The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1921-05-20
Member Of The Associated Press
CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE

Still waters run deep, says the proverb The
men who are forging the future with Titan blows
work far from the grandstand. Chief Justice Ed
ward Douglas White whose death occurred at
Washington Thursday morning, in the seventy
sixth year of his age, was not by any means work
ing in obscurity; yet the Importance and durability
of his service so far ouweg hed the noise of It's
achievement that it Is hardly extravagane to visual
lie him as one Of the subtenanean forces which
shaped the course of the earth by unseen efforts. =
Almost any sort of senator, half baked am
bassador, a Whitc-Fous attache who only needs
cap and bells to carry out the deluson created by
his appearance. can make more noise in week
than a Chief Justice makes in a lifetime; but
Hundred years hence what the Chief Justice says
will be law while what the noisy funchonary
shouts will have been forgotten ninety nine years
and fifty weeks.
Chief Justice White was the biggest man in
Washington at the time of his death. He ranked
his Office with that of president of the United
States, which was modest, indeed, considering we
have never had FIVE presidents who measured up
learning, and intellectual ability which made him
one of the greatest justices who ever sat in The seat
of Marshall.
His character as a man deserves first consider
alton. He was morally and intellectually honest
Before him the truth always doomed as the only
goal worth pursuing. 1t was this quality which
won for him the recogHiticraof Grover Cleveland,
a possessor of some of the same rugged quality,
who appointed him to the position of Associate
Justice. And when President Taft, after sub
hitting two Republican nominations from New
York State for the position Of Chief Justice, and
seeing them both rejected, turned almost in despair
to the Democratic justice from the state of Lous-
ana and handed his name TO the Senate, he was
astonished to see it confirmed within an hour.
Justice Whites legal attainments were amazing
Packed in pondcrous Uranium, like wares in a
we-hlled store he had almost every legal prin-
ciple, precedent dictum, maxim and argument re-
lating 10 the civil law fled away so carefully and
orderly that he could summon it up, apply it to
the in hand, and announce his decision before
the ordinary Judge finished consulting his card in
him in action year after year declare they never
saw him reach bottom in any sounding of his
mind for legal lore.
The Importance of his work was commensurate
with his ability. Some of the most important
statutes ever passed by Congress came before him
for review. Most of The antitrust laws, the later
laws regulating interstate commerce, the various
emergency statutes passed at the beginning of the
world war the seventeenth and eighteenth CON
stitutional amendments arc only few of the
great measures which were hammered into
Judicial shape either by him or by his colleagues
under his watohu eye. 10 enumcrate the notable
court Gases with which his name is associated
would be to review the judicial history Of the coun-
try for the last three decades
He was disciple Of MarshaIl-lhat !, 10 say.
he took the same view CT the federal government.
and his decisions continued the tendencies toward
federalism which were started under the regime of
the great Vnginian. As to this general tendency.
there is now, and perhaps always will be, sharp