The Holbrook news., 1910-09-16

modern thought, the late chief justice well illustrated the purpose of the bench by listening to the reasonable arguments of lawyers better versed at the outset than he, and before the end of his judicial career was found in the Supreme court record revers- ing the applied principles of law which he brought with him to Wash ington. By many astute lawyers this Is regarded as one of the most striking examples of the largeness of the judi cial mind of the late chief justice.
 Combined with these judicial func- tions great administrative ability is required of the chief justice of the Su- preme court. This quality Chief Jus tice Fuller possessed in great degree.
 Few, if any, complaints have ever been made during his administration as presiding officer of the ourt that the wheels of justice of the highest tribunal of the land were turning too slowly or unevenly. Behind the out ward manifestation of the courtly gen. tlenIan and his mild-mannered voice, which in recent years has been al most inaudible to those seated on the edge of the court room, was a tre- merdous force of character and keen sense of justice and capability for hard and persistent work wholly out of proportion with his years.
 Justice Fuller never pretended to voice the opinions of any one but him self and had no liking for the lime light. His position in Washington made it possible for him to fix his so- cial status where he willed. He had no liking whatever for anything smacking of ostentatious display. On and off the bench he was the personi- fcation of judicial dignity He pos sessed a sense of humor which he em- ployed quietly and with effect. The subjects of his conversation were full of substance, scholarly and profound and rich in wisdom.
 It was Justice Fuller who practically settled the fate of the Roosevelt propaganda for phonetic spelling. At the time when congress was daily re- ceiving messages from the White House spelled in the new form of or biography and when the house of rep resentatives was trying to nerve itself to the point of putting a quietus on this new system Justice Fuller quietly squelched its use in the Supreme court At that time the government printing office, under orders from President Roosevelt, was printing all documents for the executive depart ments, including the department of justice, in phonetic spelling sThis in- cluded briefs which were submitted to the Supreme court In a land case presented to the court Solicitor Gen. eral Henry M. Hoyt offered one of these briefs. In glancing through it hastily Chief Justice Fuller espied a quotation from an opinion rendered by former Associate Justice Bradley, in which the word through" was spelled thru"
 Did I understand you to say that this purports to be a literal quotation from the opinion of Justice Bradley?" inquired the chief justice.
 It was not necessary for him to say more. MT. Hoyt realized from this in- quiry that phonetic spelling would not be tolerated by the Supreme court, and that serious blunder had been made in changing the spelling used by former member of that court. He promptly and quietly informed the court that there would be no repeti- tion of the offense. That ended pho netic spelling in the third coordinate branch of the government, and short ly thereafter congress itself limited its use to correspondence between the ex- ecut.ve departments.
 With other members of the court, Justice Fuller had an abhorrence for those who used it's decisions as a 7e-