JUDICIARY: The Big Debate

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That statement was made 30 years ago when Mr. Hughes was serving his first term as Governor of New York and the sense of it in its context was: Since the interpretation of the Constitution falls upon the courts, to get an honest interpretation the Judiciary must be kept independent of political influence. He said: "I reckon him one of the worst enemies of the community who will talk lightly of the dignity of the bench. We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the Judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution. I do not want to see any direct assault upon the courts, nor do I want to see any indirect assaults upon the courts."

The truth is that his fellow citizens have had to revise their opinion of Mr. Hughes many times over. When he was a young lawyer in Manhattan 50 years ago he led the Men's Bible Class of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, a job which he subsequently gave over to John D. Rockefeller Jr., but it was as a reformer that he first caught the public eye, as an inquisitor who with extraordinary ability exposed skulduggery in the gas and insurance businesses. It was in that role, sometimes referred to as "Charles the Baptist," that he ran for Governor in 1906, and beat William Randolph Hearst.

In the snowstorm of March 4, 1909, at the inaugural of William Howard Taft, Governor Hughes was a fine figure riding down Pennsylvania Avenue on a white horse, with snowflakes bombarding his red whiskers. A year later Taft named him to the Supreme Court but the chill of that day seemed to stick in his bones. When 20 years later he was again nominated for the Supreme Court—the second man twice appointed to it*—he was quite a different figure. He had left the Court in 1916 to campaign unsuccessfully against Woodrow Wilson, a campaign in which he was called "The Human Icicle" and "The Animated Feather Duster." He had served as Secretary of State to the unfortunate Mr. Harding and the curt Mr. Coolidge, had achieved a genuine-diplomatic triumph—the 5-5-3 naval limitation treaty which for over a decade put a stop to the competitive building of warships. He had also won himself the Washington title of "Chilly Charlie." And he had quit statecraft to hire out his admirable talents as a lawyer to those whom liberals most dislike: great corporations. Liberals could not forgive him that even though he had in 1920 hired out the same talents to John L. Lewis, William Green and other officials of the United Mine Workers to defend them when they were charged with conspiracy to prevent the mining of coal.