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In the foreground appears the bronze gate giving access to the enclosure reserved for counsel. In their favorite and ill-assorted chairs, the Justices relax in characteristic attitudes. At the left Justice Roberts, whose recent swing to the liberals has resulted in a series of decisions upholding the New Deal, pays close attention to the white-haired attorney (centre) arguing before the Court. Next comes conservative Justice Butler, hunched in his little chair studying a document. Liberal Justice Brandeis, 80, most ancient member of the Court, looks gauntly on. Conservative Justice Van Devanter, hearing one of his last cases, has his fingers before his mouth. The Chief Justice fingers his snowy mustache. Conservative Justice McReynolds stares meditatively at the fine ceiling of the court room (not shown in the picture). Conservative Justice Sutherland lounges at one side of his chair. Liberal Justice Stone has his hand partly before his face. Liberal Justice Cardozo leans wearily upon one elbow. It is 2:52 p. m.
The striking thing about this departing Court is that although in the first three years of the New Deal it invalidated law after law—NRA, AAA, hot oil, Guffey Coal—and upheld only one of importance — devaluation and the cancelation of the gold clause — it has not since last October overruled the New Deal on a single major case. Instead, it upheld in the past year: the arms embargo in the Chaco War, the new Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act, the Railway Labor Act, the Wagner Labor Law, the Social Security Law. Yet it was not until this winter that the President demanded that it be changed. A valedictory upon this historic Court was pronounced last week by a Washington wag who asked :
"Why shoot the bridegroom after a shot gun wedding?"