There were only hours to go before there was a forced vote on an illegal change in Senate rules orchestrated by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Vice President Dick Cheney (in his rarely occupied seat as the President of the Senate), whose purpose was to overturn the U.S. Constitution, by breaking the Senate's unique power to impose checks and balances against an out-of-control Presidency. But a bipartisan group of 14 Senators—seven Democrats and seven Republicans—led by Senate veterans Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and John Warner (R-Va.), announced that they had reached an agreement that would prevent Cheney and Frist from carrying out their unconstitutional "nuclear option." Two additional members of the Senate, Daniel Innoye (D-Hi.) and Lincoln Chaffee (R-R.I.), were not present at the press conference, but were signators to the negotiated agreement. (See Documentation for the text of the press conference and the full agreement.)

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Latest From LaRouche

WE'RE NOW AT THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

Here are Lyndon LaRouche's remarks to the EIR Staff in Wiesbaden, Germany, on May 23. An extended discussion followed, a small part of which follows LaRouche's opening statement.

Europeans are used to parliamentary systems; and when they talk about the U.S. Congress, they talk about parliament; when they talk about U.S. politics, they talk about parliamentary systems. The United States system is a republic, it is not a parliamentary system. It's a unique kind of a republic. There's nothing like it, anywhere else in the world.

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This Week in History

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May 30 - June 5, 1937

FDR's Plan for National Infrastructure Development

On June 3, 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt recommended to Congress that it pass legislation providing for Federal planning and development of the nation's natural resources, and that this comprehensive effort be coordinated by seven regional authorities. This was not a mere academic proposal for better administration—it was part of Roosevelt's knock-down-drag-out fight in 1937 against the Tory faction, which wanted to stop the New Deal programs and go back to laissez-faire, free trade, and unregulated speculation.

Although Roosevelt had been reelected in 1936 by a large margin, the international speculators and financiers moved quickly to counter the economic programs that were bringing America out of the Great Depression. Roosevelt could see the warning signs early in the year. During a White House press conference on April 2, he announced the fact that the prices of raw materials had gone up too high, threatening the large, long-term infrastructure projects, such as bridges and concrete dams, that the government was building.

Roosevelt particularly cited the price rises in cement, steel, and copper. "I am concerned—we are all concerned—over the price rise in certain materials that go into durable goods primarily. For example, we all know that there are a great many mines in this country—copper mines that can turn out copper at a profit at five and six cents. Even the high-priced mines, like Anaconda, can probably make a profit at eight and nine cents. Yet today copper is selling at 17 cents or more, pushing up thereby the prices of all kinds of articles into which copper enters, and of course it does enter into a very, very large field of articles of all kinds."

Roosevelt also cited the $6 a ton increase in steel prices. When asked by the press if the price increases were far above what they should have been, Roosevelt answered: "I think that the price increase of ordinary steel was much larger than was justified by the increase in the pay of the workers; it was probably somewhere between twice and three times the amount that went to the workers."

Compounding the problem that massive profit-taking and speculation on raw materials was driving up the cost of building needed infrastructure, was the fact that Treasury Secretary Morgenthau was pressuring Roosevelt to cut funds to the Public Works Administration. Morgenthau justified the cuts by pointing to the industrial production index published by the New York Times, which had risen to 110, and therefore supposedly indicated that large infrastructural projects were no longer needed. He was wrong, and the cuts resulted in an economic collapse and spiraling unemployment.

The opposition to the New Deal, an opposition of such ferocity that it would even wittingly cause another collapse, was made up of oligarchical interests who knew Roosevelt's policies were the death knell of their beloved feudal system. One Roosevelt thrust that drove them to frenzy was his May 24, 1937 proposal for legislation establishing minimum wages and maximum hours.

In his proposal to Congress, Roosevelt wrote that "to protect the fundamental interests of free labor and a free people we propose that only goods which have been produced under conditions which meet the minimum standards of free labor shall be admitted to interstate commerce. Goods produced under conditions which do not meet rudimentary standards of decency should be regarded as contraband and ought not to be allowed to pollute the channels of interstate trade."

One of the rudimentary standards of decency involved not using child labor. In 1918, the Supreme Court, with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes writing the dissenting opinion, had invalidated a statute prohibiting the interstate shipment of goods made by child labor, under conditions considered sub-standard by the Congress of that day. As Roosevelt later wrote, it was not until 1941 that the Supreme Court overturned that decision. "It has established the power of the Congress to outlaw child labor and the chiseling of workers' wages, and the stretching of workers' hours beyond modern American standards.

"There has been established at last the definite principle, which is essential to any self-respecting democracy, that the Congress has the right to impose decent standards of wages and hours in any factory which manufactures merchandise passing through the channels of commerce from one State to another. In this way, backward States, which are willing to permit their children to work instead of going to school, and are willing to subject helpless labor to intolerable working hours and starvation wages, will not be permitted to send their merchandise into other more enlightened States, which are willing to respect the minimum standards of a free laboring class."

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