Federal Justice

The task of advising the President in matters of law and defending the U. S.

in the Supreme Court was delegated to the Attorney General by the Judiciary Act of 1789. First Attorney General was elo quent, dark-eyed Edmund Randolph, George Washington's Virginia lawyer, whose record of attainment at 36 was fabulous. Asked by Congress for recommendations on how to better the administration of justice, Lawyer Randolph industriously analyzed the defects of the original Judiciary Act, suggested changes.

He found the Act did not distinguish be tween the jurisdiction of Federal and State courts, recommended an omnibus code of U. S. law to include the Constitution, common law, Federal statutes and the laws of the several States which might arise in U. S. courts. Congress did nothing.

Slow, almost tortuous, has been the evolution of justice in the U. S. which the 54th Attorney General now recounts in a readable book entitled Federal Justice published currently.* Collaborator with Homer Stille Cummings in the presentation of the story of the Department of Justice and the Attorneys General, which mirrors the nation's growth, was a smart special assistant named Carl McFarland. Attesting the thoroughness of Justice Department researchers are 1,529 references in the 558 pages.

Says Mr. Cummings of his work, done at home between 10 p. m. and 2 a.m., over a year's time: "It is ... the story of emotions, methods, and motives in that crucial zone of law and government bordering both upon the courts and the executive." The Attorney General, sitting in his red-carpeted room in the handsome new Justice Building, is justifiably proud of his office's progress since the great, corset-wearing William Pinkney quit the job because he did not wish to live in Washington, and since William Wirt had to beg for two washstands. Not until 1822 did the Attorney General have official quarters, then only one room in the War Department. Not until 1870 was there a Department of Justice, although duties wished on the Attorney General had been tremendous. Jealousies arising from Congressional dislike of reorganization delayed for a half century the creation of a unified department to handle U. S. legal affairs. Turnover in the office of Attorney General has been rapid. There have been more Attorneys General (54) than Secretaries in each of the State, Treasury and Post Office Departments. Only in the War Department have changes been more numerous (56). Some Attorneys General were distinguished, many were not. Some became Supreme Court justices, many quit to return to more lucrative law jobs.

One of Andrew Johnson's appointees, William M. Evarts, left office saying: "I shall return to my business of farming and lawing and leave to the newspaper correspondents the conduct of affairs." Such great controversies as those over Federalism, the U. S. Bank, Dred Scott, Monopoly, Eugene V. Debs and Prohibition throw into relief the development and processes of government. These Messrs. Cummings & McFarland highlight. Emphasis and appreciable New Deal bias is placed on references by Presidents and great U. S. legalists to the Constitution and the Supreme Court. Associate Justice William Pater son: "The Constitution has been considered an accommodating system." (1796) Senator John Breckinridge: "Is it not truly astonishing that the Constitution, in its abundant care to define the powers of each department, should have omitted so important a power as that of the courts to nullify . . .

acts of Congress?" (1802) Chief Justice John Marshall: "To undertake here [in the Supreme Court] to inquire into the degree of ... necessity, would be ... to tread on legislative ground." (1819) Andrew Jackson: "When the laws undertake ... to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society . . .

have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government." (1832) Abraham Lincoln: "If the policy of the Government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, it is plain that the people will have ceased to be their own rulers." (1857) There is no attempt in Federal Justice, as there is in Lawyer Morris Ernst's new book on the Supreme Court (TIME, Jan. 18), to take from the judiciary the ultimate sanction in U. S. life.

Interpretation of the law, Mr. Cummings says, has to be placed somewhere. He does, however, go hard on members of the judiciary--high and low--who have been inclined to favor unduly business and financial groups. More than that, the Attorney General is concerned with adequate enforcement of the law. Writes he: "The enforcement of laws is always delicate as well as difficult. Particularly in the field of Federal legislation, laws do not find places on the statute books until the social conditions which they are designed to remedy have become fixed. . . . Small groups and large seek to shape law enforcement to their own ends."

*Macmillan ($4).

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