Vacancy Filled

No sooner had Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton announced his resignation last month than rumors started about the name of his successor. Columnist Drew Pearson reported that a Negro, Judge William H. Hastie of Philadelphia's Third U.S. Court of Appeals and former governor of the Virgin Islands, was a likely candidate. At presidential press conferences, reporters badgered Ike on the possibilities of a Southern appointee to salve bitter feelings over the segregation issue, or perhaps a New Englander, to get a wider geographical spread on the court.*

Last week, at his press conference, the President took hold of the question. Said he: "My people look up the record of every sitting judge that they can find . . . We like to keep a good geographical distribution. But I would never think of making an appointment to the Supreme Court merely on the basis of geographical distribution. Now one part has just as much right as another, and if you get the man that meets the qualifications . . . stands out in the opinion of the American Bar Association and all the rest, well, then, of course, he would get it."

At week's end the White House announced that Ike had found a man to fit his specifications. Appointed to the bench to succeed "Shay" Minton: New Jersey's Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., 50, a Roman Catholic (the first on the court since Frank Murphy) and lifelong Democrat (one of six). More important, Brennan is a jurist of solid experience and reputation (see box), was recommended for the job by New Jersey's able Chief Justice Arthur T. Vanderbilt, and will be--with Justice Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan--one of the three Supreme Court Justices with bench experience prior to appointment.

*Geography of the court: Warren, California; Black, Alabama; Reed, Kentucky; Frankfurter (who was born in Vienna, taught at Harvard), Massachusetts; Douglas, Washington; Harlan, New York; Burton, Ohio; Clark, Texas; outgoing Shay Minton, Indiana.

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