Passing of Sanford

One morning last week as he was on his way to the Supreme Court at the Capitol, Associate Justice Edward Terry Sanford stopped in to see his dentist. He seated his big strong body in the dental chair, complained of a toothache. The dentist found an ulcerated molar, extracted it. As Justice Sanford started to get up an attack of vertigo sent him sprawling to the floor. Alarmed, the dentist called a physician who administered a hypodermic stimulant which failed to relieve the judge's mortal distress. Unconscious, Justice Sanford was carried to his home on Connecticut Avenue. There, before noon, he died of acute uremic poisoning.* Five hours later, three blocks away, died William Howard Taft who was more responsible than any other for Mr. Sanford's appointment to the Supreme Court.

Born the son of a Connecticut carpenter in Knoxville, Tenn., 64 years ago, Judge Sanford gained a good education at the University of Tennessee (1883), at Harvard (1885), at Harvard Law School (1889). Genial, democratic in manner, with a talent for public speaking, he began a law practice that carried throughout his state. From his Yankee father he inherited a stout Republican faith. U.S. Circuit Judge Taft observed his legal ability, marked him as a good man. President Roosevelt brought him to Washington in 1907 as an assistant Attorney General, sent him back to Tennessee the next year as a U.S. District Judge. When in 1922 ill health forced Justice Mahlon Pitney to resign from the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Taft recommended to President Harding the appointment of "Ed" Sanford as his successor. On the high bench Justice Sanford belonged instinctively with the conservative majority, particularly on economic questions. He rarely dissented.

Not in five years had a vacancy occurred among the associate justices of the Supreme Court. When Joseph McKenna left the bench in 1925, to die the next year, President Coolidge made his single Supreme Court appointment in the person of Harlan Fiske Stone, now the youngest Justice (aged 57). President Harding, in less than two years, named a chief justice, three associate justices. Insurance actuaries, surveying the present court membership (average age, 69), would predict that President Hoover would have at least as many Supreme appointments to make during his term.

News of Judge Sanford's death reached the Capitol just as the other judges of the Supreme Court were congratulating Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on his 80th birthday, as Senators were delivering eulogies to "the grand old man of the judiciary."

* Autointoxication, due to the kidneys' failure to filter wastes from the blood.

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