The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-02-10
From the Philadelphia Record.

bers of the supreme court of the United
States are half sorry and half glad as
they read the scathing criticisms on the
speech which Mr.. Justice Brewer made
at the dinner of the Yale Alumni Asso-
citation in Boston last week. They are, of
course, sorry to have the supreme court
brought, as it were, under condemnation
by the act of one of its members but
they are glad to have that member feel
the lash of the critics The fact is, they
do not like the frivolous tone of the after
dinner speeches which Mr.. Justice Brew
er makes, to say nothing of his fun.
Justice Brewer and Justice Brown,
two Of the republican appointees of the
last administration, Justice Shiras being
the third, have been entirely too witty in
their after-dinner speeches ever since
they came to Washington to please their
seniors on the bench At club dinners,
alumni banquets and on other occasions,
when their speeches were certain TO be
reported in the newspapers, these terri
Bile infants have not scrupled to make fun
of all sorts of people and things, includ-
ing even the supreme court itself, which
had hitherto been held sacred even by
the most facetious after-dinner speakers.
With that breezy disregard for precedent
which is supposed to characterize the
men of the west, from whence they came,
Judge Brewer and Judge Brown have set
the table in roar by cracking Jokes on
the supreme bench, just as though it were
not the most dignihed, solemn and i'm
pressive tribunal in the world.
Leave the hustling, busting House of
Representatives any afternoon and walk
through the noisy corridor TO the supreme
court, go in through the doors silently
opened by grave and gray-haired colored
men, and you find yourself at once in an
atmosphere of calm, order and dignity,
which seems of another century. You sit
down on the red-cushioned benches, and
look up at the row of black gowned
judges, sitting so solemnly listening to the
quiet tones of the lawyer addressing
them, almost with a feeling of awe. There
is no other place in Washington which
impresses you as this does.
THEY LOOK LIKE GRAVITY ITSELF.
The members Of the court look as II
they never cracked a smile, much less a
Joke, and as though they would not toll
crate the jests of others. If you happen
to see them marching in single file across
the corridor from the consultation and
rObing rooms into the hall that leads to
the court room, each in his ample be-
frilled, stiff, black, satin gown, looking
straight ahead of him as he slowly steps
with stately tread, while the colored
servitors of the court hold velvet ropes
from wall to wall, SO as to protect the
procession from the vulgar throng, you
would think that joke in their hands
would be no laughing matter.
Then if you knew the traditions of the
court, handed down from generation to
generation, as to its personal and official
dignity, its conventional customs cover
ing not only its methods of hearing argu-
ments, considering cases, preparing opin-
ions, and announcing decisions but the
social duties of its members-how they
shall entertain and be entertained, and so
on-you would be as much shocked, 1 am
sure, by the levity in public OF its junior
members as any of their seniors can be-
Levity in private is, of course, different
matter, and has always been permitted,
if not encouraged, by members of court
some of whom in the past have been great
wits and others great wags. But while mem
hers of the court, like many of their breth-
rem at the bar, have been fond of hearing
and telling stories, jests and Jokes, and
have even INDUCED in practical jokes on
each other it was always understood
among them that all this sort of thing
must be done only in private, and that
whenever they appeared in public they
must maintain that gravity of demeanor
which characterized their appearance on
the bench. They would as soon have
brought the QuarrelS of the consultation
room, and it has witnessed many sharp
one, before the public in the court room
as to air their wit and humor in the pub
lie ear.
Imagine the feelings of the older mem
bers of the court, to whom all these ven
cradle ideas are so precious, when they
read in their morning paper, as for ex-
ample they did one day last month, that
at banquet the night before Mr.. Justice
Brewer, as toast master, had made all
sorts of funny remarks, including some
at the expense of his place on the bench,
and that Mr.. Justice Brown, in the course
of humorous speech, used such language
as this: Il spent my first six months on
the supreme court wondering how / got
there-l spent the next six months won
dering how Brewer got there, and I've
spent the time since in wondering how
the others got there"
JUSTICE FIELD SHOCKED.
That serious Judge of the old school,
Mr.. Justice Stephen j. Field, the father
of the supreme court, must writhe in
agony at such irreverent doings; and some
of the younger men on the bench, however
they might enjoy such witticisms in pri-
vate, are almost as much panied when
they are gotten off in public. They feel
that in soule sense the services of the
blindfolded goddess, who is sometimes
taken for Fortune rather than Justice,
has been brought IN disrespect, if not dis
honor, by these silly sayings, and that the
men who utter them deserve to be pun
ished, and the more severely because they
are ministers in the temple of justice. II
is none of their business, they hold, to
promote the gaiety of nations, but, on
the contrary, it is their business TO appear
to nations in general, and this nation in
particular, as grand, gloomy and peculiar
persons.
They cannot themselves very well dis
cipline their offending members publicly,
however much they may demonstrate
with them privately. Hence, their gratifi-
cation, as they see Mr. Justice Brewer
under castigation in the newspapers for
alluding in his speech before the Yale
alumni, at Boston, TO the former President
of the United States as the husband of
Mrs. Hayes" They hope this will be a
lesson to the young man (who, after all
is 81 years old, so that in future he will
keep his funny sayings for private con
sumption.
JUSTICE FIELDS NEPHEW.
Justice Brewer is a very interesting
man. AS everybody knows, he is a
nephew of Justice Field, who was active
in promoting his appointment to the
bench. He is the son, he says in his au-
photography in the Congressional Direct
DRY, "of Rev. Josiah Brewer, and Amelia
A. Field, sister of David Dudley, Cyrus