The Arbiters of the New Deal

Extract

“Equal Justice Under Law,” is the inscription carved on the pediment of the new United States Supreme Court building. Recently erected, this legal temple in white marble stands majestically on a hill near the national Capitol, a fixed reminder that the judiciary is a co-ordinate branch of the government.

For the past seventy-five years the sessions of the court were held in the small chamber that once housed the United States Senate. Its walls seemed to whisper memories and great names of the past. Here Webster, Clay, Calhoun and other famous statesmen before the Civil War battled with the nation's problems. Around the curved wall are busts of former Chief Justices. It is, no doubt, with a feeling of regret and a spirit of estrangement that the court has moved into its new quarters with its huge Sienna columns, ornate ceiling, heavy crimson hangings, and bas-reliefs.

The nine gowned men who sit on the bench of the highest judicial tribunal in the nation are not spectacular: no aura of Olympus surrounds them. Each has a deep appreciation of the dignity and responsibility of his office: and all, despite an external austerity and necessary aloofness, are very human. Their appointment, which is for life, is made by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. They can be removed only by impeachment. During their tenure of office they cannot occupy any other position. All interests, no matter how profitable, which might possibly influence their judgment are severed. No justice sits in a case with which he has been previously connected as counsel, or in which he has any direct personal interest.