PROCEEDINGS IN THE SUPREME COURT

OF THE UNITED STATES

In Memory of Mr. Chief Justice Vinson

MONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1954

Present: MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN, MR. JUSTICE BLACK, MR. JUSTICE REED, MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, MR. JUSTICE BURTON, MR. JUSTICE CLARK, and MR. JUSTICE MINTON.

MR. SOLICITOR GENERAL SOBELOFF addressed the Court as follows:

3

May it please the Court: This morning, at a meeting called for that purpose,2 members of the Bar of the Supreme Court adopted resolutions expressing their profound sorrow at the death of Chief Justice Vinson. Addresses were made to the Bar by Judge John J. Parker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Mr. Edward H. Foley, Jr., and Mr. Cody Fowler. The resolutions are as follows:

1 Mr. Chief Justice Vinson died in Washington, D. C., on September 8, 1953. Services were held at the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, in Washington, D. C., on September 10, 1953, and at the Louisa Methodist Church, in Louisa, Ky., on September 11, 1953. Interment was in Pine Hill Cemetery, at Louisa, Ky., on September 11, 1953. See 346 U. S. pp. iv, vII.

2 The Committee on Arrangements for the meeting of the Bar consisted of Solicitor General Simon E. Sobeloff, Chairman, Judge Walter M. Bastian, Mr. Joseph E. Davies, Mr. John Diederich, Mr. Cody Fowler, Mr. J. Howard McGrath, and Chief Judge John J. Parker. 3 The Committee on Resolutions consisted of Mr. Sam Rayburn, Chairman, Mr. Dean Acheson, Mr. Francis Biddle, Mr. James Craw

RESOLUTIONS

We of the Bar of the Supreme Court are met here to record our regret at the untimely death of Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson. He died suddenly on September 8, 1953, at the age of sixty-three, after seven years of service on the bench of the Supreme Court as the thirteenth Chief Justice of the United States-the culmination of a life of service to his country.

Fred M. Vinson was born in 1890 on the banks of the Big Sandy River in the little town of Louisa in Eastern Kentucky. His father was the town jailer, and the family living quarters were in the same building that housed the jail. The boy was thus born almost, if not actually, in the jail-a circumstance to which in later life he sometimes humorously referred. The Vinson family knew poverty. The boy, Fred, knew also the stimulus and opportunities of American life. As a youth, he was a prodigious reader and read all that the Louisa Library offered. In the public schools of Louisa and Catlettsburg he excelled in both scholarship and sports.

The family was determined that he should go to college, and he went first to Kentucky Normal College and then, in 1908, on to the study of law at Centre College, Danville,

ford Biggs, Mr. William Marshall Bullitt, Mr. W. Cameron Burton, Mr. Clark M. Clifford, Mr. Thomas G. Corcoran, Mr. Homer S. Cummings, Mr. Walter J. Cummings, Jr., Mr. Evan T. Davis, Mr. John W. Davis, Judge Charles Fahy, Mr. David E. Feller, Mr. Edward H. Foley, Jr., Chief Justice D. Lawrence Groner (retired), Chief Judge Learned Hand (retired), Chief Judge Marvin Jones, Chief Judge Bolitha J. Laws, Mr. Wilbur R. Lester, Mr. Chesley Lycan, Chief Judge Albert B. Maris, Mr. William M. Martin, Judge Wilbur K. Miller, Mr. William D. Mitchell, Mr. Fred W. Morrison, Mr. William W. Oliver, Mr. James C. N. Paul, Mr. Willard H. Pedrick, Mr. George Wharton Pepper, Mr. Philip B. Perlman, Mr. Charles E. Pledger, Jr., Mr. Paul Porter, Mr. Karl R. Price, Mr. Murray Schwartz, Mr. Arthur R. Seder, Chief Judge Harold M. Stephens, Mr. John L. Sullivan, Mr. Howard J. Trienens, Mr. Joseph P. Tumulty, Jr., Mr. Simeon S. Willis, and Mr. Henry A.

Kentucky. There his feats, academic and athletic, are legendary. A leader among his fellow students, he graduated as the top-ranking student in his class in 1909, won prizes in the Law School in 1910 and 1911, and emerged from the Law School in 1911 with the unique distinction of possessing the highest academic record in the history of the Law School. At the same time, he ranked as one of the outstanding college athletes of his day as shortstop and captain of the Centre baseball team for two years. It is more than rumor that he was tempted by a career in professional baseball. But he turned from this prospect to law and public service, never, however, losing his deep interest in the great American game. He was, in fact, a living encyclopedia of baseball learning and when in later life his responsibilities required decisions affecting this American institution he always approached them with special relish.

He entered the practice of the law in Louisa in 1911, and soon became City Attorney, an office then apparently more distinguished in its title than in its rewards. His varied practice in Louisa was interrupted during the First World War with a brief stint of military service ending in Officers Candidate School at the time of the Armistice.

As a lawyer and a Kentuckian he was naturally interested in politics. He was, moreover, singularly endowed for public service. His ability, integrity, fair-mindedness, and genial spirit won an ever-widening circle of friends and admirers. In 1921, he was elected Commonwealth's Attorney for his district. In 1923, when thirty-three years of age, he ran for Congress in the old Ninth District of Kentucky and was elected. Save for the Democratic eclipse of 1928, when he established a law partnership in Ashland, he was re-elected with ever-increasing majorities until his resignation from Congress in 1938.

For fourteen years Fred M. Vinson served his country in the Congress of the United States, and distinguished service it was. In 1931, in recognition of his demonstrated ability, he was assigned to the critically important

Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives where he soon became a key figure. In 1936, despite his lesser seniority, he was named as Chairman of the Special Subcommittee on Revenue Legislation of the House Ways and Means Committee. In all, seven revenue acts were passed while Fred Vinson was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee. Each reflected his handiwork. Many of the major features of our modern revenue system stem from his work. When the Revenue Bill of 1938, a wholesale revision of the revenue statute and predecessor of the Internal Revenue Code, was before the House, it was then known that he was leaving Congress for the bench of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The bill was passed almost without debate as a tribute to its guiding spirit and the time was given over instead to heartfelt tributes from both sides of the aisle to this man from Kentucky who had served his country so well.

But he was more than the Congressional tax expert, though there are easier subjects. His mastery of intricate revenue legislation, his fabulous facility with figures, his ability to translate the complex into the understandable and his talent for conciliation of divergent viewpoints combined to make him a key Congressional leader on such important measures as the Vinson-Guffey Coal Acts, the Social Security Act of 1935, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the reciprocal trade legislation. He was in fact one of the architects of the basic social and economic reform legislation of the Thirties. He believed in all rights guaranteed by the Constitution. He believed in the importance of all the "folks" and in the obligation of government to preserve for all the opportunity to live fruitful, useful, and happy lives. To this end, as a legislative leader, he devoted his talents and in so doing won the deep respect and the abiding friendship of adherents and opponents alike.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 appointed him to a position on the bench of the Court of Appeals for the