JUDICIARY: The Big Debate

Monday, Mar. 01, 1937

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(8 of 8)

Three weeks ago as the guests left the State dining room after the dinner to the Judiciary, the President remained seated talking to Chief Justice Hughes and Justice Van Devanter. Senator Borah, catching sight of them, remarked, "That reminds me of the Roman Emperor who looked around his dinner table and began to laugh when he thought how many of those heads would be rolling on the morrow." It was not a pood simile, for it appeared last week that even if they should be proscribed, the members of the Supreme Court intended to keep their heads.

^{*Excerpt from the Farewell Address: "If, in the opinion
of the people, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional
powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an Amendment
in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no
change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the
instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free
Governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly
overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which
the use can at any time yield."
*First was John Rutledge, whose second appointment in 1795 the Senate
refused to confirm.
†Last Saturday night they dined at the Soviet Embassy. At table, the
Chief Justice, in excellent form, chatted volubly with Mme Troyanovsky.
Afterwards he had a more serious tête-á-tête with one of the guests,
Senator Tom Connally (an opponent of the President's Court plan).}