The Supreme Court of the United States on March 10, 1919, handed down a
decision on the Debs case. That decision is far-reaching in its
immediate significance and still more far-reaching in its ultimate
implications.
What is the Supreme Court of the United States?
Article III, Section I of the Constitution provides as follows:
"The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme
Court.... The judges shall hold their offices during good behavior."
The judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate
(Article XII, Section II). That is all the constitution provides with
regard to the Supreme Court.
At the present time, there are nine judges on the Supreme bench. It
might interest you to know some facts about the nine. All of the judges
are men. The chief justice is Edward D. White, who was born in 1845 and
admitted to the bar in 1868. He is seventy-three years of age. His
birth-place was Louisiana. He served in the Confederate Army, in the
State Senate, in the State Supreme Court and in the United States
Senate. He has been a member of the Supreme Court for twenty-five years.
Joseph McKenna is the second member in point of seniority. He was born
in 1843. His birth-place is Philadelphia. He was a county District
Attorney, a member of the State Legislature, a member of the national
House of Representatives, attorney-general of the United States and a
United States Circuit Judge. He has been a member of the Supreme Court
for twenty-two years. Oliver W. Holmes, the Justice who read the Debs
decision, was born in Boston in 1841. He is seventy-seven years of age.
He was admitted to the bar in 1866. Justice Holmes served in the Union
Army; he was a member of the Harvard Law School Faculty. He has been a
member of the Supreme Court for seventeen years. Those are the three
oldest men on the Supreme bench. They are the three men who have been on
the bench longest, but their political background is typical of the
political background of the other members of the Supreme Court, with the
single exception of Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who as far as I know,
held no public office at all before he was appointed a justice of the
Supreme Court three years ago.
The nine members of the Supreme Court are all old men. Four of them were
born before 1850; eight of them were born before 1860; one of them was
born since 1861, that is, James C. McReynolds, who was born in 1862.
There is not a single member of the Supreme Court bench born since the
Civil War. The oldest man on the bench is Justice Holmes, seventy-seven;
the youngest man on the bench is Justice McReynolds, fifty-seven; the
average age of the justices of the Supreme Court is sixty-six years.
These men all began practising law while we were children, or before we
were born. Three of them began the practice of law before 1870; six of
them began to practice law before 1880; nine of them before 1884. The
last member of the Supreme bench to be admitted to the practice of law,
Justice McReynolds, was admitted in 1884.
The Supreme Court Justices were educated in the generation preceding the
modern epoch of financial imperialism. They were mature when the
industrial order as we know it today, was established. They are the men
whose word is the word of final authority in all the affairs concerning
the government of the United States.
The Supreme Court, not because the Constitution grants it the power, but
because successive decisions of the Court have established that
precedent, has the right to veto any piece of legislation passed by
Congress and signed by the President. The Supreme Court is the voice of
final authority in the affairs of the government of the United States.
After it has spoken, there is no further authority under the machinery
of this government.
The Debs Case came before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has given
its decision. Eugene Debs goes to jail for ten years. Under the existing
order of government, there is no appeal from this decision, except an
appeal to arbitrary executive clemency.