Homer Cummings (1939), edited by Carl B. Swisher, supplemented the history. Cummings served as the chief protector of New Deal programs. During his first week as attorney general, he advised Roosevelt that the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 permitted the president to close banks and regulate gold hoarding and export. Cummings personally argued the right of the government to ban gold payments before the U.S. Supreme Court and won the "gold clause" cases. But, during 1935–1936, the Court overthrew eight key New Deal statutes, including the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). Frustration over the conservative nature of the Court, coupled with outrage over the proliferation of lawsuits and injunctions against the government, made Cummings eager to expand the judiciary. After the 1936 Presidential election, Roosevelt instructed him to draft legislation for court reform. Neither man wanted to attempt to amend the Constitution. Conservative Justice James McReynolds had proposed to add a judge for every judge who refused to retire at age seventy at full pay. Such a measure might give the president the opportunity to appoint fifty new judges, including six to the Supreme Court. Roosevelt launched the proposal, prepared secretly by Cummings, on February 5, 1937. The ensuing uproar over the "court-packing plan" helped kill the bill after 168 days; the Senate returned it to committee. (Of the so-called "four horsemen" of the US Supreme Court who consistently opposed the New Deal: Van Devanter resigned May 18, 1937; Sutherland resigned January 17, 1938; Butler died November 16, 1939; and McReynolds resigned January 31, 1941.) Cummings retired on January 2, 1939, entering private law practice in Washington. He helped develop a spring golf tournament that annually brought executives, lawyers, and politicians together. He also retained his interest in the Connecticut Democratic party, along with a residence in Greenwich, Connecticut. He served on the Greenwich Town Committee until 1951. Cummings's papers are held at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. Representation in other media In 1961, character actor Robert F. Simon appeared as Cummings in an episode of ABC's crime drama, The Untouchables. References External links |- |- |- 1870 births 1956 deaths 20th-century American politicians American Congregationalists Connecticut Democrats Connecticut lawyers Democratic National Committee chairs Franklin D. Roosevelt administration cabinet members Lawyers from Chicago Mayors of Stamford, Connecticut People from Greenwich, Connecticut United States Attorneys