Biggs Out

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Two years ago when a newly-elected President was about to take over the Government, many a candidate sought the job of Solicitor General (salary: $10,000). The Attorney General sits in the Cabinet and runs the Department of Justice but the Solicitor General is his right-hand man, the Government's No. 1 trial lawyer. Knowing Franklin Roosevelt's preferences, insiders were sure that the New Deal's Solicitor General would be Felix Frankfurter, if that Harvard Law Schooler would accept. Hard was the road of those who wanted to beat Professor Frankfurter to the job.

In North Carolina, however, was a highly regarded local attorney named James Crawford Biggs. He had been a member of the famed University of North Carolina football team of 1892 which played two or three games a week, won the championship of the South, claimed the championship of the world. Player Biggs took to the law at Oxford, N. C., subsequently sat for four years on the State bench. During the Wilson Administration, his fellow North Carolinian, Josephus Daniels, got him a job as Assistant Attorney General. A year later Lawyer Biggs retired to private practice in North Carolina, made a great success as an eloquent pleader before small-town juries. When Roosevelt was elected, Mr. Biggs aspired to be Solicitor General but, unlike many another, he did not set himself up as a rival of the potent and popular Professor Frankfurter.

Instead, he went to all those gentlemen whose recommendations would have weight and asked them to back him as second choice. When Mr. Frankfurter declined the post. Mr. Biggs popped into the arena with the largest bagful of No. 2 endorsements, and got the job.

At first when the new Solicitor General appeared before the Supreme Court and delivered the kind of hoarse, high-flown preachments which used to win him cases before North Carolina jurors, some of the wise old Justices on the nation's highest bench looked displeased. Gradually they grew more tolerant of Solicitor General Bigg's performances. Latterly they have been seen to wink at one another while he was speaking. Once in the midst of an hour's oration to the court, Mr. Biggs was interrupted by Chief Justice Hughes: "Mr. Solicitor General, you have talked 45 minutes already. You had better take the next 15 minutes telling us what you want this court to do."

Although Mr. Biggs took particular pains to see that his subordinates were dressed impeccably when they appeared in court, bright young New Dealers began to complain that a little less eloquence and a little more preparation of the Government's cases would do the Administration no harm. In defiance of precedent, when the gold cases reached the Supreme Court, Attorney General Cummings and two subordinates presented the Government's oral argument. The only public part played by the Solicitor General was to broadcast by radio news of the Government's "victory."

These events made a letter more than ordinarily interesting last week to Washington wiseacres familiar with the career of James Crawford Biggs. The letter:

"My Dear Crawford:

"I accept your resignation with very real regret. For nearly two years you have discharged your important duties with distinction and success. A survey of your record and that of your office, taking into account the business transacted, the multiplicity of matters intrusted to your care, and the results achieved, will challenge comparison with any like period of time in the history of your department.

"That you feel constrained to return to private practice of your profession, I can well understand. . . .

Very sincerely yours,

Franklin D. Roosevelt"

A fine new job, with the same salary as that of his old one, awaited Mr. Biggs: RFChairman Jesse Jones had appointed him voting trustee of the stock of the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway where the conflicting interests of Frank E. Taplin and the Van Sweringens required the interposition of a neutral party of distinguished legal attainments.

To be the new Solicitor General, President Roosevelt appointed smart, Kentucky-born Stanley Reed, RFC General Counsel who helped to present the Administration's arguments in the gold cases.

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