Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-06-10
PORTRAIT OF A JUSTICE
Mr.. Frankfurter: LiveIiest Of the Nine

likes bright kids, but he wants
you to remember that he's / inch
brighter than the brightest.
Prolific Opinion Writer
Justice Frankfurter's garrulity
isn't only vocal. He is a prolific
opinion writer His admirers well
come this chance to study their
hero's thought processes, but one
student of the law has Sourly pro-
claimed:
THE study of written evidence
indicated that Justice Frankfurter
had consumed a large portion of
his energy and talent in essays
which, for all practical purposes,
might as well have been written
on paper airplanes and thrown
out Supreme Court window"
However. posterity will judge
him on more serious grounds.
He has sat on the court through
% of its most tempestuous years.
He will rarely let another JUS
tice speak for him.
But fortunately the year be-
fore his appointment he wrote
Mr.. Justice Holmes and the Su-
preme Court" and in giving in
sights into Holmes he inevitably
gave insights into Frankfurter.
THE early writings of Holmes
canvassed issues which, however
formulated or disguised, are vital
to a society devoted to justice
according to law" Justice Frank
furter wrote.
What are the sources of law
and what are its sanctions? What
is appropriate lawmaking by the
courts and what should be left
to legislation? What are the in
gradients, conscious or uncon-
conscious of adjudication? What
are the wise demands of precedent
and when should the judicial
process feel unbound by its past?"
His Philosophy
Most lawyers appear to agree
that Justice Frankfurter has an
swered his own questions along
these lines:
/. Insofar as possible past de-
cisions should be respected. THE
tendency to disregard precedents,"
he said in one decision, has be-
come so strong in this court of
late as, in my view to shake the
confidence in the consistency of
decisions and leave the courts be-
low on an uncharted sea of doubt
and difficulty without any con-
fidence that what was said yes
terday will hold good tomor-
row E"
2. The court should severely
limit itself in the cases it reviews.
3. The States should be al
lowed to pursue the courses they
think best, not the courses the
court thinks best.
Or, as he said of Holmes:
He never forgot the shap-
ing Of future law is primarily the
business Of legislatures"
Since most cases before the
court are complex, it is difficult
to determine what course, If any,
a justice is following. .'a
Justice Frankfurter has this
warning about the dangers Of
labelling:
That is why these silly news
paper people, whenever they have
to give tags to the members of
the court thinks I'm a hide-bound
Democrat simply because Roose-
welt named me. Well, I'm a hide
bound nothing, let alone a hide
bound Democrat" .---
But tags will be passed out
whether Justice Frankfurter likes
them or not. Lawyers usually tag
Justice Frankfurter as voting with
the conservative wing of the
court, some thinking he is a lib
eral who modified his views, some
saying he has always been con-
sentative.
Each generation evaluates its
predecessors by its own standards,
so it's useless to speculate on
how posterity will regard Mr.. JUS
tice Frankfurter.
But his multitude of friends
hope that the future historian,
prowling through the Justices de-
cisions, will remember that a man
not machine wrote these
and a very gay man at that.