The Daily Alaska empire. [volume] (Juneau, Alaska) 1926-1964, 1939-04-05
BY ALEXANDER II. GEORGE
AP Feature Service Writer

WASHINGTON, April 5-William
Orville Douglas is a 40-year-old
streamlined brain truster but he
has a poor boy makes good back
ground that should delight the
champions of old-fashioned rugged
individualism.
In fact the career of the profess
sor- chairman of SEC, youngest
man appointed to the Supreme
Court since 32-year-old Joseph
story Of Massachusetts came to the
high bench in 1911, could be cap
toned la Horatio Alger:
From Furnace Tender to SUI
preme Court Justice in 20 Years.
The nation was heading back to
normally after the war-and into
the giddy, stock market gambling
twenties-when lean freckle-faced
24-year-old Bill Douglas kissed his
girl goodbye and rode out OF the
west on sheep train 16 years ago
The young Yakima, Wash, high
school teacher, who had paid his
way through Whitman College by
janitorial work and lawn-mowing,
was Harvard bound for law edu-
cation. ellis father, Presbyterian
missionary, died before William
was six years old and the boy was
soon doing odd jobs to bolster the
familys meager incomeO
Peanut Diet for Travelling
He got free transportation to
Chicago for -maiding the
sheep, rode the rods to Buffalo, and
from there enjoyed day coach cush-
ion luxury to New York City as a
regular paying passenger. A bag OF
peanuts was breakfast, lunch and
dinner for him on the last lap.
He looked SO seedy upon arrival
they wouldn't let him register at
the New York club of his frater-
nifty Fifteen years later he was to
become, as head of the Securities
and Exchange Commission, Wall
Streets regulator in-chief.) He ran
into a friend from the west who
staked him temporarily and per-
suaded him to stay in opulent Man
haitian, getting his law training at
Columbia instead of Harvard.
After graduation from Columbia
where Harlan F. Stone, now Su-
preme Court Justice, was Dean OF
the law school, he taught law there.
He met Robert Hutchins, then
..boy dean of the Yale law school
who offered him an assistant pro-
fessorship. Douglas took the post
and in few years was made Ster-
ling professor of law at Yale.
When he came to Washington in
1886 to become a member of the
SEC commission, he was reputedly
the highest paid law professor in
the country.
Douglas, oose-limbed, copper
red haired and stfll freckled, has
a trace of the country boy in his
looks. This is accented by his in
difference to the sartorial graces
and by the informality of fire.
quent office posture. He often
stretches out in chair with feet
on desk, and talks with a draw
as he rubs his chin or tugs at an
ear
Not Easily clustered
SEC associates say he apparent
ly is never clustered Some business
acquaintance have described him
as reasonable but cold" He has,
however, enlivened some stodgy
capital gatherings with salty sto-
ries. His impromptu talks are usu-
ally quite snappy-his delivery OF
formal, written out speeches is
somewhat wooden.
He is an inner circle New Dealer.
friend and former Yale faculty
colleague of MISUNDERSTANDING As
sistant Attorney General Thurman
Arnold Like Arnold he is appre-
hensive about the concentration OF
great power and wealth in large
corporations lacking personal en-
tity" He has Scotch Presbyterian