How a Schoolteacher and a Semi-Pro Baseball Player Became Chief Justices

Home , Edward Douglass White, Stone Court (judges), Vinson Court

CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2015

Volume 161, No. 49 How a schoolteacher and a semi-pro baseball player became chief justices

hief Justice Charles Hughes and become the nation’s the sitting justices deeply at odds. Evan Hughes an- 12th chief justice. Stone was the COT TER’S CORNER The acrimony had been so severe nounced his retirement second of three chiefs to be ele- that Justices Hugo Black and from the U.S. Supreme vated from sitting associate justice Robert H. Jackson each allegedly Court in June 1941, and to chief. (Edward Douglass White warned Truman that he would re- heC went on to enjoy the longest and William H. Rehnquist also sign should the other be named retirement of any former chief oth- were promoted.) chief. But the job went to Vinson, er than John Jay and Warren Among the decisions he wrote DANIEL A. who is credited with mending re- B u r g e r. during his more than two decades COTTER lations between the factions. Following Hughes’a n n o u n c e - on the court, Stone is often re- In the meantime, a different di- ment, President Franklin D. Roo- membered for the 1938 opinion in vide faced the nation. The Vinson sevelt nominated Associate Justice U.S. v. Carolene Products Co., which Daniel A. Cotter is vice president, general court addressed racial discrimina- Harlan F. Stone for chief. FDR was included the famous Footnote 4 counsel and secretary of Fidelity Life tion, ruling in Sweatt v. Painter, for impressed with the support Stone that set forth a framework for en- Association and an adjunct professor at instance, that states that employed gave to the New Deal. Stone over- hanced judicial scrutiny in certain The John Marshall Law School, where he racial segregation must provide teaches SCOTUS Judicial Biographies. saw the court from 1941 until his circumstances —wh at’s now He is also president of The Chicago Bar truly equal facilities. death in April 1946 and was re- called strict scrutiny. Association. The article is Cotter’s These cases were some of the placed by Fred M. Vinson, who in As chief, Stone’s court in 1942 opinion and not to be attributed to building blocks that Thurgood turn was succeeded by Earl War- upheld the president’s powers to Fidelity Life, the CBA or John Marshall. Marshall and the NAACP argued re n . try Nazi spies caught on U.S. soil leading up to Brown v. Board of Stone makes a dozen (Ex parte Quinn), and he penned E d u c a t i o n . (When Vinson died sud- Stone taught high school in Mas- the famous International Shoe v. shifted his attention, however, to denly of a heart attack on Sept. 8, sachusetts for one year after com- Wa s h i n g t o n decision that every law legal studies at Centre and began 1953, B r o w n had been set for rear- pleting his bachelor’s degree. He student since has read to learn the practicing law in 1911 at the age of gument. A decision waited until then went on to Columbia Law standards for state courts to ex- 21. V i n s o n ’s successor, Earl Warren, School, graduating in 1898. He im- ercise personal jurisdiction over Vinson interspersed periods of became chief justice.) mediately became a full-time pro- l i t i g a n t s . private practice with other posi- In other areas of the law, the fessor at Columbia while also prac- His tenure ended suddenly. tions. From 1917 to 1919, he served Vinson court’s legacy includes ticing law in New York City. In 1910, During an open session of the as a private in the U.S. Army and Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer, he was named dean of the law court, Stone was reading a dis- an officer trainee. After World War which limited the president’s pow- school, a post he held for more than senting opinion when he suffered I, he was elected the common- ers. In the midst of the Korean a dozen years, until he became U.S. a cerebral hemorrhage. He died a wealth attorney for the 32nd Ju- War and facing a strike by the attorney general in 1924. short time later at his home on dicial District of Kentucky. He United Steelworkers of America in In January 1925, President April 22, 1946. His term as chief served two stints as a U.S. rep- 1952, Truman wanted to take con- Calvin Coolidge nominated Stone justice was the third shortest of resentative for Kentucky, putting trol of U.S. steel mills in the in- for associate justice. He served the the 17 who have served. in a total of 12 years. terests of national security. U.S. Supreme Court in Afterward, Vinson Vinson dissented from the 6-3 that post for 16 years, became a judge on the majority decision, taking great um- and though he was a Re- U.S. Court of Appeals brage at his colleagues and giving publican who cam- Vinson dissented from the 6-3 for the D.C. Circuit. a history of presidential seizures. paigned for Coolidge’s He was the first chief The decision in favor of the steel- re-election, Stone even- majority decision, taking great to have served on that makers was a blow to Truman. tually aligned himself umbrage at his colleagues and giving c o u r t . Vinson was the fourth, and to with Justices Louis During his time in date last, chief justice appointed by Brandeis and Benjamin a history of presidential seizures. Washington, he be- a Democratic president. Cardozo in supporting came friends with The 12th and 13th chief justices New Deal programs, voting Harry S Truman, who as stewarded the court for a dozen to uphold the Social Security Act Vinson fields the call president counted Vinson as a years. Their terms were the short- of 1935 and a national minimum After graduating from Centre trusted adviser and named him est consecutive terms since the wage, for example. College in Danville, Ky., where he treasury secretary and, ultimately, first three chief justices. They S t o n e’s pro-regulation stance played on championship baseball chief justice. were followed by three justices caught the attention of Roosevelt, teams, Vinson took a turn at semi- Vinson joined the high court at who each presided for more than who nominated him to replace professional ball. The shortstop a difficult time in its history, with 15 years.