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Chauncey Belknap's Year with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Chauncey Belknap's Year with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Washington and Lee University School of Law Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons Scholarly Articles Faculty Scholarship 2018 Clerking for God’s Grandfather: Chauncey Belknap’s Year with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Todd C. Peppers Washington and Lee University School of Law, [email protected] Ira Brad Matetsky Elizabeth R. Williams Jessica Winn Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlufac Part of the Courts Commons, Judges Commons, Legal Education Commons, Legal History Commons, and the Supreme Court of the United States Commons Recommended Citation Todd C. Peppers et al., Clerking for God’s Grandfather: Chauncey Belknap’s Year with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 43 J. Sup. Ct. Hist. 257 (2018). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarly Articles by an authorized administrator of Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Clerking for “God’s Grandfather”: Chauncey Belknap’s Year with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. TODD C. PEPPERS IRA BRAD MATETSKY ELIZABETH R. WILLIAMS JESSICA WINN Introduction In a few instances, however, law clerks have contemporaneously memorialized their ex- In the last twenty years, historians have periences in diaries. These materials provide discovered the Supreme Court law clerk. a rare window into the insular world of the Although the first clerks were hired by the Court. While the recollections contained in Justices in the 1880s, for much of their the diaries are often infused with youthful existence the clerks toiled in relative anonym- hero worship for their employer—in contra- ity. Law clerks emerged from the shadows, distinction to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, however, when Court scholars began to Jr.’s claim that no man is a hero to his valet— appreciate the value of studying them, not they offer a real-time, unfiltered peek at the only because clerks were eye-witnesses to the personalities who populated the bench and internal workings of the Supreme Court, but the issues with which the Court was grap- also because the clerks had substantive job pling. Just such a snapshot in time is provided duties and arguably wielded influence over the by the diary of Chauncey Belknap, a decision-making process. remarkable Harvard Law School graduate Most of what we know about law clerks who clerked for Justice Holmes during comes from the clerks themselves, usually in October Term 1915. Through Belknap’s the form of law review articles memorializing near-daily records of his clerkship, as well their Justices and their clerkships or in as his encounters with the glittering social set interviews with reporters and legal scholars. of pre-war Washington, we are permitted a 258 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY singular and fascinating glimpse into the Relatives raised Belknap and his young colorful experience of working for one of the sister, Fredericka.2 The young children went Court’s most famous jurists. to live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan A copy of the diary was obtained from with maternal aunt Mary McClave, who was a Belknap’s long-time law firm, Patterson, school teacher. Living quarters were tight, Belknap, Webb & Tyler. While portions of and Belknap slept on the living-room couch. the diary have appeared in other books and Many weekends were spent farther down- articles, the diary has never been reproduced in town with his paternal aunts, Cornelia and its entirety.1 This is due, in part, to the fact that Elizabeth Belknap, or with his uncle, Fred- the diary is written in a combination of cursive erick H. Shipman. Belknap was close to his that varies in its readability and Pitman uncle, who was the treasurer of the New York shorthand. Over a two-year period, two of Life Insurance Company. the co-authors (Williams and Winn) carefully Belknap attended public schools in New transcribed the diary. Once the transcription York City, graduating from the High School was complete, a Pitman shorthand expert was of Commerce. While Belknap was at the High retained to translate the shorthand into School, a teacher recognized his academic English. Finally, all four authors had to agree potential. This teacher spoke to Shipman and upon words that were challenging to discern encouraged him to help Belknap attend because of Belknap’s handwriting. If agree- Princeton University. It was Shipman’s ment could not be reached, then the word was resourcefulness and belief in his nephew listed as “unintelligible” in the final text. that made Belknaps’s future education possi- As they transcribed the text, Williams and ble. Shipman tutored Belknap for a year and Winn researched and annotated Belknap’s subsequently paid his college tuition. To references to people, places, and events. The attend Princeton, Belknap was required to text was subsequently edited to make format- pass a test proving that he had Latin skills ting and style more consistent. For purposes of equivalent to a year of study. He passed this publication, an abridged version of the diary is test after studying for one month.3 presented here. The selected entries and Belknap attended Princeton while portions of entries reflect the tone of the diary Woodrow Wilson was the university’s presi- as a whole and highlight the significant events dent. Belknap met Wilson while at Princeton and conversations Belknap recorded. Brief and later recalled that he had “great admira- identifications of persons mentioned and tion” for the future United States President. explanations of unfamiliar terms, as well as Belknap studied History, Politics, and Eco- citations, are provided in the endnotes. nomics, and wrote his senior thesis on the Before one turns to the diary, some British army officer Charles George Gordon, background on its author is necessary. nicknamed Gordon of Khartoum.4 Belknap Belknap was born on January 26, 1891, in was also the managing editor of the Daily Roselle Park, New Jersey, to Chauncey and Princetonian newspaper and a member of the Emma McClave Belknap. The early years of debate team. his life were filled with hardship and loss. His Belknap graduated cum laude on father was a sales executive with the Thomson June 11, 1912, delivering the valedictory Houston Electric Company. When Belknap address before his 255 classmates.5 After a was two years old, his father died of yellow summer trip to Europe, he arrived late to fever during a business trip to South America. Harvard Law School.6 His intellect more than Belknap’s mother died two years later of made up for the missed days, and, at the end appendicitis. Thus, Belknap was effectively of the first year, Belknap’s grades earned him orphaned by the age of four. a spot on the Harvard Law Review.7 While at DIARY OF A HOLMES CLERK 259 Harvard Law School, Belknap learned at the concerned clerking for a Justice as elderly as knee of some of the institution’s most the seventy-four-year-old Holmes. “I wondered illustrious professors, including Samuel Wil- whether he would survive the entire year, and liston, Ezra Ripley Thayer, Joseph H. Beale, that I might not find myself in the course of the and Austin W. Scott. During his third year of year stranded and looking for a job when law law school, Belknap also had the chance to offices were not employing young lawyers.”10 socialize with a new law professor named Belknap, however, decided “to take the chance” Felix Frankfurter—whom Belknap later de- on Holmes, who would live for another twenty scribed as a “fascinating companion.”8 On years. Years later, Belknap’s daughter Barbara three occasions, Belknap and Frankfurter learned from her history teacher that Holmes dined with local Boston attorney Louis D. always selected the “brightest” student for a Brandeis and his wife, Alice. clerkship. Barbara went home and asked her During his third year of law school, father about her teacher’sstatement,towhich Belknap was called into Dean Ezra Thayer’s Belknap teasingly replied, “Not always the office and offered a clerkship with Justice brightest, but the best.” Holmes. Belknap later recalled: “He said ‘Ihad In the fall of 1915, Belknap arrived in the a similar job with Justice Horace Gray ...and it nation’s capital. The recently widowed Presi- was the most interesting year of my entire life dent Woodrow Wilson occupied the White ... I think you will find Holmes to be even a House. In December 1915, Wilson would more interesting figure than I did Gray.”9 marry Edith Bolling Galt, a native of Wythe- Belknap added that his only reservation ville, Virginia, and the widow of a jewelry store owner. News of her engagement to President Wilson created a small scandal among the Washington social circles in which Belknap moved in 1915, as wild rumors circulated that President Wilson had been unfaithful to his late wife, or worse, had planned her death. It was also a Washington preoccupied with the drumbeat of war. To the south, the Mexican Revolution continued to rage. Several of Belknap’s diary entries discuss the revolution, including the massacre of American citizens by Pancho Villa’s troops in January 1916 and the subsequent dispatch of American troops to the border. And although America had not yet entered the First World War, the violence in Europe filled the newspaper and captured the attention of many in the nation’scapital, including Belknap. During his clerkship with Holmes, Belknap lived in a brick, three-story row house located at 1727 Nineteenth Street NW, Orphaned at the age of four, Chauncey Belknap was raised by relatives in New York City.
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