Small Fry and the Court's Mailbag

By Barrett McGurn

Mail pours in to number one First Street Northeast, Washington, D.C. all day every day, sometimes from prisoners hoping against hope, often from people of every type seeking help with problems and, infrequently, from children.

Generally the small fry correspondence concerns a class assignment though at other times it is inspired by a hobby (collecting photos or autographs) and occasionally it is merely an expression of good will and encouragement for the heavily burdened Justices. At times the tot mail accompanies a request with recognition that other matters may clamor for a priority ("I am in no hurry, and realize how busy you are"); other times a note of panic provoked by a teacher's deadline intrudes ("I will be in troube [sic] if I don't get this information").

Spelling is not always the forte of the child correspondents. (For that matter not all the adults or even school teachers are above an occasional orthographic error: Pamphlet is a bugbear for many of all ages, coming out variously as pamplet or even phamplet; some evade the shoals by using "booklet" or "brochure".)

Some letters are heartening, even flattering. Some are confidential ("my dad comes home late from work and . . . trys to help me with my autograph collecting since I broke my hand playing ball"). Some reflect the petulance and worries of adolescent years ("I have been asked. . . to wright [sic] a report on . . . Earl Warren. I can receive some information from encyclopedias, but I would like this information to be as complete as possible [sic]. That is why I am asking the government he served for so many years. Being seventeen I am loseing [sic] faith in the government and this information would rest'ore my faith in the govment [sic]").

Four misspellings in about as many lines in a 17-year-old's letter is more than average, but the children's mail make clear that any teacher pondering whether to give one more spelling drill is well advised to do so. Riffling through 100 or so letters from grade and high school children more than fifty words are found misspelled, some of them in a range of ways. Supreme as in Supreme Court comes out Sepreme, Surpreme, Surprime and Suprem. Government is often goverment and sometimes govorment. Judicial is judical and even jucial. Justices becomes Jusctices, and the gentlemen of the Bench gentelment.

Many students wish to express appreciation for the Court's efforts but the root word many times comes out as apeciate, apperciate, apriciate or apreciate. For some reason studying becomes studing or sudying. One high school student wrote from "Navada". More than one child thinks he is in the fith [sic] grade. Other bughears seem to be weather (for whether), campiane (as in Presidential campaign), socail studies, scandle, greatful, budjet, responce, polotics, cooraporation (as in enjoying someone's cooperation), arcitecture, pitures, Amercian (as in American government), admier, prodject, constution, carrer (career), intrested, ammendment, sincerly and materil.

Beyond the spelling are the children's concern with getting answers to questions teachers have posed. Sometimes an imaginative child himself has thought up an inquiry or two. Sometimes the requests scoop in vast territories of data, e.g.:

"Could you send me information on the purpose of the Supreme Court?"

"I would like you to send me all the information on government you know. Maybe I can send you some information sometime. Thank you."

"Could you possibly send me some information about Judges, laws and their penalties, Lawyers and Juries".

"I would like to know who were the first men on the Supreme Court and if possible some information about them too–where they were born, who did they marry, and when did they die". (John Jay, New York, Sarah Livingston, 1829; John Rutledge, South Carolina, Elizabeth Grimke, 1800; Wililam Cushing, Massachusetts, Hannah Phillips, 1810; James Wilson, Scotland, Rachel Bird, 1798; John Blair, Virginia, Jean Balfour, 1800; James Iredell, England, Hannah Johnston, 1799.)

To a Justice: "I am 14 . . , and would like to know more about your job. . . . We were ask to write to a jude [sic]."

********

"My Grandfather too..

As staff members at the Court help the Justices respond to some of the stream of mail, there is wonderment sometimes about what lies behind some of the incoming letters. There was the occasion during the time of Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone (1941-1946) when the following arrived:

"Dear Chief Justice Stone, Will you please send me your autograph? My grandfather was Chief Justice too."

Toni Gossett

Back went the requested autograph plus a post script a staff officer included:

"Was your grandfather a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or of some other court?"

(It was not indeed "some other court". Antoinette, to give her her official name, was the granddaughter of Chief Justice Stone's immediate predecessor, Charles Evans Hughes, and eldest child of William T. Gossett (later on a president of the American Bar Association) and of Elizabeth Hughes Gossett, president of the Supreme Court Historical Society).

B.McG.

"I would like to know who were the first men on the Supreme Court and if possible information about them too — where they were born, who did they marry, and when did they die" (John Jay, New York, Sarah Livingston, 1829; John Rutledge, South Carolina, Elizabeth Grimke, 1800; Wililam Cushing, Massachusetts, Hannah Phillips, 1810; James Wilson, Scotland, Rachel Birg, 1798; John Blair, Virginia, Jean Balfour, 1800; James Iredell, England, Hannah Johnston, 1799.)

To a Justice: "I am 14 . . . and would like to know more about your job . . . We were ask to write to a jude (sic)."

I would like . . . some information like the date (the Supreme Court) first opened and thehardest case . . . . " (1790 in lowere Manhattan. The Dred Scott case?)

"I need the name of the only Justice to be impeached". "Do the Justices ever lose their job?" (Samuel Chase impeached in 1804 but not convicted by the Senate. Service is for the duration of good behavior or until voluntary retirement, resignation or death.)

"Do you like being a justice . . . . What do you do at each meeting". (Each year is crowded chockablock with more than 4,000 new cases.)

"What is your average day like?" (Busy, sometimes into the wee hours and deep into the weekends.)

". . . Some information about how the courts are runed [sic]."

"What happens to the chairs of the Supreme Court judge when he retires or dies? (The remaining Justices purchase the chair from the government, giving it to the family of the Justice.)

"I am doing a report on 'My Ideal Supreme Court'. I am 14. . . . Would you be kind enough to send me some information on the nine . . . I picked: Charles Evans Hughes, Louis D. Brandeis, William Howard Taft, Hugo L. Black, Earl Warren, William 0. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, Fred M. Vinson, Abe Fortas. . . This will help me get an 'A'." The children's letters tell much about the young authors, sometimes intentionally so, sometimes not. Some trip over sentence construction. ("Please send me a Supreme Court." (Pamphlet?) "If I could . . . have some . . . information it would help me a great deal in doing the Supreme Court." (Pictures of them?) "Please give me [the justices'] names and what president they are appointed." "Would you include a map of Washington D.C. . . ., Sincerely, John Burke. P.S. You pronounce my name 'Berk' ".

Some report career plans. ("When I grow 'up 'I want to be a ~football.~ player, then I might be a lawyer. Would you send me a panphlet [sic] on . . . what a judge does?

Thank you." "Some day I'm going to become president and help our great country". "I am 14. . . . Even though I don't intend on going to Law School, I hold the highest respector our country's Judicial System. . . I am going to be an honest politican [sic] who is working for the country and not himself." "When I was really young I wanted to become a major league baseball player. I'm 13. . . . I've noticed for sometime now that ever since I've decided to become a lawyer my studies have been noticeably better. As a matter of fact my last grade, grade 8, was my best ever. . . . I'm really not sure what prompted me to become a lawyer. It may have been my mother saying, 'you should become a lawyer, you're so technical' . . .Since you're very, very successful at your profession I'd really like some advice on how to someday become . . . a very well established lawyer".

Some young writers are autograph collectors hoping to supplement their treasures. Some have heard good things about the Justices and wish to express that. Some use art to combine the two. ("You are one of the greatest leaders this country ever had . I would like . . . Autographed pictures." "I'm twelve years old and I can't wait to tell my friends that I wrote to you. I'm doing a report on you. . . . You are so interesting to work on.... I'm one of your fans. I hope you right [sic] back. . . . I hope you send a picture. . . if you have the time". "It must be very exciting to be involved in such important legal decisions. . . . I am writing to ask if you could send me your signature and a picture. Sincerely . . . . age 12". "You are doing a good job. I am 7. ... May I haye your autographed picture". "I believe you are a very honest, kind, erudite, hardworking and remarkable person. . . "You have done very much for this world and I am proud of you. . . ." "I believe you are a very loyal, honest and knowledgeable person. . . . May I ask . . .to have a signed picture". "You and your other justices are very .good about keeping order in our goveminent...." "I was wondering if I could meet you personally [sic] sometimes." "Our class would like . . . to have a picture of the Supreme Court. . . . In our textbook the picture was taken when Felix Frankfurter was in office. P.S. Have a nice day."

Several times daily a mail truck rolls into the Supreme Court basement with more correspondence, much of it to do with each year's flood of cases, but another stream of it from children. A dozen motives inspire the young writers, sometimes admiration, sometimes a determination to be another link in the chain now 101 Justices long. As one Pennsylvania boy wrote a Justice: "I would appreciate . . . tnformation . . . so I could become a great judge like you". And as another scribbled chattily: "I plan to be one of the eight (!) lawyers in the supreme court. . . . I'm in the fifth grade. My mom and dad's names are. . . ." Somehow in its own way young America is making contact with the nation's nearly two-century old ultimate Court.

 

Extra-Judicial Commentary

J. B. M. and W. F. S.

In addition to the serious work of the Supreme Court reported by Niles Register (see article at page 50 of this issue), teapot tempests were also occasionally brewed–as witness the Register's series of reports of confficting stories of the New York American and the New York Evening Post in the fall of 1824:

 

COLLISION AMONG THE JUDGES

From the New-York American

We understand that judge Thompson, some time during the sitting of the circuit court in April last, noticed, in one of the public papers, a paragraph stating that thereafter the courts of the United States were to be held at Tammany Hall, at which he expressed some surprise, as he had never understood there was any objection to the courts being held as 'usual in the City Hall; and on inquiring of Mr. Morris, the marshal, respecting it, received for answer that he was authorized by the comptroller of the treasury, to hire a house for holding the courts of the United States, and that he had taken Tammany Hall, alleging that the clerk of the court could not be accommodated at the City Hall ...

During the vacation the marshal, acting, as it is understood, with the cooperation of judge Van Ness, proceeded in and concluded the arrangement for Tam-many Hall, as the place for holding the courts. Judge Thompson finding that, by reason of bad weather, and the indisposition of one of his family, he would not be in New York at the opening of the court, on the first of the present month, wrote to the United States' district attorney, requesting him to inform the marshal he wished the court opened at the usual place, in the City Hall: and to adjourn it from day to day, until his arrival, if judge Van Ness did not attend, and to state again to Mr. Morris his decided objection to having the court removed from the City Hall, which, it is believed, was communicated to him. The court was, however, opened by judge Van Ness, at Tammany Hall, without having first met at the City Hall, the place where in judgment of law it was adjourned to meet....

Such, we believe to be a plain statement of the facts in this case: and cannot perceive any justifiable ground upon which this attempt to remove the court from the City Hall has been taken; as there was no objection to its being held at the usual place in the City Hall. The expenses, therefore, of $15000 a year to provide another place, was entirely unnecessary. Some object other than the accommodation of the court must have induced this extraordinary proceeding.

Beneath the surface of this incident was the chronic pulling and hauling of New York politics. District Judge William Peter Van Ness for years had been a rabid partisan of any faction opposed 'to the powerful Livingston family–and Justice Smith Thompson was a relative by marriage of the Livingstons. Van Ness idolized Aaron Burr (see article on Burr in this issue, page 18), and served as his second in the notorious duel with Hamilton. Van Ness, moreover, had been a federal judge since 1812, and obviously considered himself considerably senior to a mere Supreme Court Justice of less than one year's standing. Finally, it may be noted that Tammany Hall was the headquarters for the party of Martin Van Buren, which was also Van Ness' party.

Most of this was familiar enough to Editor Niles and many of his readers–as well as the fact that the several New York newspapers from which the Register quoted were committed partisans of one faction or the other. Thus, to keep the story before the readership, Niles the following week published the New York Post's pro-Van Ness version of the affair:

Circuit court–The misrepresentations which have been published in one or more of the evening papers, apparently by authority, relative to what they are pleased to term "a collision among the judges," have rendered it proper and necessary to lay before the public a plain and concise statement of the facts connected with the subject to which they allude. It is to be lamented that an occurrence wholly unconnected with the controversies of the day, should be made a subject of perverse and angry discussion . . . .

It will be proper to explain, first, the causes that produced the removal of the court, and then its legality.

No room has ever been assigned in the City Hall, for the exclusive use of the courts of the U. States; and for several years past, these courts have been exposed, in that building, to every kind of inconvenience and interruption. The room was perpetually devoted to all the miscellaneous and incidental uses, for which the city authority and local magistrates might want it.

In the mean time, the room occupied as a clerk's office, was more than once demanded to be given up. But, after much correspondence and solicitation, the requisition was abandoned. Some time in October or November last, however, a peremptory order to that effect was made and served upon the clerk. He was required to relinquish the room he occupied, not on the 1st of May, when houses and appartments can conveniently be obtamed, but on the first of January. No commodious place could then be procured for his use, and the very numerous important and valuable papers, records and securities in his office, were, from necessity, deposited in various places. Some were left in the public court room, in cases; some at another private house, and such only as were daily wanted, could be placed in the room he was finally enabled to obtain for an office. That in the Hall which was proposed to him, was found on examination to be wholly inadequate. .

The evils resulting from the state of things, which has been described, were for a long time endured, with much patience and forbearance. But, when the clerk was virtually expelled from the public building, they became so serious, that the district judge suggested to the marshal, the propriety of procuring other accommodations for the court, under the authority vested by law in all the marshals of the United States. .

The room designed for the immediate use of the courts, has been prepared in a plain but appropriate manner. In point of size, appearance, comfort and convenience, it is superior to that occupied in the City Hall; and, if his honor, the justice of the supreme court, could have made it convenient to examine it, it is confidently and respectfully believed that he would have found nothing there repugnant to his feelings, nor derogatory to the dignity of his station. What his particular objections are to the apartment prepared for the reception of the court, remain, in a great measure, unknown. He has never condescended, in any manner or form, to express them to his associate upon the bench. He has never, in any way, asked, proposed or suggested, an interview or conference with him on the subject. By a rational and amicable examination and discussion of the matter, all objections to the existing arrangements 'would undoubtedly have been removed, for none that are substantial exist; if not, the honorable judge's partiality for the Hall would have been indulged. The district judge was permitted, however, to know nothing but that the judge of the supreme court censured the marshal for not consulting him, and alleged, that the place designed for holding the court, had been, or was, a tavern. . .

When it was ascertained that judge Thompson neither intended to confer nor consult with judge Van Ness, the latter was bound, in duty to himself, to his office, and the public, to maintain his legal rights, and, with that view, he respectfully requested the marshal, in writing, to take no measures for the removal of the court, without his concurrence. When the marshal, in justification of his conduct, urged this request to judge Thompson, he indignantly refused to read it. What required or justified this total disregard to the feelings, the opinions, and the authority Qf the district judge? Was it proper, was it decorous to assume, without necessity, without any known cause or assignable reason, a manner so utterly offensive, and without precedent, as to preclude every thing like concession or conference?

The habit of command, derived from long and arduous service, should have been somewhat moderated. The spirit of the camp, or the discipline of the deck, cannot always be transferred with propriety to the civil departments of the government. Was it not known to the judge of the supreme court, that the district judge was one of the judges of the circuit court, and that, in the administration of justice in that court, he possessed power and authority in every respect equal to his own, except in the instance of cases brought up from the district court? If it was known, upon what principle was it expected that all his legal rights, and all personal and official consideration, were to be surrendered to one possessing no superior rights or power?

One begins to suspect that City Hall was in Livingston hands and that Van Ness was the real author of the article' in the Post; he was an inveterate pamphleteer, whose writings were generally described as "confused truth and fiction." One also can infer various political things from the exculpatory letter which the marshal, Thomas Morris, subsequently wrote to the New York common council that fall. Which side had the last word is not documented; but the Register wound up its coverage of the affair with another New York American blast at the district judge:

Circuit court. The lucid Post contains, last evening, an explanation, purporting to be from authority, and which, therefore, we probably do not err in ascribing to the pen of Mr. Van Ness, of the circumstances connected with the misunderstanding, (the word collision, seems to offend the sensitive delicacy of the district judge), between the judges, as to the late term of the circuit court. The article is introduced by a few editorial lines, which, with the usual skill and accuracy of the Post, a paper that lives through countless present blunders, inconsistencies and absurdities, on the strength of its former reputation, commence by stating that the "term of the United States' district court, having adjourned without doing the business prepared for it," the public will expect some account of the circumstances, &c. and then immediately follows judge Van Ness's statement, headed "circuit court," in the course of which it is distinctly asserted, that the court did not fall through, but transacted all the business moved by the bar, or submitted to its attention. Thus it will be seen that in limine, the Post blunders, and, in substance, contradicts an important asseveration of its new protege.

But to nobler game than the Post. We are charged by indirection with "misrepresentations" in our statement of the circumstances connected with what we still call a collision between the judges, of which the result was, that the term appointed to be held, fell through, without doing the business prepared for it. It is-a little remarkable, however, that no one fact stated by us is disproved, and some of the most important are directly, or by being passed over in silence, admitted. The facts, particularly, that Tammany Hall is still a tavern, and that political meetings are held in the very court room, are among those that are not attempted to be denied, while they were, as they ought to have been, very influential, with Mr. Justice Thompson, in refusing to hold his court there

Indeed the labored and angry vindication of judge Van Ness, shows that he is a little nettled at the disapprobation with which his conduct is universally received. His misrepresentations of the conduct of the corporation, in relation to a court room, as we have reason to know and in other particulars as we have understood, will be noticed hereafter. In the mean time, we should be glad to have him point out to us, the law that authorizes the marshal to provide court houses, and gives him the discretion of dragging the court about wherever he pleases, within the bounds of the city of New York ...

The district judge seems so very tenacious of his official rights and dignity, as a member of the circuit court, that it would be well if he attended a little more to its duties; yet we understand he seldom makes his appearance in the court when the circuit judge is here, and why need he be so very officious in providing a place for holding that court? But judge Thompson refused to read the order he had given the marshal on this subject. We would thank his honor or the marshal to publish that order. We have seen it, and cannot but think it a very extraordinary one. We understand, however, from a gentleman present at the time it was offered to judge Thompson, that the manner in which he refused to read it, is entirely 'misrepresented. .

Judge Thompson probably knowing the temper of the man, acted prudently and discreetly, is not putting himself in a situation where the dignity and respectability of the court might have been degarded by the rashness of his associate. But the district judge asserts, that the court did not fall through. And pray, why did he then break it up, or, if you please, adjourn without doing any business. He assumes equal powers with the circuit judge, and why did he not then transact the business of the court? Was it a want of confidence in himself as to the course he had adopted, or of the bar and suitors to him.