7" x 9" Black-and-White Press Portrait Photograph of McReynolds
"Seldom Photographed" McReynolds, James Clark [1862-1946]. [7" x 9" Black-and-White Press Photograph of McReynolds]. [New York: Acme Newspictures, October 13, 1933]. Minor wear to corners, light wrinkling, annotations, stamps and tipped-in caption to verso. $125. * The caption reads (in part): "Justice James Clark McReynolds of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., Oct. 12th, arriving to attend a session of the Fall term which opened recently. Seldom photographed in other than group pictures, Justice McReynolds is shown in an informal action pose as he arrives at the Supreme Court..." McReynolds was was best known for his overt anti-semitism, and being one of the "Four Horsemen" (together with Willis Van Devanter, George Sutherland, and Pierce Butler), who represented the opposition to Roosevelt's New Deal. A blatant bigot, McReynolds would not accept "Jews, drinkers, blacks, women, smokers, married or engaged individuals" as law clerks. Time Magazine "called him 'Puritanical', 'intolerably rude', 'savagely sarcastic', 'incredibly reactionary', and 'anti-Semitic'". McReynolds refused to speak to Louis Brandeis, the first Jew on the Court, for three years following Brandeis's appointment and, when Brandeis retired in 1939, did not sign the customary dedicatory letter sent to justices on their retirement. He habitually left the conference room whenever Brandeis spoke. When Benjamin Cardozo's appointment was being pressed on President Herbert C. Hoover, McReynolds joined with fellow justices Pierce Butler and Willis Van Devanter in urging the White House not to "afflict the Court with another Jew". When news of Cardozo's appointment was announced, McReynolds is claimed to have said "Huh, it seems that the only way you can get on the Supreme Court these days is to be either the son of a criminal or a Jew, or both." During Cardozo's swearing-in ceremony, McReynolds pointedly read a newspaper, and would often hold a brief or record in front of his face when Cardozo delivered an opinion from the bench. Likewise, he refused to sign opinions authored by Brandeis.
Price: $125.00
Book number 64280