Kayle, Milton

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Duquesne Law Review Volume 41 Number 4 President Truman and the Steel Seizure Case: A Symposium Article 10 2003 A View from the Inside: Working with President Truman on the Steel Seizure Case Milton Kayle Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/dlr  Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Milton Kayle, A View from the Inside: Working with President Truman on the Steel Seizure Case, 41 Duq. L. Rev. 751 (2003). Available at: https://dsc.duq.edu/dlr/vol41/iss4/10 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Duquesne Law Review by an authorized editor of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. A View From the Inside: Working With PresidentTruman on the Steel Seizure CaseMilton Kayle, Esq. *When President Harry Truman left the White House in 1953,his approval rating was under 30 percent, reflecting the public'snegative reaction to conditions prevailing at that time. Forty-seven year later, in a C-Span survey of fifty-seven historians re-garding presidential leadership, Harry Truman ranked fifth be-hind Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, George Washingtonand Theodore Roosevelt, in that order. This confirms that onlywith the passage of time should one seek to evaluate the legacy ofa President of the United States.How fortunate, therefore, that the Duquesne University Schoolof Law decided to undertake a 50-year retrospective dealing withPresident Truman and the Steel Seizure case. It has affordedthose of us who played some part in the event the opportunity togo on record regarding that participation. It has also allowed us topresent observations and insights that will be available in review-ing President Truman's role in the steel seizure episode. Indeed,thanks to this retrospective study, we too have had the benefit oftime in reassessing the events leading to this judicial challenge ofpresidential authority.As a lawyer, I worked for President Truman during the finaltwo years of his administration, with the title of Special Assistantin the White House Office. I reported to two men, Charles Mur-phy, the President's Counsel, and Dave Stowe, an AdministrativeAssistant with primary responsibilities in the labor field. Both ofthese men would participate in the early morning Oval Office staffmeeting during which the President would discuss the events ofthe day and give assignments to the staff members. He would, inturn, be briefed on matters of immediate concern by those present.In other words, Harry Truman was very much a hands-on presi-dent.* Milton Kayle served as a Special Assistant to President Truman during theSteel Seizure case.Duquesne Law ReviewAs Ken Hechler pointed out in the Panel discussions, PresidentTruman, an avid reader of history in his youth, brought to his of-fice a profound knowledge of, and respect for, the office of thepresidency. Consequently, the attribution to him of demeaningthat office by his conduct in the steel seizure case, as alleged bysome of his critics, flies in the face of reality.One aspect of the panel's presentation that was of particular in-terest to me was Chief Justice Rehnquist's observation that theSupreme Court in 1952 was affected by public opinion in decidingto entertain cases presented for its consideration. How ironic itwas, therefore, that the very steps being taken by the Administra-tion to contain the potential crisis in steel production would onlyadd fuel to the fire of negative publicity being organized and pro-moted by industry.In our panel discussions, David Feller, who had served as a un-ion lawyer, pointed out that this controversy was not basically alabor dispute. It was a contest over the price of steel, which ifgranted in the amount sought by industry, would have under-mined the economic stabilization program then in effect. More-over, there were other conditions prevailing at the time of the sei-zure that were bound to have a negative effect on public opinion.These included the reckless charges by Senator McCarthy ofcommunism in the government and allegations of petty graft onthe part of the White House personnel. In addition, as a conse-quence of President Truman's efforts to rid the Internal RevenueSystem of corruption in its regional offices, already receiving widecoverage in the press, the Justice Department, which had the re-sponsibility of enforcing the law, was being run by an Acting At-torney General. Finally, the public was weary of price and widecontrols reimposed during the Korean War after the long period ofsimilar regulation in World War II. All of these circumstanceswould only enhance the likelihood that the Supreme Court wouldentertain the case on an accelerated basis, which indeed proved tobe the case.There is another reason to welcome the advent of the Steel Sei-zure Retrospective. It has enabled us to make clear that the ad-ministration's objective at the outset was to let industry know thatit could not sit back in reliance on the government's need to invokethe emergency provisions of the Taft Hartley Act or other statu-tory seizure provisions with their complicated and indecisive en-forcement consequences. While we were aware of the possibility ofa negative decision by the Supreme Court if the case were to reach752 Vol. 41A View From the Insidethat level, there was a good chance that in the industry's pursuitof injunctive relief, the issue of the constitutional basis of the gov-ernment's action in the first instance would not be raised. How-ever, if the matter did reach the Supreme Court, the Presidentand key members of the White House staff felt the governmentwould prevail.In fact, I sent a memorandum to Dave Stowe on April 1, 1952,which pointed out the questionable legal basis of seizure. Clearlythe President and his advisors had been made aware of a possibleadverse ruling by the Supreme Court. However, none of us couldhave predicted the negative developments that took place in JudgeDavid Pine's Federal District Court where industry sought injunc-tive relief against the seizure.In the first place, cases of this nature are usually decided onthe principles of equitable jurisprudence in which there is a bal-ancing of interests, consequently there was no need to raise theissue of the merits of the case. Here the damage to the public in-terest in the cessation of steel production during the Korean Warfar outweighed the potential monetary losses to the industry.Those losses could be readily ascertained by the maintenance ofseparate books of records while management continued daily op-eration of the steel mills. Certainly the government could havereimbursed the industry for any losses alleged to have been sus-tained.Unfortunately for the government, developments in JudgePine's court proved disastrous. Holmes Baldridge, Assistant At-torney General in charge of the Claims Division, initially made themistake of emphasizing in his brief the President's inherent con-stitutional power to seize private property in times of nationalemergency. He compounded this misadventure by claiming in oralargument that there was no power in the courts to restrain thePresident's exercise of this power, which could only be challenged"by the ballot box and impeachment." He literally goaded thejudge into ruling on the merits and raising the constitutional lawissue, much to the surprise and delight of industry lawyers, asconfirmed by Stanley Temko, the industry attorney who was afellow member of our panel. In taking this action, Judge Pine alsofailed to follow the traditional judicial practice of avoiding litiga-tion on any constitutional law question, if at all possible. In sum,the developments in Judge Pine's court virtually guaranteed apursuit by industry to the highest courts on the fastest track pos-sible.Summer 2003 753Duquesne Law ReviewOne other aspect of the Steel Retrospective merits considerationbecause it confirmed how close we came to settling this contro-versy without a final resolution by a Supreme Court ruling.As Dave Feller pointed out in the panel discussions, after losingin Judge Pine's court, the government went to the Court of Ap-peals to ask for a stay of the District Court's order granting theinjunction. The Court of Appeals, in turn, reversed Judge Pine'sdecision, and in doing so, refused to enjoin the Secretary of Com-merce from making any changes in hours or wages. Following thisruling, the President called the parties to the White House andclaimed the Secretary was going to make changes that neitherparty would like. This caused the parties to start negotiating, andin due course, Arthur Goldberg, counsel to the union, authorizedFeller to begin drafting the settlement documents. However,when word came down that the Supreme Court had granted in-dustry's petition for certiorari, in which the government was pre-vented from making changes in terms and conditions of employ-ment, industry no longer had any incentive to continue with thesettlement negotiations. But for that speedy intervention by theSupreme Court, the Steel Retrospective would never have takenplace!As Ken Gormley, a professor at Duquesne University School ofLaw, observed in our panel discussion, historians like to say thatPresident Truman got bad advice from his advisors in the steelcase. Moreover, President Truman's major biographers criticizehim for acting either recklessly, impulsively or without sound rea-soning in his handling of the steel production crisis. Also, some ofthem either ignore the crucial developments that took place inJudge Pine's court or fail to recognize the key role Judge Pineplayed in causing this constitutional challenge.I submit that these characterizations of President Truman'sconduct do not do justice to the personal qualities he brought tothe office and his methods of operation in meeting his presidentialresponsibilities. In addition, these critics of the President fail toacknowledge the government's plan of action that might well haveavoided the constitutional challenge.President Truman's role in this epic struggle will not be listedas one of his major achievements during his term of office. How-ever, the Steel Retrospective has enabled us to amplify the recordof this handling of this crisis. Such being the case, historians inthe future may well find reason to list this episode on the positive,754 Vol. 41Summer 2003 A View From the Inside 755rather than the negative side of the ledger of the presidency ofHarry S. Truman.

A View from the Inside: Working with President Truman on the Steel Seizure Case

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A View from the Inside: Working with President Truman on the Steel Seizure Case

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