Evening star., 1941-10-06
Death Ends Career
Of Justice Brandeis,
F Famed as Liberal
President and Hughes
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Memorial PIunned
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imous decisions against the National
Industrial Recovery Act, the Frazier
Lemke farm mortgage moratorium,
the Building and Loan Conversion
Act, the processing tax refund and
the power of the President to re-
move Federal Trade Commissioner.
They also joined the majority in
upholding the right of the Govern
ment to sell power through the
Tennessee Valley Authority, and in
the gold CLAUSE ruling, both New
Deal victories.
"The Peoples Lawyer"
The three liberals dissented from
decisions which invalidateu the Agri-
cultural Adjustment Act, the orig
inal Guffey Coal Act, the first rail-
road retirement law and the munic-
ipal bankruptcy statute.
Justice Brandeis was born in
Louisville, KY, November IS, 1856,
the son of Adolf and Frederika
Dembitz) Brandeis. His father, q
native of Prague, capital of CZecho-
Slovakia, came to the United States
in l848 and built a successful grain
business.
Justice Brandeis was first edu-
later studied at the Realschule in
Dresden. Although his father
urged him to continue his academic
career in Europe, young Brandeis
returned to this country. Financial
reverses suffered by his father made
1t necessary for him to finance his
own law course at Harvard Univers-
ity, which he entered in 1875. His
record was so brilliant that the rules
were suspended to permit him to
graduate at the age of 20.
He used his time outside of classes
to work as tutor, and left school
with $1,000. He never fully recov-
cred from eye strain received at
that time He also did a year Of
postgraduate work.
Justice Brandeis was admitted to
the bar in ST. Louis in 1878
and practiced there a year before
returning to Boston, where he be-
came junior partner in the firm OF
Warren & Brandeis. The firm OF
Brandeis. Dunbar g. Nutter, which
he left at the time he went to the
Supreme Court, was formed in 1897.
In 1882, only four years after he
finished his schooling. he delivered
lectures at the Harvard Law School
on the law of evidence and from
1892 to 1896 he lectured on business
law at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
Labor Relations Interested Him.
Justice Brandeis' intense interest
in the study of relations of labor
and industry were said to have
stemmed from the bitter battle at
Homestead, Pa. in 1892. One biog-
rapher quotes him as saying: 1T
| took the shock of that battle, where
organized capital hired a private
army to shoot at organized labor
Tor resisting an arbitrary cut in
wages. to turn my mind definitely
| toward a searching study of the
relations of labor and industry"
At the same time-19O5-that for
mer Chief Justice Hughes was turn
ing a pitiless spotlight upon insur-
ance, companies, as counsel for New
York's Armstrong Commission, JUS
| tice Brandeis became counsel for
the Policy Holders Protective Com
mittee OF the Equitable Life Assur-
ance Society. whose management
was one of the chief targets of the
Hughes investigation
Pr0bed Insurance Rates.
The juriSt disclosed that wage
earners of Massachusetts were under
compulSion to carry industrial life
insurance at such high premiums
that there were hundreds of thou
sands of lapses in policies with con-
sequent loss of both protection and
money. He argued that the State
should make it possible for work
, ers to obtain this insurance at cost
through the savings banks, and this
innovation was incorporated in the
BrandeiS savings bank insurance
bill, which managed to survive a
| hard fight in the Massachusetts,
Legislature and became law in 1907.
The immediate result was a reduc-
ton Of 20 per cent in premium
rates charged by private companies.
For six months, however, Justice
Brandeis had to speak two to six
nights week to overcome the
bitter opposition to the bill waged
by old industrial companies. David
1. Walsh, former Governor of Massa-
| chusetts and now Senator from the
Bay State, wrote:
To my personal knowledge Mr..
Brandeis has given annually thou
sands of dollars to further the work
of bringing to the working people
of our State this opportunity for
less costly insurance"
Bettered Hours for Women.
Along with this activity in the in
surance field, Justice Brandeis, as
volunteer counsel for the Public
Franchise League Of Boston, con-
Quoted a successful struggle to main.
tain public ownership of the pri-
vately operated subway system of
that city. In 1907 he also drafted
and obtained passage of an act pro-
viding sliding scale of gas rates,
which reduced the cost to the con-
sumner.
In this year, crowded with activ-
ity, he appeared before the Supreme
Court in the first of series of cases
defending the constitutionality of
laws limiting the hours of labor for
women in oregon, Illinois. Ohio and
California. These cases extended
into 1914 and in the latter year he
also argued the validity Of an Ore
gon minimum wage law.
In the first of these cases, the
Oregon law fixing 10-hour day for