In 1932, when the American Bar Association held its annual convention in Washington, its members enthusiastically wrung Herbert Hoover's right hand until it bled. Had he been at Kansas City last week, Franklin Roosevelt's hand would not have bled but his ears might have burned, for 3,000 members of the Law's outstanding professional association met there in a very different state of mind. If anything were needed to put a fine edge on the legal profession's fury at Franklin Delano Roosevelt it was the Constitution Day address three weeks ago in which he again voiced his low opinion of "legalistic interpretation" of the Constitution, described it as a "layman's document, not a lawyer's contract." Principal pleasure of the five-day meeting was a series of political speeches and a set of political resolutions which set the legal profession and the New Deal on an equal footing of mutual disrespect.
Missouri's onetime Democratic Senator James A. Reed welcomed the lawyers to Kansas City, saying, "In this strange period in our history, the body politic is chained to the political operating table and the dreamers of dreams and the seers of visions are permitted at will to cut and probe and slash the helpless victim." Two days later Nebraska's anti-New Deal Senator Edward R. Burke appealed to the legal profession's self-pity: "There was a time when the banker was the favorite 'whipping boy.' The welts of the lash upon the . . . banker may now be permitted to heal while the lawyer takes his place with bared back at the post."
Like the rest of the U. S., the A. B. A. last week focused a large share of its attention on Hugo LaFayette Black. Struck out was a resolution to hold an investigation of "the latest appointee to the Supreme Court." In its stead the A. B. A. adopted a resolution to petition the U. S. Senate to hold public hearings on all future judicial appointments. Dead set against the President's Court Plan and fearful of his efforts to revive it. the Association voted to appoint a Special Commission of seven members to report any further efforts to enlarge the Supreme Court to the A. B. A. for a referendum, devote itself to maintaining "an independent and untrammeled judiciary."
The A. B. A. also:
¶ Approved the appointment for a two-year term of a national director of public information concerning the legal profession—a press agent to improve the U. S. layman's opinion of lawyers.
¶ Went on record that "the taking of photographs in the courtroom during sessions or recesses . . . degrades the court and . . . should not be permitted."
¶ Went through the formality of electing New Jersey's Arthur T. Vanderbilt, who had been nominated by A. B. A. delegates last January, president to succeed Minneapolis' Frederick Harold Stinchfield. Lawyer Vanderbilt, 49, is a liberal Republican who, in addition to an active practice, has taught Law at New York University Law School for 23 years, been Chairman of the Judicial Council of New Jersey for seven.