When he was appointed a U. S. District judge by Woodrow Wilson in 1916, Martin Thomas Manton of New York, 36, was the youngest Federal judge in the land. Wilson raised him to the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals two years later, and he survived to become one of its senior members at 58.
Large, baldish and worldly, he was no ivory tower judge. He believed that social and economic phenomena "give life and substance to the law." Lawyers disliked his air of domineering omniscience, which seemed seldom justified by his understanding of their cases. And some lawyers worried about his off-bench business affairs which were known to be extensive and intricate.
Last week lawyers' dislikes and worries about Judge Manton were sharpened by articles in the crusading New York World-Telegram which guardedly suggested his impropriety in helping a business associate get a $250,000 loan with the aid of lawyer Louis S. Levy, onetime partner of the late, lusty Lawyer-Speculator Thomas L. Chadbourne, and hinted at a sinister deal six years ago between Judge Manton and the firm of Chadbourne, Stanchfield & Levy in connection with the receivership proceedings of New York's Interborough Rapid Transit Co. (subway).
But the World-Telegram's stories proved to be only the prelude to a blasting letter from District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey to Chairman Hatton Sumners of the House Judiciary Committee (where impeachment proceedings start) on the subject of Judge Manton. Mr. Dewey reported that, after a year's investigation, his office had learned about "a number" of the Judge's acts, of which he listed six, including: > Acceptance by Judge Manton or his corporations of $77,000 from a go-between for the late Promoter Archie M. Andrews, whose Packard razor patent suit Judge Manton helped to decide in Andrews' favor. > Accepting $50,000 in loans from Harry M. Warner (to whom $40,000 has been repaid) whose motion picture company won a patent case with Judge Manton presiding. > Receiving personally or for business enterprises $232,900 out of $250,000 lent through Lawyer Louis S. Levy to Judge Manton's partner by Lord & Thomas (advertising) whose client (and Levy's) was American Tobacco Co., for whom Judge Manton wrote the winning opinion in a $10,000,000 stockholder suit.
At week's end, Chairman Sumners of the Judiciary Committee received a communication from the Department of Justice. It announced the resignation of Judge Martin T. Manton.