SUPREME COURT: Grey Wigs

Like many others, eight men over 60, and one younger, have worked, played, thought this summer. Last week they met again at Washington for the first autumn sitting of the U. S. Supreme Court. Eight justices received scant press notice, but Chief Jus, tice William Howard Taft was, as usual, quizzed. Said a reporter: “How is Prohibition working out in Canada?” Answered the Chief Justice: “My dear boy, I have been out of politics a good many years, but I still know enough about politics to know what not to talk about.”

The others, likewise saying little, doing much, are in the order of their appointment: Oliver Wendell Holmes, 85, of Massachusetts—”a poetic turn of expression and a liberal cast of thought.” Willis Van Devanter, 67, of Wyoming—”a student not impractical, a scholar not pedantic.” James Clark McReynolds, 64, of Tennessee, a bachelor with few pleasures aside from work—”one of the most detached, most solitary, least wordly men now in public life.” Louis Dembitz Brandeis, 70, of Massachusetts, the only Jew who ever sat in the Supreme Court— “in his decisions the rights of property are likely to be subordinated to the rights of man.” George Sutherland, 64, of Utah— “the greatest Constitutional lawyer in the Senate.”—William Howard Taft. Pierce Butler, 60, of Minnesota, described by onetime opponents as— “ruthless, intolerant, forceful, impatient with all forms of progressive thought.” Edward Terry Sanford, 61, of Tennessee, golfer, cinema fan—”I would rather get a year in Judge Sanford’s court than go free in any other. . . .”—A onetime prisoner. Harlan Fiske Stone,— 54, of New York—”the deepest regret I have in seeing him advance to the Supreme Court bench is that he is leaving the Attorney General’s office, where I think he has been doing magnificent work.”—William E. Borah. And these estimable greywigs had reason to be twice pleased. First because due largely to their own regulations, the docket is reduced to about 640 cases at present. Among those near the top of the list Mal S. Daugherty’s case,+ Edwin L. Doheny’s oil lease appeal case, and those involving judicial construction of the Constitutional terms “free speech” and “free assembly” are of most interest to the lay public. And, again, they beamed benignly at the design for the New Supreme Court Building by the late Henry Bacon. Henry Bacon also designed the Lincoln Memorial, and his plans for the judicial, structure embodies the same stately simplicity and dignity as the marble tribute to the Great Emancipator. But this session the Court will sit in its historic little room in the middle of the Capitol.

—Justice Stone has a smart son, Marshall H. Stone, who received his Ph. D. from Harvard at 22 (1925). He likewise received the Sheldon Scholarship that same year, which took him to Paris, where he met Emmy M. Portmann, onetime Cleveland artist. Their engagement was announced last week. At present, Son Stone is an instructor in mathematics at Columbia, where his father was onetime (1910-24) Dean of the Law School. fMal S. Daugherty, brother of the one-time— (1921-24) Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty now on trial in Manhattan, has figured as an important witness in the present case, chiefly in presenting evidence detrimental to his brother’s interest. His (Brother Mai’s) case before the Supreme Court involves the issue whether or not the Senate has the right to force him to open his deposit books, etc., for the inspection of its inquisitorial agents. Since, at Manhattan it is allegedly stated these papers have been burned, the Supreme Court may declare Brother Mai’s case “moot,” hence beyond its jurisdiction.