Downstairs at the Court

Barrett McGurn

Copyright 1976, Supreme Court Historical Society
from the Yearbook 1977 Supreme Court Historical Society

The Supreme Court consists of nine Justices. They weigh some 4,00 cases each year; and hand down 200 or 300 judgments. But inside the Court walls 260 other persons labor. None engaged in such momentous tasks as those which occupy the Nine, but each is a cog in the machine of high court justice. Here are some of these "cogs":

The Seamstress

Mrs. Bertha L. Glimps of Asheville, North Carolina started 31 years ago at the Court, tidying up around the building as a "housekeeper"; for nineteen years she has been the Court seamstress.

Mrs. Glimps' space is on the ground floor adjacent to the women's rest rooms. All day long women visitors knock on her door to ask the meaning of the "seamstress" sign. A kindly, gregarious person, Mrs. Glimps never tires explaining. The seamstress does what her title suggests: she keeps busy day after day sewing and mending a hundred items--the rent robe of a Justice, a flag shredded by gales out front of the building, uniforms of the sixty policemen in need of alterations, torn tablecloths and napkins, the draperies on many large windows--and o and on.

"The Supreme Court," Mrs. Glimps sums it up, "is just your home."

Every so often Mrs. Glimps can be seen going through the Courtroom when no case is being heard. The tall draperies wear out beside the tie ropes. As they are opened and closed other signs of use appear. Mrs. Glimps mends as the need arises. Visitors who have enjoyed the comfort of the cushions on Courtroom seats may be interested to know that it was Mrs. Glimps who covered them.

No policeman will make his rounds in an ill-fitting outfit so long as Mrs. Glimps is on hand; no Justice need lack a button on his robe. The piles of work awaiting her attention is evidence of the continuous opportunities Mrs. Glimps has for the plying of her needlework skills (Sometimes the challenges go far beyond the ordinary. Recently Chief Justice Burger commissioned Mrs. Glimps to produce a replica of the robe of Chief Justice John Jay--the first Chief Justice--for a bicentennial exhibit. Unlike the unrelieved black costumes of recent years, that of Chief Justice Jay had a brilliant scarlet facing and cuffs, piped with a half inch of silver silk.)

When she speaks of her "calling" Mrs. Glimps refers in part to girlhood days in the Carolinas. Her mother was a seamstress and Bertha was sewing by the time she was six.

"I won a prize when I was six--for a quilt made of patches of all kinds. Later at fairs I won prizes for dressing dolls. I sewed at church and I sewed at home--and I sewed for al the other girls. When we were 12 or 13 we formed a club and made uniforms for ourselves--very plain dresses. We bought cloth at ten cents a yard; thirty cents bought us a dress."

It was Bertha's talented fingers which produced most of the "uniforms."

At Steven Lee High School sewing was one of Bertha's favorite subjects. The local Presbyterian church offered a course in the art of the seamstress; Bertha took that. Here in the District of Columbia the Washington Vocational School granted diplomas for tailoring. Bertha won one and still wears the school gold ring though numerous years later the design has worn away leaving a smooth circlet.

Harlan Fiske Stone was Chief Justice when Mrs. Glimps entered the Court employ. Mrs. McPherson supervised the housekeepers.

"She admired my clothes--I made them myself," Mrs. Glimps remembers. When the previous seamstress, Mrs. Jackson, retired, the hob--at Mrs. McPherson's recommendation--was Mrs. Glimps, as it has been ever since.

The Cabinet Maker

Wood too can wear down just like cloth so it is the job of Ed Douglas and his three assistants to help see to it that the handsome Supreme Court Building and its fine furniture--now in their 41st year--do not deteriorate.

Mario E. Campioli, the Deputy Architect of the Capitol, says that in his view the two finest buildings put up in this country in this century--in terms of materials used--are the National Gallery on the Mall in the District of Columbia and the Supreme Court. The Court structure is all marble and white oak. Mr. Campioli and his superior, George White, the Capitol Architect, supervise the upkeep of this building as well as that of the Capitol.

Ed Douglas' basement headquarters with its lathes, power saws, spray equipment and other tools is a handyman's dream but Ed insists it is no more than a "hobby shop." If budgets were no worry he can think of many thousands of dollars in additional equipment he would like to have to handle Court assignments, but budgets fret everyone and Ed makes do. How well he does is reflected in the testimonials from Justices which adorn his walls:

* A portrait of Chief Justice Burger is inscribed "for Ed Douglas, whose high craftsmanship and dedication preserve this place for the future."

* A picture of a red Honduran mahogany desk is signed: "For Edward F. Douglas, in appreciation and with the best wishes of Earl Warren."

* Justice Lewis F. Powell's image is underscored: "To Ed Douglas with admiration for his great skill."

* A framed letter from Justice Harry Blackmun mentions that "I am deeply grateful for the many things you have done to make my chambers comfortable and convenient."

When United Press International in the newsmen's area of the ground floor had need of an expanded work cubicle it was Ed Douglas' staff who ran out additional partitions and put in more bookshelves. When Curator Cathe Skefos designed an exhibit of two centuries of the Court in American public opinion, it was Ed who translated the curator's visions into tasteful vari-colored exhibit standing ten feet tall. For another Skefos exhibit on the 140th anniversary of John Marshall's death, Ed created an early American law office on the building's ground floor, a delight for Bicentennial crowds. Few corners of the Court building are without examples of Ed's skill with saws and brushes.

The inscription of thanks from the late Chief Justice Warren recalled one of Ed's greatest feats. When the Court building opened in 1935, nine identical mahogany desks were purchased for the Justices. Working for sixteen years at one of them, former Governor Warren grew accustomed to it--he mentioned that if it were possible he would like one identical to it for his retirement Chambers the Court had prepared for him. A call to the furniture company which had provided the nine brought the information that they were out of stock and that the cost of reproducing the design would be prohibitive. Ed Douglas studied the Justices' desks, picked up the Honduran and African mahoganies and other materials needed to reproduce them--and came up with a duplicate. Mr. Justice Stevens, who is temporarily assigned to the Chambers for Retired Chief Justices, works now at this tenth Justice desk.

When Mr. Justice Byron R. White came to the Court in 1962 he mentioned that he would like a tall chair with a good back support for his place at the Bench. Ed built one to the Justice's specifications. Before that the Marshal of the Court had been in the habit of picking chairs of various proportions as each new member joined the Court. (By tradition, the remaining Justices purchase a Justice's chair when he retires, giving it to him and his family.)

The chairs of various types gave a strange New York-skyline effect behind the high bench as backs rose and fell in a jagged line. When Chief Justice Burger was appointed in 1969 he so much liked the looks of the White chair that he told Ed Douglas to make his the same and Ed has continued to do that ever since. Now a smoother back-of-the-bench "skyline" can be noted. The White-Douglas chair rotates and rocks easily so that a Justice using one can talk to neighbors during hearings or lean backwards, relieving the fatigue of long sessions.

Along with the more glamorous jobs of building bench chairs and exhibits, Ed and his helpers tend to a variety of other chores--restoring and refinishing furniture, framing pictures, replacing moulding and performing a score of additional tasks to the advantage of the Court aesthetics adn also to taxpayer savings. Done away from the Court, the work would be greatly more expensive.

A native of Washington, D.C., Ed had a year of high school and a year as an apprentice machinist before his fate beckoned. A friend quit work as a mill apprentice and Ed stepped into the vacant shoes. The future cabinet maker's education in wood working began with a vengeance: the mill made sashes, frames, doors and other objects. Ed joined the United Carpenters and Joiners of America as an apprentice and later, in the Navy, served two years as a cabinetmaker. Out of service Ed worked seven years on his own, building kitchen cabinets, cases for high-fi sets, bookshelves and a wide variety of other custom furnishings. Coming to the Court in 1961, Ed set up the building's first furniture finishing shop and, soon after that, took over all carpentry and cabinet making as well.

The Microfilmers

Tucked away in a remote corner of the Court's library floor is a small room where microfilmers have been at work for fifteen years putting each page of the Court's thousands of volumes of briefs and case records on microfiche cards. The purpose is to make the Court's unique record of national litigation available to law libraries across teh country.

With the help of two tall cameras the microfilmers have been photographing at the rate of 8,000 pages--the equivalent of more than twenty books--each day, flipping pages almost as fast as they can be turned.

The work began with the Term of 1960. Using a single camera at the start, the microfilmers managed that year to photograph all current cases, plus those of the 1959 Term as well. With the addition of the second camera the rhythm became more brisk, the cameramen kept current but dug further back into the collections which fill more than 15,000 volumes at the rear of the Court's third floor. At last, during the past year, the photographers caught up with the backlog thanks in part to purchase of films which others had done on the Court's early work. The result is that Information Handling Services of Denver, Colorado, the organizer of the work, say that they have microcards now on all cert-denied and per curium cases back to 1946, and all full opinion cases back to 1832. How immense the task has been is reflected by the fact that lower court records in some cases fill an entire shelf by themselves. The microcards are postcard size--four inches by six--yet each reproduces 96 pages. Three cards are enough for a book. In the 1975 Term the Buckley v. Valeo cases on campaign financing generated 800 pages of material; nine cards took care of the lot.

Not every piece of paper nor the details of every issue in the Court's nearly two centuries are on the microcards now, though a very great share is. Some was lost when the British burned the Capitol and built a bonfire in the Supreme Court chambers during the War of 1812. Blazes at other times destroyed further materials. Meanwhile it was well into the 1800s before the Court demanded printed briefs in al cases. With these exceptions, however, the microcards will now enable lawyers distant from Washington to delve easily and deeply into the Supreme Court's cases past. Chief of the microfilmers is Bill Bisgood; he is assisted by Janice Buchanan and Michael Cavanaugh.

The Print Shop

In a secluded part of the Court building is the printing operation which was set up in 1946 to compose the Court Opinions.

Preserving the secrecy of Opinions while they are being drafted and passed back and forth among the Justices for amendments and rephrasings has always been a Court concern. Only after World War II however was it decided to confine the process to the Court's own building. Prior to that the typesetting was done in commercial shops in the District of Colombia, always with the requirement that total discretion be assured. With rarest exceptions the confidentiality of the Justices' work has been protected through the long history.

One of the trusted early printers was George S. Gideon who undertook the work in 1845. At that time each of the three branches of the government arranged for its own printing. By 1860 Congress held hearings on whether a Government Printing Office should be established to provide for the bulk of all such work for the federal bureaucracy. Mr. Gideon testified. He implied that government rates were so low that accepting any of the work was a labor of love. Mr. Gideon added that he would keep on with the Supreme Court material, "it being the only printing I do for the Government."

The GPO was set up a year later, taking on the larger share of the printing for the executive and legislative branches, plus some for the judiciary, but the Supreme Court stayed on with Mr. Gideon and with Joseph L. Pearson who succeeded him. The Pearson plant had the Court work until l946 when it went out of business, a three-quarter-century span.

From 1891 until his retirement in 1948, Clarence E. Bright handled the bulk of the Court work for Pearson's. Starting as one of the printers he became successively the manager and owner. Justices would drop into his plant in downtown Washington to look over the preparation of the Opinions just as they still do now occasionally in the Court cellar. Mr. Bright's system for guaranteeing secrecy was to split up each Opinion among several of his printers, keeping the concluding part for himself to set.

Chief Justice Vinson saluted Mr. Bright from the bench when his six-decade tenure ended; the printer's discretion and loyalty in protecting the Court's confidence exceeded a mere contractual relationship, the Chief Justice attested. The tribute went into volume 329 of the U.S. Reports at page ix, there for all future students of the Court to see if they wish.

The Government Printing Office observed its centenary in 1961, by publishing "100 GPO Years." The volume said that the Court weight several alternatives after Pearson's shut down, deciding at length to do its own printing in its own basement with the help of selected GPO personnel. That is the system to this day. Lou Cornio is foreman. Under him are five journeyman printers and a printing plant worker, There are linotype hot metal machines for setting type, equipment familiar in a country newspapers but rather dated now in the larger cities. There are also presses able to turn out 8,000 pages in an hour. On Decision Days the printers produce something over 100 copies of each Opinion, most of which go to dozens of waiting newsmen. The same type is used for the booklet-style "slip opinions," for the paperback Preliminary Prints, and for the "U.S. Reports"-the bound volumes of Court Decisions.

Lou Cornio grew up in Chicago. He too an early liking to his high school's print shop and made pocket money working after hours producing Christmas cards. He went to engineering college for a year and served in World War II. At war's end Lou's father, an electrician, saw a chance to get Lou into his union as an apprentice but the young Cornio decided he wanted to print instead. It is a job, he says, where "you see the results of your work." Almost any major law library now provides honored space to many volumes of the U.S. Reports which first came into type under Lou's supervision. After some time doing advertising layouts in the Windy City, Lou joined the GPO in Washington and then went on to the Court basement work which has occupied him since.

Yearbook 1977 Supreme Court Historical Society