Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-13
NEW BOOKS
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/. C. M.


Instructor of Government, Column
bia University. Washington: The
Brookings Institution.
With no more than q minute for re-
membering, you easily recall that point
in your study of school literature when,
by way of fable and such other second
hand procedures, romance began to
emerge from its ancient web of purely
religious plant and piouS lamentation-
when 1t took on a measure of the pro-
fame in its advance upon romance as a
feature of the literary art, upon fiction
as a mode of entertainment. You've not
forgotten the host of abstract qualities
which, right there, did service for the
human himself who was not yet ready
to step out into the open of worldly ad-
ventures. Greed, Hatred, Revenge-vil-
lainS of the plot. OF against these, the
ultimately triumphant Virtues-Gen-
crosby, Love, Forgiveness. And Of them
all, Justice was the most fearSome.
Underwriting in its role, invulnerable in
its rectitude-a pattern here, a warning
there. And because we gain impress
sions and ideas through sheer brain
gatherings, we cling to them with a
tenacity that is as often harmful as it
is gainful. So, even to this day, Justice
is, to the common run, figure properly
cast in marble and bronze, for us to
sea rigid, inflexible symbol of pure
righteousness in its DEGREES and judg-
mentS. Yet it turns out that Justice is,
after all, man made--that it is, after
all, but measure of the composite
public mind bent upon order, safety,
protection; that it marches ahead to-
ward ordered liberty when its creating
ward disorder and unliberty to kthe
whole when its majorities are lawiesS
and Indifferent to the common veal.
Certainly then no men are more vital
to the interests of any free country than
are its lawmakers and those who inter-
pref the law. It is important there
fore, that Americans know the steps by
way Of which they, through the law,
have reached the place where they now
stand in a protected freedom, and know
as well the outstanding men who have
contributed notably to this general Sc
curity of all who live conformably to
the law Of the land.
And right here stands the story of
Stephen j. Field, Craftsman of the
Law" associate justice of the Supreme
Court of the united States for "a years.
Such stretch of time in such service
provides substantial stage for notable
activity pointed upon the increasing
demands of q great country like this
one. 1t did exactly this in the case
of Stephen Field. AS PLAN expanse the
stage of action for this man stretched
across the continent. Its first plankS-
birth, youth, training-laid in New
England. Its last ones touching the
Pacific Coast, when California was at
its most glamorous pitch of dream and
hope, celebrating indeed whether to
step decorouSly into the Union or to
move out along the shining pathway Of
individual empire.
Stephen Field, a Yankee, come out
from the East, was a young lawyer in
California right there, then member
of the State Legislature, then a part
OF its Supreme Court. A schooling, you
see, fer the high honor which later came
to him and under which he contributed
substantially to the significance of Fed
eral interpretations and decisions.
Not only was this vast stage for any
mans adventuring upon, but it was a
gorgeously lighted stage as well. The
immediate aftermath or the war was on
in every sort Of human mlsbehayior-
hatred, retaliation, visionary plans for
emancipated Negroes, plans partaking
much more of the mutual enmities be-
tween the North and the South than Of
any sane and practical program for the
Negroes themselves to be given and
trained to follow. Crazy projects of the
North for emaSculating the South to po-
lltical impotency. And beside the war
with its vicious trail or malice there
were many other problems rising out of
the swift business expansions following
upon it. All matters that fronted, final
ly, upon the judiciary. At this point the
railroads began hurrying from point to
point toward the West until they had
in truth spanned the continent in what,
nowadays, is called record time" Here
rose the railroad problem and more
and bigger grists for the legal mills.
The business rush of achievement, the
riyalries, the competitions, the "cut-
throat measures pushed through, the
personal animosities engineered by this
outthrust of the railroad industry
an industrial turmoil that turned the
Federal commonwealth itself into vast
problem whose factors were greed, over
reaching, lawleSsness and personal en-
mites that to this day have not been
wiped off the slate of that business ex-
pansion Immediately following the Pc
riod CT the Civil War. Laws, defining
and restraining laws, had to be formu-
lated out of a new industrial situation.
Regulating measures had to be evolved
and enacted.
A great drama. An epic of human
nature set down in the deep poten-
tialities of modern circumstance whose
advance in every direction is so phe-
nomenal as to be dizZying, save to the
Stablest of minds. And much of this
change was on its way when Stephen
Field was an active force in public
life. But there were other active
forces in operation then. Why has
Dr. Swisher singled out this one for
study? Primarily, or so it seems to
me, because Stephen Field was man
of vision. Yes, 1 know. We nova
days hear that expression often. What
does it mean? 1t means, I think,
that, beyond most of the men around
him, Field saw years ahead of the i'm
mediate wrangling and turmoil, of the
small measures of Illustration and de-
feat. He saw great country expand
ing, as If by its own inner forces-ex-
panding beyond passing measures of
hindrance and Illustration. He realized
that this vast land must have, not
only room for such fruitions, but that
1t must have opportunities as well. So,
in our way of speaking, he was ahead
of his times" Because we, the bulk of
mankind, are mostly incompetents, eX-
pending what little power we have in
thwarting the few who can do, who
can achieve-that is no reason why
every Gripping measure that could
possibly be devised against ability and
enterprise should be enacted into the
law of the land. That is no reason why
money and its agents should become
automatically objects of suspicion and
distrust. Such, in effect, was the in
intelligent and progressive and fair adj
vocacy of this member of the Supreme
Court in interpretations for or against
the legality of this or that in the
multifarious decisions of the body for
the encouragement and practical regu-
lationS of the business world. Under
stand, DR.. SwiSher makes no pro-
nouncement whatever in this direction.
What one does get from the whole vital
story is that here is a modern minded
man, one who gathers in the whole
field of economic and political values,