TLS, one page, 7.25 x 9, United States Senate letterhead, May 11, 1937. Letter to Joseph Leib, president and organizer of the First Roosevelt for President Club, in part: "Replying to your form letter of May Eleventh, regarding the proposed reorganization of the Courts of the country, I am pleased of course to have your views, even if I do think they are all wrong. Personally I am very certain that you have not spent a great deal of time studying the matter or it would not cause you so much worry." Nicely double-matted and framed to an overall size of 15 x 17. In very good to fine condition, with a few short edge tears. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937—controversial legislation that, in part, would have granted the chief executive power to appoint additional associate justices to the US Supreme Court. FDR planned on 'stacking' the high court with men supportive of his New Deal programs stalled in Congress. As FDR did not consult Congressional leaders before proposing the plan, representatives refused to endorse the bill. As an additional measure to circumvent this obstacle, the administration arranged for the bill to be first taken up in the Senate. In weighing the bill, Senator Truman said: 'I'm inclined now to support the President, but I am going to become thoroughly informed before I decide. I can't see that a little new blood in the court would hurt the country.' On July 22, 1937, the Senate voted to return the judicial reform bill to the Judiciary Committee and strip it of its court-packing provisions. Truman was one of just 18 Democrats to vote against recommitting the bill, which eventually died in committee. Provenance: from the estate of Senator Carl Levin. A lifelong Democrat, ardent advocate for civil rights, and staple of the United States Senate from 1979 to 2015, Senator Levin was also a longtime client of RR Auction. As a collector, he favored his political heroes—Harry S. Truman, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr.—as well as those figures emblematic of the American spirit, like Robert Frost, Joe Louis, and Helen Keller.
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