Advise and Consent by Allen Drury Page B

part than he or any of us knows.”

    Across Capitol Plaza in the beautiful marble edifice that prompted Justice Sutherland to say that he felt as though he and his brethren were nine black beetles in the Temple of Karnak, Thomas Buckmaster Davis, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was busy on the telephone. The telephone was made for Washington, and Mr. Justice Davis was possibly its most devout disciple. Day in, day out, night in, night out, Tommy was on the phone, arguing, commenting, urging, suggesting, criticizing, lecturing, injecting his lively personality into the workings of government on every conceivable issue under the sun, regardless of whether anyone asked for, desired, or even listened to his opinion.
    One of a long line of political Justices running from Jay to Frankfurter (with whose judicial opinions Tommy didn’t always agree), Mr. Justice Davis was a born participant in practically everything. The Chief Justice had mildly reproved him about this once, noting that the ideal of American political theory was that the Court should be above politics. “When was the Court ever above politics?” Tommy had snapped, and the C.J. hadn’t tried to argue very hard. “Well, people should think it is, anyway,” he had said, rather lamely. “You make it so obvious it isn’t.” “It’s a free country,” said Mr. Justice Davis firmly.
    There was illuminated in this brief exchange much about the relationship between the Court and the country, and more particularly, between Tommy and his colleagues. Tommy, it was true, had put his finger on something, and the C.J. with equal perspicacity, had done the same. Whatever the Court’s awareness of the current political climate might be, and it was usually very good, there was a sort of agreed understanding among its members that they wouldn’t admit it, publicly at any rate. Mr. Justice Davis gave a sort of tentative lip service to this, when he remembered about it, but most of the time he made no bones about his own avid involvement in any phase of politics that happened to interest him. This was all phases, and inevitably this brought considerable public criticism and a certain frigidity into his relations with his eight fellows. It was obvious every day when the clerk cried, “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” and the Justices emerged in their stately massed ballet from behind the red-velvet curtain that Mr. Justice Davis and his brethren were not entirely happy with one another.
    Today, however, the Court was not meeting, nor were any conferences scheduled, and there was nothing to interfere with Tommy’s favorite pastime. The Leffingwell nomination, he was aware, provided perhaps his greatest recent challenge, and he was rising to it with all the vigor at his command. At the moment he was arguing with the general director of the Post , who was giving him a bad time.
    “But what other position is there for a liberal to take?” Tommy was demanding. “My dear boy, my dear boy; oh, my dear boy!”
    “I’m still not sure we’re ready to go all out,” the general director of the Post remarked doggedly.
    “But my dear boy,” Tommy said, “suppose the Senate doesn’t confirm him. Think what a black eye it will be for the liberal cause.”
    “Suppose the Senate confirms him and he does the wrong thing in foreign policy,” the general director of the Post shot back. “Think what a black eye it will be for all of us.”
    “Surely you don’t mistrust Bob Leffingwell!” Justice Davis said in a tone of shocked surprise. “After all he has done for the country, all these long, valiant years. Surely there couldn’t possibly be a better choice.”
    “W-e-l-l,” the director of the Post said slowly. “In many ways, you’re right, of course. But so much more is involved in this—”
    “Then why hesitate?” Tommy demanded triumphantly. “Isn’t that all the more reason for being for him? Has he ever failed us? Hasn’t he always been on the