Judges: Interpreter in the Front Line

(10 of 10)
he says. "They can't sell 'em."

One of Johnson's rare lapses into the luxury of legal lecturing comes each May 1—declared Law Day by President Eisenhower in 1958. Johnson regularly schedules naturalization ceremonies for that day to emphasize the supremacy of the law. Last week Johnson assembled 41 new Americans in his Montgomery courtroom to make points not only about the law in general, but about the law as it pertains specifically to the Alabama and the U.S. of 1967.

"It is necessary," he said, "now more than ever, that the responsible American citizen realize and discharge his obligation constantly to support and defend the proposition that our law is supreme and must be obeyed. This means that irresponsible criticism—by those who can hardly read the Constitution, much less study it and interpret it—must not be allowed to stand unchallenged.

"When those who frustrate the law, who undermine judicial decisions, run riot and provide uncurbed leadership for a return to nothing more than medieval savagery, for the responsible American citizen to remain silent is tantamount to cowardice; it is a grievous injustice to the proposition that in America the law is supreme."

On or off the bench, Judge Johnson has rarely been silent.