Forgotten Justice

Fourteen years ago, President Warren Gamaliel Harding received a letter saying: "I shall be 65 years old the 18th of the month. For a long time I have promised what I think is my better self that at that age I would free myself as much as possible from imperative duties to the end that I may have time to read many books which I have not had time to read in a busy life, to travel and to serve my neighbors and some public causes. ... As a beginning ... I hereby resign."

The signature at the foot of the letter was one which no well-informed citizen would at that time have failed to recognize--John Hessin Clarke. Appointed by Woodrow Wilson six years prior, Mr. Clarke had distinguished himself as a liberal Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court by dissenting twice in the decisions by which the Supreme Court invalidated the Child Labor Acts. Of the present Court, only Justices Van Devanter, McReynolds and Brandeis can recall serving with that outspoken rugged individualistic bachelor Justice. Arch-conservative George Sutherland took his place. Everyone knew at the time of his retirement that one of the public causes which Mr. Clarke hoped to serve was the League of Nations, of which, defying tradition, he was an ardent partisan even before he left the Court. But as the League of Nations' issue passed out of the nation's consciousness, so did ex-Justice Clarke.

Startled therefore was many a citizen last week to hear that a onetime Justice of the Supreme Court had, at San Diego, Calif., publicly declared his confidence in 1) the Supreme Court, 2) the New Deal. It was John Hessin Clarke, now 79, still very much of his own opinion. Said he : "I can't bring myself to regard seriously the action of declaring a few Acts unconstitutional. The Dred Scott decision was reversed by the Civil War; the legal tender decision was reversed by the Court itself, and the income tax was declared unconstitutional in a five-to-four decision which was reversed by the people in an amendment to the Constitution. But the Court survives in full health and strength.

"The changing of the social outlook of our people is the greatest Roosevelt achievement. In 1932 our people were filled with despair. Today they are full of confidence and hope."

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