The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-04-08

tO V large eXCenC III l0SS than Roosevelt's appointments is tribunals membership has bee
 In the spring of 1937, the com- bined total age of the justices was 649 years. Today that total is 559.
 The appointments also have put men of somewhat different back ground on the high bench. Critics contend that the chief executive too frequently, both in the Supreme Court and lower court appoint ments, has gone to the class room for his choices, and that his ap- pointeeS do not have sufficient ex- perience in actual legal practice to weigh properly and decide the vital
 Professor-Mind Defended
 Those in favor of the appoint ments, however, argue that men such as Felix Frankfurter and Will liam O. Douglas, whose background s primarily that of the teacher, will be able to consider broad prob- iems from a more unbiased and im- partial viewpoint than could other men who have spent most of their lives as attorneys for certain classes of litigants.
 Hugo l.. Black, an Alabama poli- tician who practiced for many years in Birmingham and who stepped from his second term in the senate to the justiceship, replaced re- tired Justice Willis Vandevanter, who had been 8 Wyoming political leader, chief justice of the Wyoming supreme court, and a judge of the Eighth Circuit Court oe Appeals prior to his appointment to the high tribunal.
 Stanley Forman Reed, who was brought to Washington by Presi- dent Hoover from prosperous practice in his native Kentucky and successively appointed general coun- sel for the ill-fated Federal Farm Board and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation before being chosen for the solicitor generalship in 1885 and the court in 1888, re- placed retired Justice George Suth- erland, who was appointed to the court in 1922 after having gained 8 wide reputation by virtue of his Salt Lake City law practice and two terms in the senate.
 Frankfurter Once Adviser
 Frankfurter. Vienna-born Har- yard Law school professor whose liberal philosophies brought him wide fame and made him a highly influential unofficial adviser to the New Deal, replaced the late Benja- min Nathan Cardozo, who served on tho New York Court of Appeals for 18 years before President Hoover appointed him to the high tribunal in 1892.
 And the 40 year old Douglas, who rode the brake-rods from the state of Washington to New York city, wwked his way through Columbia Law school, gained the education which later enabled him to teach at Columbia and became national figure through his work as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replaced the revered Louis Dembitz Brandeis, who started his career as "big business" law yer but soon became 8 champion of the under dog"
 Thus, three former professors, including Justice Harlan Fiske Stone who first gained prominence as a Columbia law professor, are mem bers of the court now. But critics point out that not single member of the present tribunal had any ex- perience as a jurist before going to the high bench. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, of course, served as ,an associate justice of the high court from 1910 to 1916, when he resigned to campaign as Republican presidential nominee, but he has not served as judge of any tribunal except the Supreme Court.
 The backgrounds of the fire pre- Roosevelt appointed jurists show that:
 Hughes achieved fame early in life becauseof his unusual inves- tigative ability, particularly evil denced in connection with the in- surance investigation in 1905 and 1906 by the Armstrong committee of the New York legislature. He was later governor of New York and had 6 lucrative New York legal practice.
 Butler Western Attorney
 Justice Pierce Butler was a we'll known Minnesota attorney who numbered among his clients many of the nations largest railroads be- fore his elevation to the court.
 Justice James Clark McReynolds was brought from Nashville, Tenn, practice to Washington by the first Roosevelt in 1903 to take charge of the justice departments antitrust activities. He retired to private New York practice in 1907 and re- turned to government service in 1913 as woodrow Wilson's attorney gen. eral, a post he held one year before being elevated to the justiceship.
 Justice Owen J. Roberts gained national prominence, after being known as an outstanding barrister in Philadelphia for many years, through his work as special prose- cutor in connection with the Tea pot Dome oil lease scandals.
 Stone, whose lengthy teaching career at Columbia already has been referred to, also practiced law, but gave up both teaching and practice ing to become President Coolidges