The Supreme Court has an official Reporter of Decisions, by statute, passed by Congress and signed by the President. The lower federal courts do not. But once upon a time some of them — the circuit courts of appeals — did, by court order, issued by the circuit courts, orchestrated by the Supreme Court, and courtesy of Banks & Brothers, Law Publishers. This is a story about that time, a story about families, friends, and federal court reporting in the 19th century.
Spring and summer of 2011 brought to mind two instructive American chronological landmarks: the 235th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. One was as uplifting as the other was disheartening.
Caustic, Comical, Candid, and Insightful Commentary from Chief Justice William Howard Taft, 1921–1929: Excerpts Jonathan Lurie (bio) The reader of this article may be entitled to a few words of explanation concerning how it came to be written. From about 2009 to 2019, this author researched and completed two studies of William Howard Taft, the only American in our history to hold the two offices of President AND Chief Justice of the United States (although not at the same time).1 After reading numerous letters and speeches he had written, candor compels me to admit that a number of the former were verbose, and many—although not all—of the latter seemed dull, if not down-right boring. Subsequent conversations with some staff members in the Library of Congress Manuscripts Reading Room convinced me that I needed to reconsider this conclusion. In particular, they called my attention to a series of letters Taft had regularly dictated to his three children. After reading them, it became clear that I had been sadly mistaken, as these paragraphs will—I hope—reveal. The communications include various observations and comments Taft provided as he composed his weekly letters. I have placed them in a rough kind of chronological order combined with some respect for uniformity of topic. In the endnotes I have also provided minimal background information, although some familiarity with the Taft era is assumed. It appears that Taft had little fear that his children would reveal any of the comments contained herein. Moreover, he was fully aware that he had amassed a huge collection of papers including letters, copies, speeches, and articles—all of which he had confidently assumed would be used by Gus Karger in the authorized biography [End Page 49] that Taft anticipated Karger would produce. But Karger died in 1924, with the biography only a hoped-for project—yet to come. Upon Taft’s death in March, 1930, it fell to Taft’s children to resolve this matter. How they did so has been summarized in an earlier article for this journal.2 Click for larger view View full resolution President William Howard Taft with his wife, Helen, and children Robert, Charles, and Helen in 1909. When Taft became chief justice in 1921, he dictated letters to each of his children, by then all high achievers. Robert, the oldest, had been first in his class at Harvard Law School and was serving in the Ohio Legislature. Helen was completing her Ph.D. in history at Yale and would soon become dean and head of the history department at her alma mater, Bryn Mawr. Charles (left) received his degree from Yale Law School in 1921 and became active in Cincinnati politics. Throughout the final years of his life, and usually on the weekend, William Howard Taft dictated separate letters to his three adult children, Robert, Helen, and Charles; by 1921 all were married with children of their own. A graduate of Yale, Robert, the oldest, had been first in his class at Harvard Law School and president of the Harvard Law Review. Already a successful attorney, he served in the Ohio Legislature from 1921 to 1933. Always as a Republican, he would ultimately be elected to three terms in the U.S. Senate, a tenure cut short by his death in 1953. Helen Taft Manning graduated from Bryn Mawr, and later received a Ph.D. in history from Yale. She returned to her alma mater and served both as its dean and as a member of the history department, in which she taught until 1957. She was closely associated with M. Carey Thomas, the second president of Bryn Mawr from 1894 to 1922. Charles P. [End Page 50] Taft received degrees from both Yale College and Yale Law School. For a time, he joined his brother in a Cincinnati law firm, and later served as mayor of Cincinnati from 1955–1957. As was his want, the elder Taft ranged far and wide in comments to his trusted recipients. In the case of his children or Gus Karger—the long-time Washington correspondent for the Cincinnati Star-Times—they might include a description of individuals whom the Taft parents had...
