James Clark Mc Reynolds - Personality and Conflicts

Personality and Conflicts

McReynolds was labeled "Scrooge" by journalist Drew Pearson. Chief Justice William Howard Taft thought him selfish, prejudiced, "and someone who seems to delight in making others uncomfortable ... e has a continual grouch, and is always offended because the court is doing something that he regards as undignified". Taft also wrote that McReynolds was the most irresponsible member of the Court, and that "n the absence of McReynolds everything went smoothly."

Early on, his temperament affected his performance in the court. For example, he deemed John Clarke, another Wilson appointee to the court, to be "too liberal" and refused to speak with him. Clarke made an early decision to leave the Court, and McReynolds's antipathy was a factor. Indeed, McReynolds refused to sign the customary joint memorial letter given to departing members. In a letter, Taft commented that "his is a fair sample of McReynolds's personal character and the difficulty of getting along with him."

Taft wrote that although he considered McReynolds an "able man", he found him to be "selfish to the last degree... fuller of prejudice than any man I have ever known ... one who delights in making others uncomfortable. He has no sense of duty ... really seems to have less of a loyal spirit to the Court than anybody". Addicted to vacations, in 1929 McReynolds asked Taft to announce opinions assigned to him (McReynolds), explaining that "an imperious voice has called me out of town. I don't think my sudden illness will prove fatal, but strange things some time happen around Thanksgiving". Duck hunting season had opened and McReynolds was off to Maryland for some shooting. In 1925, he left so suddenly on a similar errand that he had no opportunity to notify the Chief Justice of his departure. Taft was infuriated as two important decisions he wanted to deliver were delayed because McReynolds had not handed in a dissent before leaving.

He would go into tirades about "un-Americans" and "political subversives."

McReynolds would not accept "Jews, drinkers, blacks, women, smokers, married or engaged individuals as law clerks". A blatant anti-Semite, Time "called him 'Puritanical', 'intolerably rude', 'savagely sarcastic', 'incredibly reactionary', and 'anti-Semitic'". McReynolds refused to speak to Louis Brandeis, the first Jew on the Court, for three years following Brandeis's appointment and, when Brandeis retired in 1939, did not sign the customary dedicatory letter sent to justices on their retirement. He habitually left the conference room whenever Brandeis spoke. When Benjamin Cardozo's appointment was being pressed on President Herbert C. Hoover, McReynolds joined with fellow justices Butler and Van Devanter in urging the White House not to "afflict the Court with another Jew". When news of Cardozo's appointment was announced, McReynolds is claimed to have said "Huh, it seems that the only way you can get on the Supreme Court these days is to be either the son of a criminal or a Jew, or both." During Cardozo's swearing-in ceremony, McReynolds pointedly read a newspaper, and would often hold a brief or record in front of his face when Cardozo delivered an opinion from the bench. Likewise, he refused to sign opinions authored by Brandeis.

According to John Frush Knox (1907–1997), McReynolds's law clerk from 1936–37, and the author of a memoir of his service, McReynolds never spoke to Cardozo at all. McReynolds even absented himself from the memorial ceremonies held at the Supreme Court in honor of Cardozo. He did not attend Felix Frankfurter's swearing-in, exclaiming "My God, another Jew on the Court!".

In 1922, Taft proposed that members of the Court accompany him to Philadelphia on a ceremonial occasion, but McReynolds refused to go, writing: "As you know, I am not always to be found when there is a Hebrew abroad. Therefore, my 'inability' to attend must not surprise you." McReynolds refused to sit next to Brandeis (where he belonged on the basis of seniority) for the Court photograph in 1924. "The difficulty is with me and me alone," McReynolds wrote Taft. "I have absolutely refused to go through the bore of picture-taking again until there is a change in the Court, and maybe not even then." Taft capitulated, and no photograph was taken that year.

Once, when another colleague, Harlan Fiske Stone, remarked to him of an attorney's brief: "That was the dullest argument I ever heard in my life", McReynolds replied: "The only duller thing I can think of is to hear you read one of your opinions."

McReynolds's rudeness was not confined to colleagues on the Court. Once, when called before the chairman of the Golf Committee at the Chevy Chase club after complaints were filed against him, McReynolds said: "I've been a member of this club a good many years, and no one around here has ever shown me any courtesy, so I don't intend to show any to anyone else." The indignant chairman replied: "Mr Justice, you wouldn't be a member of this club if it wasn't for your official position. The members of this club have put up with your discourtesy for years, merely because you are a member of the Supreme Court. But I'm telling you now that the next time there is a complaint against you, you'll be suspended from the privileges of the golf course." Justices Pierce Butler and Willis Van Devanter transferred from the Chevy Chase club to Burning Tree because McReynolds "got disagreeable even beyond their endurance".

When a woman lawyer appeared in the courtroom, McReynolds would reportedly mutter: "I see the female is here again." He would often leave the bench when a woman lawyer rose to present a case. He thought the wearing of wrist watches by men to be effeminate, and the use of red fingernail polish by women to be vulgar.

He forbade smoking in his presence. He is said to have been responsible for the "No Smoking" signs in the Supreme Court building, which was inaugurated during his tenure. He would announce to any Justice who attempted to smoke in Conference that "tobacco smoke is personally objectionable to me". Any who tried "were stopped at the threshold".

However, he was reportedly "extremely charitable" to the pages who worked at the Court, and had a great love of children. For example, he gave very generous assistance and adopted thirty-three children who were victims of the German bombing of London in 1940, and left a sizable fortune to charity. When Oliver Wendell Holmes's wife died, McReynolds broke down and wept at her funeral. Holmes wrote in 1926: "Poor McReynolds is, I think, a man of feeling and of more secret kindliness than he would get credit for." He would often entertain at his apartment, and even passed cigarettes to his guests on occasion. He often invited people for brunch on Sunday mornings. According to William O. Douglas, "n these informal occasions in his own home he was the essence of hospitality and a very delightful companion". Once, when riding to his office on a street car, a drunk got on board and fell out in the aisle. McReynolds picked him up, helped him back to his seat, and sat beside him until they reached the top of Capitol Hill, leaving him only after giving explicit instructions to the conductor. And when due to absence of more senior justices it fell on him to preside in court, "he was the soul of courtesy, graciously greeting and raptly listening to the arguments by lawyers of both sexes".