Willis
Van Devanter, the son of a lawyer, was born in Marion on 17th April,
1859. After graduating from Cincinnati
Law School he worked for his father's law firm.
In 1884 he moved to Cheyenne where he became a railroad attorney.
A member of the Republican Party he
became chief justice of the territorial Supreme Court. William
McKinley appointed Van Devanter as assistant attorney general
(1897-1903) and Theodore Roosevelt
made him a federal judge (1903-10). In 1911 President William
Taft appointed appointed him to the Supreme
Court where he soon developed a reputation for his conservative
views.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic
Party candidate, was elected as president in 1932. Over the next
few years Van Devanter 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 (Van Devanter, Charles
Hughes, George Sutherland, Owen
Roberts, Harlan Stone, Pierce
Butler 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 (Van Devanter, Charles
Hughes, Owen Roberts, 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.
Van Devanter, probably the most conservative of all 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. Willis Van Devanter died in Washington,
on 8th February, 1941.
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