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President Harrison nominated Shiras as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on July 19, 1892. The Senate confirmed his appointment a week later.
President Benjamin Harrison offers his non-partisan rationale for selecting attorney George Shiras Jr. of Pennsylvania to be an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He also insisted he would not appoint those who held narrow constitutional views that would prevent the government from operating properly. Shiras, who practiced law privately for nearly forty years, had never served in public office or as a judge. He was sworn in on October 10, 1892, and remained on the bench until 1903.
Decades later, Washington businessman William A. Heilprin sent Harrison’s letter to Associate Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who shared it with fellow Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts. Brandeis wrote a brief letter to Heilprin in returning the Harrison letter to him. The two letters have remained together ever since.
BENJAMIN HARRISON.
Typed Letter Signed, to George Shiras Jr., August 11, 1892, Loon Lake, New York. On Executive Mansion stationery. 1 p., 8 x 10½ in. #27727 With: LOUIS D. BRANDEIS, Autograph Letter Signed, to W. A. Heilprin, December 16, 1937, Washington, D.C. On Supreme Court of the United States stationery; includes envelope. 1 p.,
Inventory #27727
Price: $12,500
Complete Transcripts
[Harrison to Shiras:]
Loon Lake, N.Y. Aug. 11th, 1892
Hon George Shiras, Jr.
Pittsburg, Penna.
My dear Sir:
I have your letter of the 3rd. The selection of a Justice of the Supreme Court I have regarded as one of the most important and delicate of the duties devolving upon me and have in every case given the question the greatest care and deliberation; and have excluded all questions of personal or political influence or relations. Nothing said in behalf of a candidate had any weight with me except it related to his personal character and professional fitness. Both the Attorney General and I were satisfied that you possessed the essentials and I do not doubt that you will, after getting used to the gown, make a good record in the court. I have desired to add to the Bench, not partizans on one hand or, on the other, those who held constitutional views of that narrow kind that would put the general government under such limitations as to make it impossible to exercise the general powers conferred by the Constitution.
I will be glad to see you in October when you come to Washington to assume your office.
Very truly yours,
Benj Harrison
[Brandeis to Heilprin:]
Personal
Dec. 16th 1937
Dear Mr. Heilprin:
It was good of you to let me see President Harrison’s letter returned herewith.
I took the liberty of showing it to Mr. Justice Roberts for whom it had a special interest.
Cordially
Louis D. Brandeis
Mr. W. A. Heilprin
Historical Background
President Benjamin Harrison nominated Shiras as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on July 19, 1892. The Senate confirmed his appointment a week later, on July 26. Shiras had been in private law practice for nearly forty years and had never served in public office or as a judge. Shiras had reservations about accepting the appointment, and Harrison provided his reasoning for selecting Shiras in this letter. Shiras was sworn in on October 10, 1892, and remained on the bench until 1903.
The “special interest” that Justice Roberts had in Harrison’s criteria for selecting justices probably related to Harrison’s refusal to nominate those who held “constitutional views of that narrow kind” that would excessively limit the ability of Congress to exercise the general powers of the federal government. Roberts held a critical position in the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. He and Hughes occupied a middle ground between the conservative Four Horsemen (Butler, McReynolds, Sutherland, and Van Devanter) and the liberal Three Musketeers (Brandeis, Cardozo, and Stone). Although Hughes was more likely to join the liberals, Roberts often held with the conservatives.
Nine months earlier, Roberts had been the crucial fifth vote (with the Three Musketeers and Hughes) in the case of West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of state minimum-wage laws. After the Supreme Court had held many of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs unconstitutional, this decision marked a turning point after which the Court upheld many of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. In June 1936, Roberts had voted with the Four Horsemen to strike down a similar minimum wage law from New York. In February 1937, Roosevelt proposed to change the number of Supreme Court justices, and Roberts’s decision to vote with the liberals in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish was dubbed “the switch in time that saved nine” by defusing Roosevelt’s Court reorganization plan. Roberts had made his decision on the case in December 1936.
George Shiras Jr.(1832-1924) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, attended Ohio University, and graduated from Yale College in 1853. Although he attended Yale Law School, he left before earning a degree and read law at a law office. He practiced law in Dubuque, Iowa (1855-1858), and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1858-1892). In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court to succeed Joseph P. Bradley. He was recommended by his cousin Secretary of State James G. Blaine. During his ten years on the court, Shiras authored 253 majority decisions and 14 dissents. He retired from the Supreme Court in February 1903.
Louis D. Brandeis(1856-1941) was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in a secular Jewish household. He graduated from Louisville Male High School at age 14, and his father relocated his family to Europe in 1872, where Brandeis continued his studies. He entered Harvard Law School in 1875, excelled, and graduated as valedictorian in 1877. He remained at Harvard for another year as a tutor before joining a law firm in St. Louis, Missouri, but soon moved to Boston. He also served for two years as a law clerk to the chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and gained admission to the Massachusetts Bar. In an 1890 article, he and his law partner defined modern notions of an individual’s right to privacy, and several states soon passed statutes establishing the right. In 1891, he married his second cousin Alice Goldmark, with whom he had two daughters. From 1897 to 1916, Brandeis was a leader of the Progressive movement, using the law as an instrument for social change. He actively opposed monopolies and big corporations, leading others to refer to him as “the people’s lawyer.” In 1908, in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Muller v. Oregon, Brandeis filed a brief filled with social research and data in support of the public interest for a ten-hour limitation on women’s workdays. His brief proved decisive in the case and such briefs that combined law and social science became known as the “Brandeis brief.” Originally a liberal Republican, Brandeis in 1912 supported Democrat Woodrow Wilson for the presidency. In January 1916, Wilson nominated Brandeis as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but the nomination was bitterly contested by conservative Republicans and members of the legal profession, who considered him a militant reformer. The Senate Judiciary Committee held its first-ever public hearing on the nomination. A divided Senate approved the nomination, and Brandeis was sworn into office four months after being nominated as the first Jew to join the Court. Brandeis served on the Supreme Court for 23 years and was one of the most influential justices in the history of the Court. Some of his opinions were among the greatest defenses of the freedom of speech and the right to privacy. He retired from the Court in 1939.
William A. Heilprin(1880-1974) was born in the District of Columbia, grew up there, and graduated from Harvard University in 1901. He moved to Philadelphia and manufactured BB guns until World War I. He made important contributions to precision die-making for cartridges during World War I. After the war, he operated the Arrow Machinery Company in Philadelphia. In 1936, he succeeded his father as proprietor of the Franklin Optical Company in Washington, D.C., founded by his grandfather in 1861.
Condition: [Harrison to Shiras:] Flattened folds with some wear; age toning and soiling; heavy soiling to verso, with two small losses at top and bottom; two outlines of tape residue at top; pencil annotation at top left reads: “from the collection of W A Heilprin / Franklin & Co - Wash DC.” [Brandeis to Heilprin:] Small area at top center where a bit of paper is shaved off; light soiling and toning; small stain on verso.
