The Conservative World of Mr. Justice Sutherland, 1883–1910

The Supreme Court of the United States was dominated for almost two decades by the philosophy of Mr. Justice Sutherland. Even prior to becoming an Associate Justice, October 2, 1922, he had been a figure of national prominence for over twenty years, serving one term as congressman, 1898–1900, and two terms as senator, 1905–1917. His retirement, January 16 of this year, closes the more active phases of a long career in public service. Throughout he has shown himself a man of firm convictions and pronounced views, whether expressed on the floors of Congress, in public addresses, or in Supreme Court opinions. Yet little, almost nothing, has been published on his life, thought, and work, as was contemporaneously done with respect to Justices Holmes and Brandeis.This neglect of judicial biography has been noticed by Dean Charles E. Clarke of the Yale Law School. Writing in the Nation of June 12, 1937, he observed: “Many of the books which needed to be written on judicial supremacy have now been completed.