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The Liberty League and the Constitution

Under the sponsorship of the "American Liberty League", James M. Beck lately lectured the Bar, by radio and by pamphlet, on "The Duty of the Lawyer in the Present Crisis". His speech was an indiscriminating attack upon the legal advisers of this Administration, and the duty which he urged upon all lawyers was, "We must defeat the sappers and miners of the New Deal, who are insidiously undermining the very foundations of the Constitution".

Call for a Liberal Bar

The history of progress in society is a story of struggle for better law. We do not achieve improvement merely by recording a vote of the people. Their action must be reduced from political principle to a legal rule or an institution. It has been one of the tasks of lawyers to translate the aspirations of our people into law, and into living institutions. In this their function has been vital to progress, and the call for their service is a continuing one.

The Nurnberg Trial Becomes an Historic Precedent

The judgment of the first international criminal tribunal in history, and the first to pass judgment on crimes against peace, cannot fail to be of interest to lawyers, statesmen and diplomats over the years. Anyone who desires to rest his estimate of the trial of the Nazi war criminals on accurate, relevant and fairly complete information will find this judgment of the International Military Tribunal the most convenient and impartial source.

Robert H. Jackson: Head of State?

Robert H. Jackson would have made an interesting President. Some might disagree principally because of his disposition to work alone on many matters but F.D.R. himself had a secretive side to him, and it did not hinder his effectiveness. Jackson would have been a strong head of state because his affable personality would have made him the type of leader that subordinates would have been eager to emulate and because he was a thoroughly practical man. He would have understood all the nuances of the problems he faced and the solutions that would or would not have worked to solve them.

That Man: An Insider’s Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt

Justice Jackson also had been writing, in his final years, a memoir of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This manuscript, discovered fifty years later, was published in 2003 as That Man: An Insider’s Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Oxford University Press).

Rich Get Richer

As the figures of tax collections have become available, it has become apparent that the present administration inherited in 1933 a tax structure that, in terms of making that burden proportionate to ability to pay, had become out of balance even by the standards adopted during the preceding administration....

Financial Monopoly: The Road to Socialism

President Roosevelt, in his message of April 29, 1938, called the attention of the Congress to a growing concentration in this country of private economic power, without equal in history. He said that this concentration is seriously impairing the economic effectiveness of private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and capital and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and earnings among the people of the nation as a whole.

Justice Jackson Weighs Nuremberg’s Lessons

The choice that faced President Truman was a simple one. We had captured many enemy war leaders whom the world accused of serious crimes. Three things could be done with them: First, they could be turned free, ignoring the accusations; second, they could be punished without trial; third, there could be hearings to see just who ought to be punished and for what.

For Me, Robert H. Jackson is Alive

As one without a law degree and with no credentials as a historian, it is a great honor for me to pay a layman's tribute to the most eminent alumnus of the Albany Law School: Robert H. Jackson. He is justly famous as one of the most eloquent Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, but perhaps no judicial comments have ever equaled his opening and closing statements at the Nuremberg trials. His determination to make those trials reflect our highest principles of justice and morality is incomparable. Robert Jackson has been gone for fifty years, but his legacy lives on. With new and different war crimes trials on the front pages of every newspaper, Jacksonís legacy takes on ever more powerful meaning.

Mr. Justice Jackson

Charles S. Desmond, Paul A. Freund, Justice Potter Stewart & Lord Shawcross, Mr. Justice Jackson: Four Lectures in His Honor (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1969) (with introductions by Whitney North Seymour, John Lord O’Brian, Judge Charles D. Breitel and Justice John M. Harlan).