The Members of Our Highest Tribunal
Have to Be Not Only Jurists but
Constructive Statesmen.
Justice Brown, of the Supreme Court of the United States, has retired from
active service. Before he laid aside the robes of his office a dinner was
given in his honor by the bar of the District of Columbia, and on this
occasion short speeches were delivered by several prominent men, including
President Roosevelt, who said:
In all the world--and I think, gentlemen, you will acquit me
of any disposition to needless flattery--there is no body of
men of equal numbers that possesses the dignity and power
combined that inhere in that court over which, Mr. Chief
Justice, you preside. Owing to the peculiar construction of
our government, the man who does his full duty on that court
must of necessity be not only a great jurist, but a great
constructive statesman.
The Men and the Tradition.
It has been our supreme good fortune as a nation that we
have had on that court, from the beginning to the present
day, men who have been able to carry on in worthy fashion
the tradition which has thus made it incumbent upon the
members of the court to combine in such fashion the
qualities of the great jurist and of the constructive
statesman.
Mr. Justice, we Americans are sometimes accused of paying
too much heed to mere material success, the success which is
measured only by the acquisition of wealth. I do not think
that the accusation is well founded.
A great deal of notoriety attaches, and must attach, to any
man who acquires a great fortune. If he acquires it well and
uses it well, he is entitled to and should receive the same
meed of credit that attaches to any other man who uses his
talents for the public good.
The Nation Sound at Bottom.
But if you will turn to see those whom in the past the
nation has delighted to honor, and those in the present whom
it delights to honor, I think that you will all agree that
this nation is sound at bottom in the bestowal of its
admiration in the relative estimate it puts upon the
different qualities of the men who achieve prominence by
rendering service to the public.
The names that stand out in our history in the past are the
names of the men who have done good work for the body
politic, and in the present the names of those whom this
people really hold in highest honor are the names of the men
who have done all that was in them in the best and most
worthy fashion.
In no way is it possible to deserve better of the republic
than by rendering sane, honest, clear-sighted service on the
bench, and, above all, on the highest bench of this
country.
Men who fear for our democratic institutions too often forget the Supreme
Court. Macaulay evidently forgot it when he described our Constitution as
"all sail and no anchor."