As it must to all men, Death came last week to Joseph McKenna, 83, onetime (1898-1925) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
In Washington nine men in solemn black robes met after a two weeks' recess to hand down weighty decisions; then, as they adjourned in honor of once fiery Joseph McKenna, their robes seemed to take on an even blacker shade. They were his honorary pallbearers. All of them, save the youngest (Harlan Fiske Stone), had sat on the Supreme Court bench with Justice McKenna. Impetuous, be had often vexed them. Irish, he had made them love him.
He was born in Philadelphia. His parents felt the pioneering urge and took him to California shortly after the first wave of the gold rush. There young Joseph found a home, a schooling, a wife, a passion for the law. In 1885 he was first elected to Congress, began his friendship with Representative William McKinley. As everyone knows, Mr. McKinley became President and appointed Mr. McKenna his Attorney General. The Supreme Court was the next step.
Justice McKenna usually armed himself on the bench with a magnificent, reticent dignity, but in times of argument he rose like an angry emperor slashing controversy with vehement logic, scorching opponents with Voltairian sarcasm. Off the bench he was as genial as an Irish sergeant on a day off.
His most important decision came when the Department of Justice attempted to cause the dissolution of the so-called "Steel Trust," and Justice McKenna wrote the decision of the Supreme Court which by a vote of 4 to 3 held that the United States Steel Corp. and its subsidiary companies did not form a combination in restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust law.
Above all else. Justice McKenna loved his wife. They had lived together for 55 years when she died two years ago. The shock of her death was so great that he re-signed from the Supreme Court.