The Sick Chicken Case: Schechter V. US

During a time of crisis, whether it’d be a World War or a grave depression, the authority the government should possess over regulating agencies that are intended to improve the economy has been both embraced and criticized. Government intervention in business was prominent in FDR’s controversial New Deal, where “voluntary recovery programs” with “codes of fair practices” were established to prosper the economy once plummeted by the Great Depression (Freidel 194-5). Frank Freidel, author of “The Sick Chicken Case,” details the case in which Schechter Poultry Corporation violated the Live Poultry Code, which were terms established by the National Recovery Administration (NRA) to regulate the “Kosher wholesale poultry slaughterhouses in the New …show more content…
U.S.. Precedingly, many government officials anticipated that the Supreme Court would rule in favor of the New Deal agencies because of its residing era of broad interpretation of the Constitution and the Commerce Clause. Momentarily, most of the public had reasoned that FDR’s drastic measures at restoring prosperity were applaudable in their time of turmoil. Subsequently, the opinion read aloud by Chief Justice Hughes, ruling in favor of Schechter, came as a shock to government officials. One point made in the opinion was that “Congress made an unconstitutional delegation” by allowing the President and his Administration to single-handedly form and prescribe codes “without [Congress] imposing necessary standards and restrictions” to the Executive power (“A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States”). Furthermore, the opinion stated that, although Schechter purchased poultry from other states, the offenses in question exclusively affected New York, thus, Congress would be overstepping its legal power which prohibited “authority to regulate activities with indirect impact on inter-state commerce” (“A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U.S.”). Moreover, the court ruled that certain provisions in the codes supported by the NRA were also unconstitutional because their regulations over wages and hours, for example, did not directly affect interstate commerce, thereby establishing them outside …show more content…
President Roosevelt bitterly called for reform in the American mindset, which had limited the role of federal government in regulating programs for economic and social improvement, once again. Roosevelt argued that, in order to direct the nation out of economic chaos, the American people were going to have to dismiss their “Horse-and-Buggy,” or old-fashioned, prejudice against governmental intervention during a time where citizens could not fully help themselves (Freidel 208). For the time being, the citizens were going to have to trust in the government to guide them towards prosperity once again. Freidel argues that “the fate of the NRA,” and ultimately, the “power of the government to aid business in fighting the depression,” both depended upon the decision ruled in Schechter v. U.S.. Without a doubt, the NRA temporarily lessened economic woes, and without it, the economy could not progress. Little by little, government control was granted to compromise solutions for the struggling nation. Freidel provides us with pros and cons to the NRA regulations and convincing arguments from zealous supporters of either limited or expanded governmental control in the economy. Freidel convinced me that a good amount of qualified and good-natured governmental control could benefit the nation, especially during times of great distress. FDR persistently

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