Holmes's Latest Case

An eminent jurist and certified American hero, Oliver Wendell Holmes, dead these 17 years, came down from Olympus last week to decide one more case.

The case had been argued for two weeks in the new, expensively ugly chamber of the U.N. Security Council overlooking Manhattan's East River. Pakistan's Ahmed S. Bokhari spoke for eleven countries of the Middle and Far East. "The whole of Asia practically knocks at the door of the U.N.," he cried. ". . . It merely says one thing: 'Please, in heaven's name discuss this question . . .' If [you turn us away] it will amount to [saying], 'You can go to hell.' "

The "question" was the simmering trouble in Tunisia, where 3,000,000 Arabs are trying to break French colonial rule and get a greater measure of self-government (TIME, April 7). The answer to Bokhari's plea lay with the U.S., long the champion of the principle that any complaint, even if absurd, should at least get a preliminary hearing in U.N. With U.S. approval, the Tunisian complaint would go on the agenda. If the U.S. voted no or abstained, the door would be closed.

Delegate Ernest Gross gave the U.S. answer. "I have been instructed," said he with embarrassment, "to abstain." Britain and France voted against the Tunisian plea; Soviet Russia, playing to the hilt its role as the champion of the downtrodden colonials, voted for.

Later, in his best legalistic manner, Secretary of State Dean Acheson explained the U.S. position. It was not a question of whether or not free discussion was in itself good, he said, but of whether at this time it would help settle the trouble. Quoting the man from whom he has drawn much of his philosophy, Dean Acheson added: "I think what we must always have in mind is Judge Holmes's famous statement that general principles do not decide concrete cases."

How did this piece of Holmesian expediency look to millions in Africa, the Middle East and Asia who have never heard of Mr. Justice Holmes, but who expect moral leadership from the U.S.? Said Pakistan's Bokhari: "With regard to free discussion, I do not believe that any country in the world has a more honorable record than the U.S. [But its] reversal today will be very hard to explain ... It would almost look as though the U.S. had made up its mind to do a quick U-turn in a one-way street. What the consequences will be I cannot imagine."

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