James
McReynolds was born in Elkton, Kentucky, on 3rd February, 1862. He
was admitted to the bar in 1884 and practiced law in Nashville, Tennessee.
McReynolds became professor of law at Vanderbilt University before
being appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt
as assistant attorney general (1903-07). He also served as special
counsel to the attorney general (1907-12) under Roosevelt and William
Taft.
In 1913 President Woodrow Wilson appointed
McReynolds as his attorney general. The following year he joined the
Supreme Court. McReynolds was considered
to be a liberal by Wilson but he became increasingly conservative.
He was a staunch anti-Semite and always refused to sit or stand next
to Louis Brandeis at meetings.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic
Party candidate, was elected as president in 1932. Over the next
few years McReynolds 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 (Willis
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 (McReynolds, Willis
Van Devanter, Charles Hughes, Owen
Roberts, 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.
Willis 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.
James McReynolds, who retired from the Supreme
Court in 1941, died in Washington,
on 24th August, 1946.
Leslie Illingworth,
Punch Magazine (1937)
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