The Washington times., 1937-09-02

BOake Carter
Retirement of Judges
The Changes Of Years
Naval Defense

NOuTG JUSTICES, arrived III LOll.
don he kidded his interviewers
by increasing his southern
drawl, but when asked, What
about the nine old mem" had
this to say: when I was
appointed to the court they
called me a radical, but now
they say I'm the most conserva-
tive member of the Supreme
Court"
Nightly curious, this column
ist detailed an emissary to go a
digging into yellowed, musty
pages Of the past in a news.
paper morgue to find out just
what the newspapers of 1918 did
say editorially about the then
Attorney General of the United
States.
Nothing was found which
would indicate the editors Of
that day thought McReynolds
a radical" We did find the
papers fell on him for what they
charged was his failure to prose-
cute the son of a Government
official for alleged violation of
the Mann Act and were crying
for his blood.
We also found that Woodrow
Wilson, believing him a political
liability, booted him upstairs"
to the Supreme Court.
QUT most amazing Of all we
- found something apparently
forgotten by the old-timers
among the Washington cores
pondents-that James Clark
McReynolds, bitterly attacked
today as one of the five arch
conservative justices standing
"athwart progress" proposed,
while Attorney General of the
United States in 1918, a law for
the compulsory retirement Of
Federal judges who became too
old but refused to retire, very
much akin to the proposal made
six months ago by President
Roosevelt.
On August 10, 1913-twenty-
four years ago-in his first re-
port to Congress as Attorney
General, McReynolds recon-.
mended the enactment of only
one law. This is it:
II suggest an act providing
that, when any judge below the
Supreme Court fails to avail him
self Of the privilege Of retiring,
the President be required, with
the advice and consent of the
Senate. to appoint another
judge, who shall preside over the
affairs of the court and have
precedence over the older one.
This will insure at all times
the presence of a judge suf-
ficiently active to discharge
promptly and adequately the
duties of the court"
Congress ignored his recon.
mendation. So did President
Wilson.
TWENTY-THREE years later,
l. this same man, who pro-
posed long ago a law to toss out
Federal judges when they be-
came too odd" is the target
of the very same philosophy and
himself still clings to active
participation in 'the affairs of
the court" long past the age
Of 10.
It is strange what the passage
of time will do to men. and I
wonder how it is that Mr..
Roosevelt is seemingly so cock
sure that Senator Hugo Black is
immune to the passage of that
same inevitable time?
n G. GREY, founder and
~" editor of the English six.
penny weekly, the Aeroplane,
writes as follows in the current
issue in bitter tones:
IT object strongly to the word
defense for defense is the first
stage Of defeat. Nobody. no
nation, no empire defends itself
unless it has lost the initiative
to attack"
We fear that Mr.. Grey still
clings to his famous-in aviation
circles-and rabid imperialism.
To describe defense" as the
first stage of defeat" is a
wholesale assumption which is
absurd.
One must first make clear
what is ones definition of de
fense." If one considers ode
Tense" as an adjunctive Of
aggression, then it might, in
deed, be called the first stage
of defeat" If, however, one