Pierce
Butler was born in Northfield, Minnesota, on 17th March, 1866. Admitted
to the bar in 1888 he served as assistant county attorney in St Paul,
before forming his own law firm. Over the next twenty-five years Butler
established himself as one of the country's leading railroad attorneys.
When William Taft became president, his
attorney general, George Wickersham, employed Butler to prosecute
some anti-trust cases. In 1922 President Warren
Harding appointed him to the Supreme
Court. Butler reactionary political views were well-known and
his appointment was challenged by leading progressives such as George
Norris and Robert La Follette.
Butler was a conservative justice and was consistent in his opposistion
to progressive taxation, welfare legislation, and attempts to control
the freedom of America's large corporations.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic
Party candidate, was elected as president in 1932. Over the next
few years Butler and the other justices who were supporters of the
Republican Party, ruled against the
National Recovery Administration (NRA),
the Agricultural Adjustment Act
(AAA) and ten other New Deal laws.
On 2nd February, 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt
made a speech attacking the Supreme Court
for its actions over New Deal legislation.
He pointed out that seven of the nine judges (Butler, Charles
Hughes, George Sutherland, Willis
Van Devanter, Harlan Stone, Owen
Roberts and Benjamin Cardozo) had
been appointed by Republican presidents.
Roosevelt had just won re-election by 10,000,000 votes and resented
the fact that the justices could veto legislation that clearly had
the support of the vast majority of the public.
Roosevelt suggested that the age was a major problem as six of the
judges were over 70 (Butler, Charles Hughes,
Willis Van Devanter, James
McReynolds, Louis Brandeis and George
Sutherland). Roosevelt announced that he was going to ask Congress
to pass a bill enabling the president to expand the Supreme
Court by adding one new judge, up to a maximum off six, for every
current judge over the age of 70.
Charles Hughes realised that Roosevelt's
Court Reorganization Bill would result in the Supreme
Court coming under the control of the Democratic
Party. His first move was to arrange for a letter written by him
to be published by Burton Wheeler, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
In the letter Hughes cogently refuted all the claims made by Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
However, behind the scenes Charles Hughes
was busy doing deals to make sure that Roosevelt's bill would be defeated
in Congress. On 29th March, Owen Roberts
announced that he had changed his mind about voting against minimum
wage legislation. Hughes also reversed his opinion on the Social
Security Act and the National Labour Relations
Act (NLRA) and by a 5-4 vote they were now declared to be constitutional.
Then Willis Van Devanter, probably the
most conservative of the justices, announced his intention to resign.
He was replaced by Hugo Black, a member
of the Democratic Party and a strong
supporter of the New Deal. In July,
1937, Congress defeated the Court Reorganization Bill by 70-20. However,
Roosevelt had the satisfaction of knowing he had a Supreme
Court that was now less likely to block his legislation.
Pierce Butler refused to retire and was still a member of the Supreme
Court when he died in Washington
on 16th November, 1939.
Leslie Illingworth,
Punch Magazine (1937)
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