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Actually, Franklin Roosevelt had outsmarted not only the timid Republican minority but his own followers. His dispassionate tone, his modest admission of faults in NRA, his intimation that a constitutional amendment was not necessary were all mildly reasonable. He did not speak of making the Supreme Court keep step with New Deal aims but of bringing "legislative and judicial action into closer harmony." He did not demand, as he did in his horse & buggy declaration, that the Supreme Court swing into line, but said that the judiciary "is asked by the people to do its part in making democracy successful." His whole speech had the tenor of an appeal to the Court to put aside prejudices.
As an appeal to the judiciary it was hardly likely to carry much weight. The Justices of the Supreme Court have the Preamble and Article I of the Constitution already by heart. The Court long ago declared that the Preamble was only a declaration of pious hope conferring no power on the Federal Government. Furthermore, the particular subject matter, NRA, on which the President made his appeal, happened to be the one major New Deal project which no member of the Court, liberal or conservative, found constitutional. Thus the likelihood of a reversal is negligible.
But Franklin Roosevelt's appeal was the best possible preparation of the public for such a constitutional amendment or limitation of the Court's power as other New Dealers had hastily proposed. The political opportunity for taking such measures may well be an adverse decision on the Wagner Labor Relations Act or similar New Deal measures. The Court, however, must now dread taking such a step far more than if the President had taken a threatening tone. For now the Court itself rather than the President will appear to be forcing the issue. By his message to Congress Franklin Roosevelt outflanked the position of the Supreme Court. If and when it chooses to mop it up, the job will be three-quarters done.