The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-03-21
Will SECS Douglas Put Feet on Supreme Bench?
He's a Liberal With Coast to Coast Career
BY BRUCE CATION Democrat Washington COrre-
 reSnnndentl

preme court is half as Stuf1y place as it is popularly supposed to be. William Orville Douglas will mala a swell replacement for the recently retired Justice BrandeiS.
 There Is nothing in the least stufty about the 40-year-old chairman of the Securities and Exchange "orn- mission, whose appointment to the bench was announced yesterday Quite the contrary.
 MT. Douglas is lean, rathc-: rangy chap whose favorite working pose is to lean far back in his chair and put his feet on his desk. He Is a confirmed ear-puller 0is own) and he speaks informally with plenty of slang. He lets his suits get a trifiy baggy, plays bad anne of golf and an excellent game of poker, and practically never starts home from his office before 7:30 or 8 p. m.
 He is a westerner by birth and unbringing and an easterner by adoption. They'll have to stress the western angle if he goes on the bench; Congress is likely to insist that a westerner get the place. He will be a liberal justice, but by no means a radical one. In his work as head of SEC he makes preservation of the cap- italistic system his guiding star. GREW UP
 IN WEST
 Born in Minnesota, the son of a Presbyterian home missionary, he was taken to the west coast by his parents when. still a baby, and grew up there. Money was scarce, and when he went to Whitman College, at Walla Walla, Wash, he got there on a secondhand bike, paid his ex- penses by doing odd jobs and for a time lived in tent to save rooming house bills.
 Upon graduation in 1920, he taught school in Yakima, Wash, for two years, and then headed east for a legal education. He paid his way as far as Chicago by riding herd on some stock yards-bound sheep, and rode the rods from Chicago to Albany. The rest of the trip to New York he made by day coach.
 Reaching New York, he went to the clubhouse of his national fra teynity; but the staff there looked at his travel-stained person, took him for a bum, and refused to let him register.
 He never would have got in if 8 fraternity brother who knew him hadn't showed up opportune- ly. This brother, by the way. sold him on New York as city of op- p1rtunity and persuaded him to enroll at Columbia instead of at Harvard as he had planned.
 JOB FELL
 III HIS LAP
 After getting his law degree and spending few years in private practice, he got on the Columbia law faculty. He quit his job in 1928 after a faculty row and-by sheer chance immediately stumbled into bet ter one.
 He lived in a suburb at the tirae, and one evening suburban mens club to which he belonged had Robert M. Hutchins, then dean of the Yale law school, down as a guest speaker Douglas and Hutchins got acquainted that night, took to each other, and sat up late talking. Incidentally, Hutchins to- day is probably Douglass closest friend) Anyway, Hutchins offered him job on the Yale law school faculty.
 Douglas thought his newly-made friend Hidliy,n ond i'm mensely surprised when Hutchins called him next morning and re- peated the offer. He took it, and within few years had become Ster- ling professor of law-reputedly the most highly-paid law teacher in America.
 While at Yale he got interested in bankruptcy studies and in 1884 the SEC chose him to direct a study of corporate congratulations in bankruptcy. The Chandler Bank ruptcy Act was passed as result of his work. It might be worth noting that at that time he urged clause which would have permitted labor unions to be heard on the economic soundness of any reorganization plan which affected their interests. Congress failed to adopt this clause.
 In 1886 he became a full-time member of the SEC, and in the fall of 1887 he was named chair man of the commission.
 CARRIES HIS
 HOMEWORK
 He lives quietly with his wife and their two children in house in Sil- yer Springs, Md, just over the Dis trict of Columbia line He takes a brief case full of work home with him every night, seldom gets chance to read anything except off, clal reports and the newspapers and is able to play far less golf than he would like.
 A combination cook chauffeur handyman drives him to and from work each day. He could drive himself, but figures the re- taxation he gets this way is good for him.
 His staff worries about his health, believing that he is work ing too hard. ct never gets on his nerves or spells his disposition, but 1t does show on him physical ly at times)
 He recuperates by spending a month each year in a cottage at East Harwich, on Cape Cod. Aside from his golf, he gets little in the way of exercise.