary Section Seen as Menacing All Boards.”

60. “Judiciary Section Seen as Menacing All Boards”; Revised Record, 4: 3073, 3085–86Google Scholar; see Kim, , “Labor Law and Labor Policy in New York State,” 215–16Google Scholar.

61. “Curbing Bureaucracy,” NYT, August 15, 1938, 14Google Scholar; “Lehman's Letter on Judiciary Plan,” Ibid., 2; “La Guardia Hits Reviews,” Ibid., August 5, 1938, 5.

62. Revised Record, 4: 3076–77, 3083.

63. Ibid., 3087, 3093; Hindman, , “Constitutional Convention,” 318.Google Scholar

64. Wagner, Robert F., “Proposed N.Y. Constitutional Amendments,” enclosed in Wagner, to Roosevelt, , August 31, 1938, Official File 88, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.Google Scholar; “Court Review Plan Adopted at Albany,” NYT, August 19, 1938, 20Google Scholar.

65. O'Rourke, and Campbell, , Constitution-Making, 220–22, 230–31Google Scholar; “City Bar Rejects Judiciary Article,” NYT, October 19, 1938, 4Google Scholar.

66. NYSBA, Administrative Law, 155–201, 213–35, 237–54Google Scholar; Shea, Frank M., “Shall Judicial Review Be Written into the Constitution?” Buffalo Daily Law Journal, November 4, 1938, 3, 4Google Scholar.

67. O'Rourke, and Campbell, , Constitution-Making, 233Google Scholar; Sutherland, Arthur E. Jr, “Lawmaking by Popular Vote: Some Reflections on the New York Constitution of 1938,” Cornell Law Quarterly 24 (1938): 11Google Scholar; “Bar Asks Review of Agency Orders,” NYT, July 31, 1938Google Scholar, 14. La Guardia is quoted in Hindman, , “Constitutional Convention,” 377Google Scholar.

68. “The Reminiscences of John Lord O'Brian” (1952), 443–44, Oral History Collection, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.Google Scholar

69. “Dewey and Ticket at Odds on Issues,” NYT, October 15, 1938, 1.Google Scholar

70. O'Brian, , “Reminiscences” 1, 4–5, 8–10, 17–19Google Scholar; O'Brian, John Lord, “Metropolitan Club-May 12, 1966,” 5–6, box 57 John Lord O'Brian Papers, Charles B. Sears Law Library, University of Buffalo Law School, Buffalo, New York (O'Brian-Buffalo Papers)Google Scholar.

71. O'Brian, , “Reminiscences,” 37–38, 41–47, 52–53, 56–57, 191Google Scholar; O'Brian, , “Metropolitan Club,” 8Google Scholar. See O'Brian, John Lord, “Charles Evans Hughes as Governor,” ABA Journal 27 (1941): 412–13Google Scholar.

72. O'Brian, , “Reminiscences,” 96–97, 108, 136–38, 142–45, 148–49, 167–69, 175Google Scholar. On Root and the “establishment” tradition he spawned, see Keller, Morton, “The First Wise Man,” American Lawyer (December 1999): 109Google Scholar; Brinkley, Alan, Liberalism and Its Discontents (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 164–209Google Scholar.

73. O'Brian, , “Reminiscences,” 108–9, 119–23, 328–32Google Scholar; untitled note, enclosed with John Lord O'Brian to A.R.M., n.d., John Lord O'Brian Papers, Covington & Burling, Washington, D.C. (O'Brian-C&B Papers);“O'Brian of Buffalo Out for Governor,” NYT, November 28, 1919, 5Google Scholar; “Miller and Wadsworth Win at Saratoga,” NYT, July 29, 1920, 1Google Scholar; “Solid Delegation Urged by Morris,” NYT, March 27, 1928, 3Google Scholar; “‘Old Guard’ Seeks Man for Governor,” NYT, Febrauary 9, 1934, 20Google Scholar; “Brewster is Boomed for Governorship,” NYT, July 30, 1936, 6Google Scholar.

74. O'Brian, , “Reminiscences,” 132, 223–48, 263–85, 334–40, 465–68Google Scholar; “Von Rintelen Spent $508,000 in His Plot,” NYT, May 2, 1917, 5Google Scholar; Belknap, Michal R., “John Lord O'Brian,” American National Biography 16: 584Google Scholar; O'Brian, John Lord, “Civil Liberty in War Time,” in NYSBA, Proceedings 1919: 275–313Google Scholar. See Thomas, William H. Jr, Unsafe for Democracy: World War I and the U.S. Justice Department's Covert Campaign to Suppress Dissent (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 27–28, 87, 156, 176–77Google Scholar.

75. Wagner's advisors quoted in Huthmacher, J. Joseph, Senator Robert F. Wagner and the Rise of Urban Liberalism (New York: Atheneum, 1968), 253.Google Scholar

76. “TVA Case Put Off For O'Brian's Race,” NYT, October 4, 1938, 34.Google Scholar

77. Press release, “Who Is John Lord O'Brian?” n.d., box 407, Robert F. Wagner Papers, Georgetown University Library, Washington, D.C.

78. Philp [Besser Gratz] to O'Brian, November 10, 1938, box 49, O'Brian-Buffalo Papers; Noel T. Dowling to O'Brian, November 19, 1938, Ibid.

79. “O'Brian Offices Here,” NYT, October 14, 1938, 7Google Scholar; Huthmacher, , Wagner, 251Google Scholar.

80. “Proceedings of the State of New York Republican State Convention Held at Carnegie Hall, New York City, February 19–20, 1920,” 101–02, box 57, O'Brian-Buffalo Papers; O'Brian, John Lord, “The Menace of Administrative Law,” Maryland State Bar Association 1920: 156. On the FTC, seeGoogle ScholarSutherland, George, “Private Rights and Government Control,” ABA Reports 42 (1917): 204–7Google Scholar.

81. Remarks of John Lord O'Brian, American Law Institute, May 12, 1939, Personal Notebook, 90–95, box 50, O'Brian-Buffalo Papers; see also “O'Brian Decries Control before Law Institute,” NYT, May 13, 1939, 17Google Scholar.

82. Thurman W. Arnold to Frances Arnold, August 6, 1939, box 10, Thurman W. Arnold Papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wy.; see “Says He Was Offered Stock by White, Weld,” NYT, July 16, 1936, 34Google Scholar; “Broker Defies SEC in A. O. Smith Case,” NYT, July 17, 1936, 23Google Scholar.

83. Mastin G. White to J. R. Mohler, November 24, 1936, box 28, entry 70, Records of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Record Group 19, National Archives II (RG 19); A. W. Miller to White, July 24, 1936, Ibid.; C. B. Miles to White, January 16, 24, February 10, 1937, Ibid.

84. “Swift & Co. Protest Federal Hearings," NYT, January 16, 1937, 31.

85. John Lord O'Brian, “Petition to Set Aside the Order of the Secretary of Agriculture Dated June 1, 1938,” Miles to White, January 24, 1937, Respondent's Statement of Exceptions to Examiner's Actions at the Hearing,” box 28, entry 70, RG 19; Swift & Co. v. Wallace, 105 F.2d 848 (7th Cir. 1939).

86. Henry J. Winters to Benedict Wolf, October 29, 1938, box 406, Wagner Papers; O'Brian, , “Reminiscences,” 321–22, 456Google Scholar; “Senatorial Battle Page,” New York Daily News, October 19, 1938, 32Google Scholar.

87. “Report of the Standing Committee on Labor, Employment and Social Security,” ABA Reports 63 (1938): 269–70Google Scholar; see also Ibid., 61 (1936): xxx; 62 (1937): 30, 708–10.

88. “The G-- D--- Labor Board,” Fortune 18 (October 1938): 52–57, 115–18, 120, 23Google Scholar; Irons, Peter, The New Deal Lawyers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 243–48Google Scholar; Shamir, Ronen, Managing Legal Uncertainty: Elite Lawyers in the New Deal (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995), 85–86Google Scholar.

89. Tomlins, Christopher L., The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1880–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 200Google Scholar; Leuchtenburg, William E., Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 243–44Google Scholar; “400 in Chamber Unanimous in Vote for Inquiry by Congress,” Washington Post, May 4, 1938Google Scholar. On Burke, see Patterson, , Congressional Conservatism, 47–49Google Scholar.

90. Davis, Kenneth S., FDR: The New Deal Years, 1933–1937 (New York: Random House, 1986), 631Google Scholar; Leuchtenburg, , Franklin D. Roosevelt, 266–70Google Scholar; Gross, James A., The Reshaping of the National Labor Relations Board: National Labor Policy in Transition, 1937–1947 (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1981), 68–71Google Scholar; Patterson, , Congressional Conservatism, 316–18Google Scholar.

91. Gellhorn, Walter, “Memorandum of Conversation with Congressman Walter,” June 2, 1939, box 8, entry 376, RG 60.Google Scholar

92. Tomlins, , State and the Unions, 160–84Google Scholar; Gross, , Reshaping, 50–68Google Scholar; “State A.F.L. Hits NLRB ‘Prejudice,’” NYT, August 26, 1938, 1Google Scholar.

93. Gross, , Reshaping, 35, 72Google Scholar; “Fair Play,” Collier's 101 (March 25, 1938): 70Google Scholar.

94. “Fight on Measure Due in Next Congress,” NYT, November 13, 1938, B3Google Scholar; Revised Record, 4: 2947.

95. O'Brian, , “Reminiscences,” 168, 123–24.Google Scholar

96. Krock, Arthur, “In the Nation: The Republican Tactics in New York,” NYT, October 6, 1938, 22.Google Scholar

97. John Lord O'Brian, Address to the Young Men's Republican Clubs of the Eighth Judicial District, Buffalo, N.Y., October 15, 1938, 4, 9–11, box 407, Wagner Papers (O'Brian, Buffalo Address).

98. Ibid., 5.

99. See, for example, National Harness Manufacturers Association v. Federal Trade Commission, 268 F. 705 (6th Cir. 1920).

100. Landis, James M., The Administrative Process (1938; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966), 95, 99.Google Scholar

101. Louis L. Jaffe, interview by Jerold S. Auerbach, July 10 to September 22, 1972, 95, box 38, Dorot Jewish Division Oral Histories, New York Public Library. Other lawyers recalled being instructed to find facts that had no basis in the record. Wallace M. Cohen, interview by Judith Byne, March 21, 1969, NLRB Oral History Project; Ida Klaus, interview by Judith Byne, February 27, 1969, NLRB Oral History Project.

102. O'Brian, Buffalo Address, 6.

103. Ibid., 6–8.

104. O'Brian, , “Reminiscences,” 123-24.Google Scholar

105. O'Brian's, Reply to Questions Asked by Times,” NYT, October 22, 1938, 2Google Scholar; “O'Brian Asserts Campaign Issue Is Job Security,” New York Herald Tribune, October 19, 1938, 3Google Scholar; “As Young Voters of Westchester Hail John Lord O'Brian,” New York Herald Tribune, October 23, 1938, sec. II, 2Google Scholar; “First Voters League to Form O'Brian Unit,” New York Herald Tribune, October 24, 1938, 2Google Scholar; “O'Brian Jobs Brigade Launches Campaign to Elect Him,” New York Herald Tribune, November 3, 1938, 7Google Scholar.

106. “O'Brian Group is Formed,” NYT, October 22, 1938, 2Google Scholar; “New York's Senatorial Candidates: Mr. Stimson Advances Arguments in Favor of the Election of John Lord O'Brian to Congressional Seat,” Ibid., October 21, 1938, 22.

107. “Lehman Endorses Two New Dealers,” New York Daily News, October 23, 1938, 20Google Scholar; New York Herald Tribune, October 24, 1938, 1Google Scholar.

108. Elinore Herrick to Robert F. Wagner, August 6, 1938, box 6, Wagner Papers; Gross, Reshaping, 117–20.

109. All in box 2, Leon Keyserling Papers, Georgetown University Library, Washington, D.C.: “Keynote Speech of Senator Robert F. Wagner at New York State Democratic Convention, Rochester, N.Y.,” September 29, 1938; “Speech of U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner at Ratification Meeting, National Democratic Club, New York City,” October 14, 1938; “Speech of U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner at Binghamton,” October 20, 1938; “Speech of U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner at Albany,” October 24, 1938.

110. “Senator Robert F. Wagner,” New York Daily News, November 3, 1938, 33Google Scholar; Sullivan, Mark, “Wagner and the Sit-Down Strike: Operation of Labor Act Poses Questions of Him as Candidate,” New York Herald Tribune, October 23, 1938, sec. II, 2Google Scholar; “Wagner Silent on Challenge,” New York Herald Tribune, October 25, 1938, 2Google Scholar.

111. “Wagner Rejects O'Brian's Bid to Debate Campaign Issues,” New York Herald Tribune, October 26, 1938, 1Google Scholar; “Text of Senator Wagner's Reply on New Deal,” NYT, October 26, 1938, 8Google Scholar.

112. “Senator Wagner Turns Tail,” New York Herald Tribune, October 26, 1938, 22Google Scholar; “Senator Wagner Stands Pat,” New York World-Telegram, October 27, 1938, box 6, Wagner PapersGoogle Scholar; “O'Brian Progress Scares Wagner,” Syracuse Post-Standard, October 26, 1938, 4Google Scholar; New York Daily Mirror quoted in Huthmacher, , Wagner, 250Google Scholar; “O'Brian Attacks Wagner Job Stand,” NYT, October 27, 1938, 4Google Scholar.

113. Wagner to the Editor of the Syracuse Post-Standard, October 29, 1938, box 405, Wagner Papers;“AFL Joins CIO in Supporting Lehman,” New York Daily News, October 2, 1938, 2Google Scholar; “A.L.P. Names Lehman with Wild Ovation,” New York Daily News, October 4, 1938, 2Google Scholar; “O'Brian Reaffirms Labor Act Stand,” NYT, October 31, 1938, 6Google Scholar.

114. “Text of Stimson Letter on Labor Relations Act,” NYT, November 3, 1938, 19.Google Scholar

115. Victor F. Ridder to Robert E. Dowling, October 13, 1938, box 405, Wagner Papers; Maurine Mulliner to Simon H. Rifkind, November 1, 1938, Ibid.; O'Brian, “Reminiscences,” 447;“Two Senators,” NYT, November 1, 1938, 22Google Scholar.

116. Someone in the Wagner camp wrote the title of Bruce Barton's The Man Nobody Knows (1925) across the top of the press release, “Who Is John Lord O'Brian?” Box 407, Wagner Papers. For the sleepless nights of Wagner's associates, see Huthmacher, , Wagner, 251Google Scholar. John O'Donnell and Doris Fleeson called Wagner's, defeat “almost inconceivable” in “New Deal Control at Stake at the Polls,” New York Daily News, November 6, 1938, 8Google Scholar.

117. Wolfinger, James, “The Strange Career of Frank Murphy: Conservatives, State-Level Politics, and the End of the New Deal,” Historian 65 (2002): 377–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

118. O'Donnell, and Fleeson, , “New Deal Control”; NYT, November 6, 1938, 33Google Scholar. “Nation Turns Eyes on State Election,” NYT, November 6, 1938, 33Google Scholar.

119. “Roosevelt will Speak for Ticket at Hyde Park,” New York Herald Tribune, October 26, 1938, 8Google Scholar; “Five Million in A.F.L. Want Wagner, Says Green,” Ibid., November 2, 1938, 12; Diaries and Itineraries, 1933–40, November 2, 1938, President's Personal File, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.

120. The Reminiscences of J. Warren Madden (1957), 128–29, Oral History Collection, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.;Kim, , “Labor Law and Labor Policy in New York State,” 217–18Google Scholar. Wagner later endorsed the change as well.“Wagner Favors Only 1 Change in Labor Act,” NYT, April 12, 1939, 2Google Scholar.

121. Madden, , “Reminiscences,” 127–28Google Scholar; Madden, Cornell Interview, 39–42.

122. Madden, , “Reminiscences,” 128Google Scholar; “Presses New Deal,” NYT, November 5, 1938, 1Google Scholar; “Text of President's Address From Hyde Park.”

123. O'Donnell, and Fleeson, , “New Deal Control,” 8Google Scholar; “O'Brian Chides New Dealers for Reform Errors,” New York Herald Tribune, November 6, 1938, 27Google Scholar; “O'Brian Warns False Liberals Curb Liberties,” New York Herald Tribune, November 7, 1938, 4Google Scholar; “Speech of U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner at American Labor Party Rally, Madison Square Garden,” October 31, 1938, box 2, Keyserling PapersGoogle Scholar; “Speech of U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner, Morris High School, The Bronx,” November 3, 1938, 3, box 2, Keyserling PapersGoogle Scholar.

124. Manual for the Use of the Legislature of the State of New York, 1933: 912, 1939: 1150–51; O'Brian, , “Reminiscences,” 447–48Google Scholar; Lehman Plurality Officially 64,004,” NYT, December 8, 1938, 5.

125. “O'Brian Wires Wagner," NYT, November 10, 1938, 11Google Scholar; “The Senatorial Election,” NYT, November 9, 1938, 22Google Scholar; Gratz to O'Brian.

126. Alsop, Joseph and Kintner, Robert, “The Capital Parade,” Washington Evening Star, November 16, 1938, A11.Google Scholar

127. “President May Delay Test on Choice of Smith,” Washington Post, January 4, 1939, 3Google Scholar; Gross, , Reshaping, 89Google Scholar.

128. Leiserson, quoted in Gross, , Reshaping, 90–91.Google Scholar

129. “Wagner Act Faces a Crisis,” Business Week, July 13, 1940, 24Google Scholar, quoted in Gross, , Reshaping, 221Google Scholar; Gross, , Reshaping, 226–28Google Scholar.

130. Gross, , Reshaping, 196–97, 229–31, 264Google Scholar; Millis, Harry A. and Brown, Emily Clark, From the Wagner Act to Taft-Hartley (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 56–58, 63–65Google Scholar.

131. O'Brian, , “Reminiscences,” 446.Google Scholar

132. Kagan, Robert A., Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001).Google Scholar

133. Halliday, Terence C. and Karpik, Lucien, “Politics Matter: A Comparative Theory of Lawyers in the Matter of Political Liberalism,” in Lawyers and the Rise of Western Political Liberalism, ed. Halliday, Terence C. and Karpik, Lucien (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 15–64Google Scholar; Abel, Richard L., “Lawyers for Liberalism: Axiom, Oxymoron, or Accident?” Books-on-Law <http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/lawbooks/revnov98.htm#Abel> (November 1998)+(November+1998)>Google Scholar. My argument is harder to reconcile with Ronen Shamir's depiction, in Managing Legal Uncertainty, of corporation lawyers as defenders of a court-centered legal “field.” Perhaps Shamir and I have focused on different lawyers: litigators, in his case; transactional attorneys, in mine. But perhaps Shamir's theoretical premise, that the corporate bar was part of a court-centered legal field, inclined him to overlook the distinction between institutional and procedural Diceyism. Shamir discussed the ABA's Special Committee on Administrative Law but not the City Bar's counterpart. He mentioned Dulles's attempt to shape the Securities Exchange Act and nullify the Public Utility Holding Company Act but not his opposition to the anti-bureaucracy clause or the Walter-Logan bill. He did not mention Stimson at all.

134. Grisinger, Joanna L., “Law in Action: The Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure,” Journal of Policy History 20 (2008): 379–418CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Acheson, Dean, Morning and Noon (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1965): 214–15Google Scholar; Harry Shulman to Dean G. Acheson, March 7, 1941, box 3, Acheson Papers;Jaffe, Louis L., “Administrative Procedure Re-Examined: The Benjamin Report,” Harvard Law Review 56 (1943): 704–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I'm grateful to Daniel Sharfstein for drawing my attention to the political significance of Dean Acheson's report and Daniel Gifford for doing the same for Robert Benjamin's.

135. Brinkley, Alan, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), 6.Google Scholar

136. Milkis, Sidney M., The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System since the New Deal (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 9.Google Scholar

137. For a recent call for the study of administrative law and practice after World War II, see Schiller, Reuel E., “The Administrative State, Front and Center: Studying Law and Administration in Postwar America,” Law and History Review 26 (2008): 415–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.