Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-12
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Well, the farm bloc oughtn't to strew
any thorns In the path Of owen J. Rob-
erts' confirmation, anyhow. President
Hoover's latest nominee for the Supreme
Court is a sure-enough dirt farmer. At
Phoenixville, outside Of Philadelphia, in
the prettiest part of the Schuylkill VAL
ley, Mr.. Roberts owns and works q plot
Of several hundred acres. Ever and
anon he labors on them with his own
hands. Next to pleading before a fury,
farming Is his pet occupation. If he
makes" the Supreme Court through the
advice and consent of the Senate, as
nearly everybody thinks he's sure to do,
Phoenixville is likely to be Justice
Roberts Rapidan.
It is as q trial lawyer that the Phila-
delphian has shone at the bar. For the
past 10 years he has been In constant
demand by big firms all over the East,
which, having built up case before its
day in court, were anxious to engage
Roberts to conduct it before bench and
jury. Like Hughes, Roberts Is surren-
dertng colossal income at the bar to
attain the blue ribbon of his profession.
His friends estimate that he has been
amasSing q fortune in recent times at
the rate Of anywhere from 100000 to
$4,000 year. So Roberts becomes
the latest Of the Hoover new patriots"
beguiled into Federal service at the cost
Of relinquishing fat private incomes.
X
George w. wickersham, chairman
Of the National Law Enforcement Com
mission, assumes responsibility for the
only known expression of Hoover
1va;A -. d. AGA
Senate. when the President heard
other day." according to Mr.. Wicker
sham, his first ejaculation was, Well,
he doesn't have to be confirmed by the
Senate, anyhow!'" The law enforce
ment chief sprang the White House
wisecrack at last Saturday nights BAN
quet Of the American Law Institute,
over which he presided.
With half o dozen State Supreme
Court justices at the speakers table
of the Law Institute feast, and a score
of other Federal and State judges scat
tered throughout the room, 1t was no
at the Senate evoked filters of ap-
proval. Former Senator Pepper Of
Pennsylvania made several jabs at the
chamber he briefly adorned. In the
course of his scholarly address on the
restatement of the law, Pepper dis
closed to the amusement Of his hearers
that the Emperor Justinian, in 528
AID, beat Herbert Hoover to 1t by
IA centuries in the field Of commits
sions. The immortal Justinian code.
Pepper told, was the work of COM
mission of lawyers and scholars who
produced 80 perfect project after only
IA months elaboration that Justinian
by the stroke of his pen made 1t the
law. Pepper, deploring the lack of any
efficient central authority" in America
qualified to recast the legal code, said
that it staggers the imagination to
fancy how long Congress would mill
over q matter the Justinian commission
tackled in q year end two months.
If President Hoover carries out his
plan TO swing around the circle this
Summer and find out at first hand
IN his stock in the West, his friends
hope he'll keep away from Winona,
MINI. At least they're anxious that
he shouldn't make any speech at Vino
ma. The "Winona speech" lives in po-
litical history as the beginning of the
end of William Howard Tafts presi-
Dental career. It was delivered under
circumstances not diSSim1lar from those
which will usher in Mr.. Hoover's expe-
ditioll into the Great Divide country.
A Republican Congress had Just enacted
an unpopular tariff bill-the Payne
Aldrich act. Taft signed it, though he
had once opposed many of its features.
The next year, in the Winona speech,
the President defended the Payne-Ald-
rich law as the best tariff the country
ever had. The Roosevelt ProgreSsives
put on their war paint thenceforward
and the rest % history.