The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-04-27
By Dresc Pearson

when he was stricken on the bench.
 Every year the Chief Justice brought a colum- bia Law graduate to Washington to be his secre- tary This of course, was O. definite inconvenience, since 1t meant breaking in a new man every year. But the Chief Justice wanted to help launch young men Into the world of law.
 And every week his home was mecca TOT young people in and out of Government who crowd ed around the Chief Justice at Mrs Stones Monoay ''At Homes' He a source of inspiration to young artists young writers young musicians Once, after listening to Yehudi Menuhin Stone dropped by to see his old friend the late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and told him how this youth had Kept great audience spellbcund.
 An, said Holmes with sigh, what tr. umph sometime think would give 10 years or my life to be able to play like that"
 ocHlt sonne of us" countered Stone, would give 10 years of our lives to be able to write opinions like yours" .,, .L NY boy"-stone was then over eO-"oOd sees through all this modesty"
 Justice Holmes of course, was to stone whatl Stone was to Justice Douglas and scores of otheFN young nen-a great inspiration and teacher. AV one time, Stone asked Holmes what guiding prine- pie he had worked out during his 00-odd years.
 "Young man." said Holmes to his 6l-yeaF-oid friend, about 76 years ago learned that was not God And so, when the people of the various states want to do something can't find anything in the Constitution expressly forbiddng them to do I say, whether like 1t or not 'Goddamit, let 'em do itP"
 UnQOupteuly those WoruS were III 5Voueb 1nlHu when, in his famous dissent in the Trple-A case, he said:
 "The courts are concerned only with the power to enact statutes not with their wisdom For the removal of unwise laws from the statute books, appeal lies not to the courts but to the ball0t."
 And this week, Harlan Stone was still true to that dictum when in the last of his mortal opinions, he decreed: tN&
 Tt is not the function of this Court to disregard the will of Congress in the exercise of It's conSttu- tiona power"
 Ills words faltered but hls spirit was as un- flnching as ever
 Most people have forgotten, but it was Harlan, Stone to whom the nation owes a debt for picking J. Edgar Hoover as head of the F.B,I. under Harry Daugherty, William J. Burns had run wild with the FBI, and, when Stone became Attorney General, he swept out Burns and selected young career man. Hoover to take his place No one had ever heard of Hoover before. Stone was kicked up- stairs from the Justice Department to the Supreme Andrew Mellons Aluminium Trust. Mellon was then @ fellow member of the Coolidge Cabinet Almost two decades passed before the Justice Department under hard-hitting Thurman Arnold, finally brought the Aluminium Trust before the Supreme Court Stone, at that tme had to disqualify himself be- of earlier connections with the Justice Depart ment So many other justices had to also that the Supreme Court couldn't sit on aluminium at all
 The Chief Justice always had a silver medicine ball on his desk, memeno of his membership in the Herbert Hoover Medicine-Ball Cabinet. Despite this, Hoover, without mentioning names, launched a bitter attack at Stones dissent In the AAA case The Chief Justice never resented the attack and never let 1t influence his friendship with Hoover