A Fresh Start

Last week, much freshened by a summer of comparative rest, nine men assembled quietly in the old Senate Chamber of the Capitol. They had donned their long black vestments in their robing room and now quietly sat down behind a long counter and resumed their work. Frequently they do not leave their little room in June until after Congress has gone vacationing, and usually they return to it in the fall long before Congress takes up its more ostentatious labors. In this season of the year they usually have the great Capitol to themselves, except for a few attendants and the ubiquitous sightseer; but last week there were nearly 400 bustling foreigners mincing through the rotunda to the sessions of the Interparliamentary Union in the Chamber of the House.

Only a small group of visitors assembled to see the opening of the Supreme Court, although in several ways it was historic. The fact that none of the seats in the court room are reserved for privileged persons, such as diplomats and friends of the members, helps to quell the itch to get in. And then the members live such quiet lives.

A onetime President leads there a dignified but almost forgotten existence. There sits the aged Justice Holmes in his 85th year.* There sit the neat Mr. Sanford, the rangy Mr. McReynolds, the substantial Mr. Stone, Mr. Brandeis of the rumpled hair, and three other quiet gentlemen, Mr. Sutherland, Mr. Van Devanter, Mr. Butler. They seem like an institution of the ages, and in a way they are. They are appointed for life to a court as old as the Government. Yet more than half of them are newcomers, comparatively speaking, Taft, Sutherland, Butler, Sanford and Stone having been appointed since President Harding took office four and a half years ago.

Innovations. At the opening session of the Court, Chief Justice Taft read the original docket, some of the cases on which are 20 years old--the first occasion on which it has been done in years. As usual the docket had grown by some 100 cases. The Court is more than two years behind in its business. The object of reading the docket was to put in force new regulations given to the Court by act of the last Congress, empowering it to decline to hear many cases and thus abbreviate its docket. Among the cases thrown out under this ruling was a whole series of cases by the State of New York against manufacturers in New Jersey for making objectionable smoke and smells.

Besides this innovation there was another at the opening session. For the first time in history a daughter of one of the Justices appeared before the Court to argue a case. She was Miss Susan Brandeis* daughter of Louis Dembitz Brandeis, member of an old Kentucky family, the only Jew who has ever been a member of the Court. Justice Brandeis has been called a radical. He is an admitted liberal, a Justice in whose decisions the rights of property are likely to be subordinated to the rights of man. Yet he is a stickler for the formalities of the Court. Although a Democrat, after elevation to the Court he declined to contribute to Democratic campaign funds (as he had previously done), holding that the members of the Court must never touch politics. When his own daughter came to plead before the Court there was no precedent, no regulation covering the contingency, but he voluntarily retired from the bench and did not sit on the case. Chief Justice Fuller, Confederate veteran, the only Roman Catholic Chief Justice, used to remark that he had jurisdiction over the entire U. S. except the Fuller home and family. Justice Brandeis doubtless feels in much the same way.

The Cases. The opening arguments before the Court included:

1) THE STATES OF PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO, MINNESOTA AND WISCONSIN v. THE STATE OF ILLINOIS and the CHICAGO SANITARY DISTRICT. In this case the four appellants question the right of the War Department to permit Chicago to withdraw water from Lake Michigan for sanitary purposes. Already the War Department has taken steps to reduce the amount of water withdrawn by the Chicago Sanitary District (TIME, July 20), but if the four states maintain their contention, the restriction will be even more rigid.

2) THE MARGOLIN CASE. This is the appeal of Joseph P. Margolin, a Manhattan attorney, from a conviction and fine of $250 for charging a fee of more than $3 in connection with the preparation of an affidavit for a claim under the War Risk Insurance Act. A law limiting the fee to $3 was passed by Congress to prevent lawyers from milking beneficiaries of the Act in the preparation of simple affidavits. The decision is of importance to the legal profession. Miss Brandeis appeared on behalf of Margolin, who had charged a fee of $1,500 on a contingent basis. Her brief said in part: "The professional services rendered by the petitioner included numerous conferences, communications, a trip to Washington from New York, elaborate investigation there and the discovery, by virtue of the attorney's effort and energy, of the proof necessary to establish and recover a claim of $9,000, which will, with interest, amount to the sum of $12,360. The compensation for professional services likewise included railroad expenses, hotel expenses and miscellaneous disbursements."

*Born 1841, son of the famed poet-doctor of the same name, Oliver Wendell Holmes served three years in the Civil War as an officer of the 20th Massachusetts Volunteers, was wounded in the chest at Ball's Bluff, in the neck at Antietam, in the foot at Fredericksburg. He served 20 years as Associate and later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, before being called to the U. S. Supreme Court by President Roosevelt in 1902.

*Admitted to the Supreme Court Bar in Oct., 1924.