Good morning, Whitewater.
Friday in town will be mostly cloudy with a high of twenty-eight. Sunrise is 7:04 and sunset 5:13, for 10h 09m 15s of daytime. The moon is a a waning crescent with 1.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1937, Pres. Roosevelt announces a judicial plan that comes to be seen as court-packing, and falls ultimately to a policy of ‘No haste, no hurry, no waste, no worry’:
The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937[1] (frequently called the “court-packing plan”)[2] was a legislative initiative proposed by U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Roosevelt’s purpose was to obtain favorable rulings regarding New Deallegislation that the court had ruled unconstitutional.[3] The central provision of the bill would have granted the President power to appoint an additional Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, up to a maximum of six, for every member of the court over the age of 70 years and 6 months….
Roosevelt’s legislative initiative ultimately failed. The bill was held up in the Senate Judiciary Committee by Democrat committee chair Henry F. Ashurst, who delayed hearings in the Judiciary Committee, saying “No haste, no hurry, no waste, no worry—that is the motto of this committee.”[12] As a result of his delaying efforts, the bill was held in committee for 165 days, and opponents of the bill credited Ashurst as instrumental in its defeat.[5] The bill was further undermined by the untimely death of its chief advocate in the U.S. Senate, Senate Majority LeaderJoseph T. Robinson. Contemporary observers broadly viewed Roosevelt’s initiative as political maneuvering. Its failure exposed the limits of Roosevelt’s abilities to push forward legislation through direct public appeal. The public perception of his efforts here was in stark contrast to the reception of his legislative efforts during his first term.[13][14] Roosevelt ultimately prevailed in establishing a majority on the court friendly to his New Deal legislation, though some scholars view Roosevelt’s victory as Pyrrhic.[14]
On this day in 1849, a university opens:
On this day in 1849 the University of Wisconsin began with 20 students led by Professor John W. Sterling. The first class was organized as a preparatory school in the first department of the University: a department of science, literature, and the arts. The university was initially housed at the Madison Female Academy building, which had been provided free of charge by the city. The course of study was English grammar; arithmetic; ancient and modern geography; elements of history; algebra; Caesar’s Commentaries; the Aeneid of Virgil (six books); Sallust; select orations of Cicero; Greek; the Anabasis of Xenophon; antiquities of Greece and Rome; penmanship, reading, composition and declamation. Also offered were book-keeping, geometry, and surveying. Tuition was “twenty dollars per scholar, per annum.” For a detailed recollection of early UW-Madison life, see the memoirs of Mrs. W.F. Allen [Source:History of the University of Wisconsin, Reuben Gold Thwaites, 1900]
JigZone ends the week with a puzzle entitled, Green Hose: