Felix Frankfurter

“ Appellant asks us to reject the judgment of the joint legislative committee, of the Governor, and of the Legislature, that the public welfare, in the circumstances of New York conditions, requires the suspension of mortgage foreclosures for another year. On the basis of expert opinion, documentary evidence, and economic arguments of which we are to take judicial notice, it urges such a change in economic and financial affairs in New York as to deprive of all justification the determination of New York's legislature of what New York's welfare requires. ”

“ The New York Legislature was advised by those having special responsibility to inform it that 'the sudden termination of the legislation which has dammed up normal liquidation of these mortgages for more than eight years might well result in an emergency more acute than that which the original legislation was intended to alleviate.' New York Legislative Document (1942) No. 45, p. 25. It would indeed be strange if there were anything in the Constitution of the United States which denied the State the power to safeguard its people against such dangers. There is nothing. ”

“ Kavanaugh, 295 U.S. 56, 60, 55 S.Ct. 555, 557, 79 L.Ed. 1298, 97 A.L.R. 905, here there was no 'studied indifference to the interests of the mortgagee or to his appropriate protection.' Here the Legislature was not even acting merely upon the pooled general knowledge of its members. The whole course of the New York moratorium legislation shows the empiric process of legislation at its fairest: frequent reconsideration, intensive study of the consequences of what has been done, readjustment to changing conditions, and safeguarding the future on the basis of responsible forecasts. ”