Felix Frankfurter; Roasted
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flUG-10-2005 09:52A FROMiBAURRIPN WASTE SERUI C859) 485-1406 10:915022411552 From 1920, when he and Roger N. Baldwin (ao anarchist oE the Bcrkman- Goldman group), William Z. Foster (then a direa action syndicaliat, later the leading American Communist), Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (the IWW terrorist who became a Communist), and other leaders of radical revoludon founded the American Civil Libertiw Union, until long after 1939—when his nomination to the Supreme Court was confirmed after determinedbut despair ing opposition—Felix Frankfurter was by reputation, and an overwhelming volume of documentary cvidenc^ the most dangerous radical in Attienca. In and Out of the Pantheon Late in hia career, Frankfurter de- cided that he did not wish to go down in history as the most successful^ revo lutionist of his rime. He set about cre ating a new image of himself; so that by the time he retired from the Supreme Court he would be hailed as a great conservative and a sinccre friend of the Constitution he had destroyed and the Constitutional Republic hehad betrayed. The campaign had its climax at Har vard. There, on April 30, 1960, ceedings in his Honor were conducted at a meeting of the Council ofthe Har vard Law School Association. Adula tory addresses were made and a portrait bust of him reverently accepted by President Pusey and Dean Griswold. The deep significance of the occasion was put inproper perspective by Frank furter himself. "I come back, he said, "to these halls as the great figure of Grecian mythology who had to touch earth every once in a while to regain even his divine strength."* A few months later came the book ^OeeuloTul fampblet Nvmbtr Tbrn. Cambridge, ISfiO, p. 1. ffiBRUAAY. i96i ftLK3-10-2005 09:52fl l"ROM;BAUflRIflN mSTE SERUI C859) 485-1406 10:915022411552 P.2 Felix Frankfiirter. Roasted which I cite as FjFJ?." FJFJi. is de pains to talk himself out of his rightful scribed by Frankfurter as a transcrip place in history? Had he lost faith in tion of tape-recordings of comments on the Revolutions he had spearheaded? questions put to him initially on behalf Was he dismayed by the havoc they had of the Oral History Department of wrought and che harm they had done? Columbia University, as an academic Or does he fear that even at this late enterprise to secure raw materials for day they may not goon tothecomplete future historians. In the Foreword, Dr. success that would gain for him, and Phillips tells us that the rwordings be William Z. Foster, and Elizabeth Gur- gan in 1953. And, if this is not a mis ley Flynn, and Alger Hiss, andThomas print for 1958, they were continued over J. Mooney, and BigBill Haywood, and a period offive orsix years because there one or the other of the Sacco-Vanzetti are references to at lease one event of pair immortal renown in the pantheon 1957, to-wit the "recent*' Serv^e case of International Socialism? Does he re (p. 171). Frankfurter and Phillips both member uneasily that the IWW Revo tell us that at the time the recordings lution he tried so hard to save in 1917- were made, there was no thought of 1918 was frustrated by his mortal ene their immediate publication. But at mies, the Department ofJustice and the some time, "through weakness or good FBI, just when it seemed certain of nature," Frankfurter consented to the success? "present publication." I suggest there Or is it possible that F.FJ2. is not a fore that die recordings were actually bold attempt to create a false image by made in 1957-1958 and that they were the devices he has used so often—^false intended for immediate publication for hood, distortion, and evasion—but ra purposes which my text will illustrate. ther the self-deception of a troubled At first I read this as an Apologia spirit to whom neither Freud nor Rein- hold Niebuhr could possibly bring com •1 Pro Sxta Vita, It was only later that its true significance burst upon me: fort? has not a single note ofapology—in the Felician lexicon there is no such word Talk and Doable Talk — and Frankfurter is by no means History if it finds it necessary to ap ashamed of his life as a radical. He praise Frankfurter's personal philosophy just wants to conceal it, and present an and political theories will find little to image of himself as a competent, con go on. He has never told us what they servative, somewhat snobbish lawyer; were. Indeed he has been very coy dwelling on Olympus with Mr. Justice about them. He had a good chance to Holmes and lesser deities, from whence correct that oversight when he was ex he descended now and then to intervene amined by a Senate sub-committee in naively and dispassionately in mundane January, 1939, with the confirmation affairs—^some of which by coincidence of his appointment to the Supreme happened to have revolutionary or ra Court in issue.But as he himself reveals dical import. in he was a slippery^ witness, Just why did Frankfurter take such playing tricks with the Committee, and having a wonderful time outwitting 'Felix Frank{nrtcr RtminUctt. ReeorJtd l» Senator McCarran and Senator King, with Dr. HarUm B. Phillips. Reynal tnd Company, New York, 1-960. whowanted toknow whether he agreed AMERICAN OPINION 22 i It • , it AUG-10-2005 09:53P FROM:BftUPlRIAN WASTE SERUI C859D 485-1406 10:915022411558 Felix Fmnkhirceri Roasted with the doctrines of Harold J. Laski, tion in his text should be compared as expressed in a book of Laski's called with the actual colloquy: Communism, or believed In the ideolo Senator McCarran, If [^tbe book] gy of Marx or Trotsky. The Senators advocates thp doctrine of TAarxitm, did not find out. All they got were side would yon agree with it} stepping evasions, double-talk, and Dr. frankfurter. Senator,! do not breasc-beacing bombast. When he camc believe you have ever taken an oath to write F.F.R. he had characteristically to support the Constitution of the United States with fewer reierva- forgotten what he actually said. He only lions than / have or -wotild now, remembered that amid terrific applause nor do / believe that you are more he had confounded McCarrnn by attached to the theories aridpractices saying in effect, "If I understand the of Americanism than I am. I rest my philosophy of Communism and die answer on that statement.^ schemc of society it represents, every thing in my nature, all my views and Among other forgotten events, Eliza convictions, life-long cares and con beth Dilling, aspunky American patriot, cerns, are as opposed to it as anyone author of The Red Networ\, gave can possibly be. If I understand what *FtUx Frankfurltr p. 28J. Americanism is, I think I'm as good 'Transcript of the Hearings on tht frtnKiwUt an American as you are."" The quota Hovunatian, pp. 12S-\i6. m Elliab*th Gurley Flynn, an old ally with F«l>x Prankfurtor, It thown hara with Out Hatt. Th* UPl dflicripllon did.nar uy who wa* raodlng Iho nAWipapsr. FEBRUAl^Y, 196} PUG-10-2005 09:54A FROM:BftUARIPN WASTE SERUI C859D 485-1406 TO;9150EE411552 P.4 V 'T"T Felix Frankfurter: Roasted Frankfurter a very bad half-hour. years of his life, to the destruction of Frankfurter, one of the first of the the Constitution and the establishment smearbunders> calls her a "crackpot." of an absolute, tyrannical government? But before accepting this convenient My own idea is that he was a characterization the reader should see dedicated or disciplined revolutionist her incisive testimony and compare it without a credo, a man of action and with the fustian rhetoric of Frankfurter intrigue, who was not at all concerned at his "gabbiest, foggiest" best. with the ideology behind the Revolu He has denied that he was a Marxian. tions in which he participated. He him "I don't believe," he writes, "in spirit self was not concerned with intelleaual ual Messiahs, I don't believe in economic speculation; he would not have written Messiahs, I don't believe in political Colonel House's PhiUp Dru, or Walter Messiahs .... I [do not] think that Lippman's poisonous ponderings. Some Karl Marx has discovered the eternal whatcontemptuously he writes; "Walter laws of social arrangement. Harold [Lippman] knows that his job in life Laski was a Marxian, and I was not." is to sit in a noise-proof room and draft Frankfurter had no excuse for hold things on paper. He's never been ing radical opinions. America gave him through the heartbreaks in making a success which only America could paper walk."® And it is noteworthy that give. He has a good mind and he had Colonel House did not include him in a good education—^public school 25 on the House inquiry to draft terms of Fifth Street, a classical course at the peace, and Wilson's Fjpwrteen Points, College ofthe City ofNew York (AJB., but did send him to Gibraltar, Madrid, 1902), and the Harvard Law School and Paris on missions of secret and (LL3., 1906). To the latter he attri devious diplomacy. His whole concern butes the professional competence and was for personal power and the success high ethical standards he admires so of the Revolutionary activities which much in himself. If he breathed-in gave him power. In this respect he re revolution at East Side cafes,and in the sembled Lenin, Trotsky, and the Bol reading rooms and forums of Cooper sheviks generally.