Democratic Justice, page 101
Numerous scholars have shared their expertise and documents including Jose Anderson on Charles Hamilton Houston, Jeffrey H. Bowman on the Willie Francis case, Daniel R. Coquillette and Bruce Kimball on the history of Harvard Law School, Bruce Craig on Alger Hiss, Nelson Dawson on Brandeis and Frankfurter, Rebecca Erbelding on the War Refugee Board and displaced persons, Sam Erman on the Bureau of Insular Affairs, Tony Freyer on the Little Rock school crisis, Gerard Magliocca on the gold clause cases, Donald Ritchie on Drew Pearson and James M. Landis, the late Martin Sherwin on J. Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb, Seth Stern on William J. Brennan, Richard Primus for help with Bentley Library research assistance, Todd Peppers on William T. Coleman, Kathryn Smith on Missy LeHand, and Mel Urofsky on Brandeis and all things Zionistic (as Brandeis and Frankfurter used to say), and Steve Usdin on Ethel Rosenberg.
The biggest lift for me was trying to reconstruct Frankfurter’s life in Austria with no knowledge of German and a raging pandemic preventing a research trip to Vienna. Numerous scholars and genealogists lent me their time, expertise, contacts, and documents including Evelyn Adunka, Steven Beller, Peter Ebner, Banai Feldstein, Martha Keil, Christina Köstner-Pemsel at the University of Vienna Library, Marsha Rozenblit, E. Randol Schoenberg, and Marlene Singer Zakai.
I am honored to follow in the footsteps of past Frankfurter scholars: Liva Baker, Max Freedman, H. N. Hirsch, Joseph P. Lash, Michael Parrish, Harlan B. Phillips, and Melvin Urofsky. Hirsch, Joseph’s son Jonathan Lash, Parrish, and Urofsky were extremely generous with their time; Parrish shared invaluable notes and interview transcripts. Special thanks to Judge Martin H. Freedman and his family for permission to quote from Roosevelt and Frankfurter and for sharing memories of his uncle Max Freedman and to Leslie Tuthill and her family for permission to quote from Felix Frankfurter Reminisces and for sharing memories of her father Harlan Phillips.
Others people generously shared documents with me: Mary A. Bundy for a photograph of her grandfather Dean Acheson’s portrait of John Quincy Adams inscribed by Frankfurter; Tim Corcoran (and Philip Kopper) for permission to quote from Thomas G. Corcoran’s unpublished autobiography, Rendezvous with Democracy; Thomas Lemann for his time and for access to his father Monte Lemann’s private papers; Nicholas Lemann for archiving Monte Lemann’s Papers at Tulane University; the late David Lowenthal for memories of his father Max Lowenthal; Elizabeth Leiman Kraiem for letters from Frankfurter’s sister Estelle; and Dr. David Sachar for portions of his David Niles thesis.
Thanks to many people who sat for interviews with me over the years: The late David Acheson, Mary Acheson Bundy, Paul Bender, Judge Guido Calabresi, the late William T. Coleman, Jerry Cohen, Bill Doolittle, the late Mercedes Eichholz, Oliver Gates, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Howard Kalodner, Andrew Kaufman, Thomas Lemann, Daniel Mayers, the late Judge Abner Mikva, Sarah Hormet Milam, Newt Minow, the late Judge Vincent McKusick, the late James C. N. Paul, Walter Brandeis Raushenbush, Tom Reston, the late Daniel Rezneck, the late Elisabeth Sifton, and Howard Trienens.
Special thanks to Oliver and Sarah Gates for inviting me to stay in their lovely home in the British countryside and for giving me unfettered access to their family’s private correspondence with the Frankfurters. It was a memorable experience sleeping in his father Sylvester Gates’s daybed and getting to know the legendary Oliver Gates. The man more than lived up to the legend. I am forever grateful for his and Sarah’s grace and kindness to a weary traveler. The Isaiah Berlin Papers, which I saw at Oxford’s beautiful Bodleian Library on that same trip, were a research goldmine for me.
During my fourteen years of teaching, I have been blessed with incredibly talented student research assistants who diligently worked on this project. Many have traveled to archives near their homes and spent countless hours photographing documents and on microfilm machines.
At Georgetown: Joshua Adler, Hannah Beiderwieden, Brett Bethune, Daniel Chozick, Courtney Christensen, Cory Dodds, Lillian Gaines, Joshua Goode, Hali Kerr, Will Magatha, Cameron Miller, Eva Schlitz, Molly Thornton, and Courtney Yadoo. Special thanks to Courtney Yadoo for all her archival work in New York and Israel and to Hannah Beiderwieden for translating documents from Austria and for exploring every conceivable rabbit hole for me about Frankfurter’s early life and education. Thanks also to the students in my Warren Court seminar for their insights and fine papers about this era of Frankfurter’s career.
At Wisconsin: David Blinka, Steven Curry, Patrick Proctor-Brown, Debbie Sharnak, Betsy Stone, and Annie Ziesing. Debbie Sharnak, now a historian of Latin America at Rowan University, went above and beyond in helping me with archival research for The House of Truth. Much of her research helped me in writing Democratic Justice. I look forward to reading her books one day.
At other schools and institutions: Mihal Ancik, Amy Butner, Sarah Elkordy, Antonia Ferguson, Cat Foley, Timothy Garrett, Alison Kahn, Eryn Killian, Jake Lieberman, Irina Rodina, and Audrey Springer-Wilson.
In 2019, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation named me a Guggenheim Fellow in Constitutional Studies. I thank the committee for selecting me and Dorothy Tapper Goldman and her foundation for generously funding the fellowship in constitutional studies. The fellowship enabled me to extend my sabbatical for a second semester and to complete a first draft of the manuscript.
My secret weapon during the editing of Democratic Justice was Betsy Kuhn. A talented children’s and young adult nonfiction book author and extraordinary editor of faculty books and articles at Georgetown University Law Center, Betsy spent hundreds of hours reading and editing my longer first draft and challenged me to make it shorter, clearer, less repetitious, and flow better. Our conversations guided me throughout the editing phase. She made the book so much better than I could have on my own. I am in her debt forevermore. Thank you, Betsy.
A core four of leading scholars read every page of the manuscript and provided detailed feedback: John Barrett, Dan Ernst, Laura Kalman, and Mark Tushnet. They read it during late spring and early summer of 2021 in time for me to turn around edits prior to production. Their unsparing criticism and observations helped me revise the manuscript and hopefully improve it. It was an honor to have the dream team of Barrett-Ernst-Kalman-Tushnet take time away from their own scholarship to read and comment on mine. Thanks to you all. I hope to return the favor someday.
John Barrett, who is writing a biography of Justice Robert H. Jackson, spent hours with me at the Library of Congress and on the phone discussing primary sources about Jackson, Frankfurter, and Brown v. Board of Education. For more than fifteen years, John has been one of the nicest and best friends any scholar could have. He and his wife Sarah Walzer have graciously hosted me in their New York City apartment. Thanks for everything, John.
Mel Urofsky generously read a few chapters and saved me from errors of fact and interpretation about Frankfurter’s financial relationship with Brandeis and their Zionist activity. My law school roommate and dear friend Ben Kerschberg proofread the entire book and served as a wonderful sounding board about grammatical and other writing questions.
John Glusman, editor in chief at Norton, believed in this book from the outset and fought for its publication in full. He read the entire manuscript over his Christmas holiday break, made insightful editorial suggestions and comments throughout, and then commented on the manuscript again. I am so lucky to have him as my editor. Thanks to John for believing in me and in my book. John’s whip-smart editorial assistant, Helen Thomaides, has helped me every step of the way with permissions, photographs, and fielding my annoying questions. Thanks, Helen. Copyeditor Christopher Curioli improved the book immensely with his meticulous eye for names, dates, and places. Finally, thank you to Ingsu Liu for the art direction, Jared Oriel for the cover design, and to senior production editor Dassi Zeidel.
Flip Brophy is the literary agent every writer dreams of having. She has done everything in her power to make this book a reality and has stuck with me through thick and thin. We have known each other for so long that she is part of my extended family. I am so lucky to have her in my life. Thanks to Flip, her former assistant Nell Pierce, her colleague Jessica Friedman, and the entire team at Sterling Lord Literistic.
My family has put up with me for many years as I’ve traveled to distant archives or holed myself up writing and rewriting. I have not always been the easiest person to live with during particularly stressful periods of finishing the book. Thanks to my sometimes-funny brother, Ivan, his wife, Tamara, and their amazing daughters, Elana and Maya; and to my fabulous and supportive in-laws, Jack and Donna Hunt, and my sister-in-law, Beth Hunt.
My parents, Linda and Harry Snyder, continue to inspire me and amaze me and help me grow as a husband and as a father. They are two of my best friends. My mother is a talented writer, former local newspaper editor, and amateur photographer. Her voice was in my head as I wrote each chapter. She proofread the entire manuscript, consulted with me on every photograph, and suggested how the photographs could be cropped. My dad is my biggest cheerleader and, though he lacks a social media account (and knowledge about how to use one), blasts my accomplishments to anyone who will listen. Thanks for everything both of you have done for me.
I owe the biggest debt of gratitude to my immediate family. My wife, Shelby Hunt, is a hardworking lawyer and loving wife and mom who somehow kept the family together and organized during the chaos and challenges of the pandemic. She lived through all the ups and downs of this book, is a trenchant critic, and has been an amazing life partner and friend. She also nearly fainted when I told her I wanted to write another book. My children, Lily and Max, make me smile every single day and help me keep my obsessive work habits in check. Nothing is worthwhile unless Shelby, Lily, and Max are in my life. I love you more than you will ever know.
It sounds ridiculous to say after writing more than 700 pages about Felix Frankfurter but there is a lot more to write and research about his life, his relationships with his friends and family, and his work on and off the Court. New discoveries will be made if and when his papers and those of other justices at the Library of Congress and the papers of Learned Hand at Harvard Law School are digitized. Except for Frankfurter’s correspondence with Holmes and Brandeis, most of Frankfurter’s correspondence with Hand, Robert H. Jackson, John Marshall Harlan II, and others has not been published.
The biggest breakthrough will come if and when the stolen diaries and correspondence from Frankfurter’s Papers at the Library of Congress are returned. Between August and October 1972, someone stole the most historically significant Frankfurter diaries, including his 1927 diary about the Sacco-Vanzetti case and his 1937 diary about FDR’s court-packing plan, as well some of Frankfurter’s correspondence and other files. Only about twenty scholars viewed the collection during the period in question. Beginning in November 1972, the FBI investigated, narrowed its list of suspects, but did not indict anyone. A public plea from syndicated columnist Jack Anderson on September 14, 1973, resulted in the return of some documents, but not the aforementioned diaries and select correspondence with Hugo Black and other justices. No one has claimed responsibility for the theft. My message to the scholar or scholars (or their families) who have Frankfurter’s stolen papers in their possession is simple: Give them back. The Library of Congress Manuscript Division will accept their return with no questions asked. History, to quote Frankfurter’s Rosenberg dissent, has its claims.
Much remains to be learned about Frankfurter’s early life in Vienna and Hungary. Frankfurter’s paternal grandfather worked for Vienna’s Jewish organization known as the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG). The IKG’s archives remain a possible source of material. The lives of Frankfurter’s father, Leopold, and uncle Salomon are worthy of more research as are the family’s temporary move to Budapest and Frankfurter’s early education in Austria. Once the pandemic abates and travel to Austria reopens, I plan on visiting the Vienna apartment building where Frankfurter was born as well as several archives. As Billy Joel says in one of his most unforgettable songs, Vienna waits for me.
Brad Snyder
Washington, D.C.
June 2022
ABBREVIATIONS
AA
Aaron Aaronsohn
AAB
Adolf A. Berle, Jr.
AABD
Adolf A. Berle, Jr., Diary, FDRL
ADH
Arthur D. Hill
AGB
Alice Goldmark Brandeis
AH
Alger Hiss
AL
Anthony Lewis
ALL
A. Lawrence Lowell
ALLOP
A. Lawrence Lowell Official Papers, Harvard University
ALP
Anthony Lewis Papers, Library of Congress
ALLPP
A. Lawrence Lowell Personal Papers, Harvard University
AM
Archibald MacLeish
AMB
Alexander M. Bickel
AMBP
Alexander M. Bickel Papers, Yale University
AMP
A. Mitchell Palmer
AMS Jr.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
AMS Sr.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.
AMSP
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Papers
AtlConst
Atlanta Constitution
AWS
Austin Wakeman Scott
BAA
Baltimore Afro-American
BaltSun
Baltimore Sun
BB
Bennett Boskey
BDE
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BET
Boston Evening Transcript
BG
Boston Globe
BH
Boston Herald
BKW
Burton K. Wheeler
BKWP-MSU
Burton K. Wheeler Papers, Montana State University
BP
Boston Post
BvBP
Brown v. Board of Education Papers, Yale University
BVC
Benjamin V. Cohen
BVCP
Benjamin V. Cohen Papers, Library of Congress
CCB
C. C. Burlingham
CCBP
C. C. Burlingham Papers, Harvard Law School
CEH
Charles Evans Hughes
CEHP
Charles Evans Hughes Papers, Library of Congress
CEW
Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr.
CEWP-MHS
Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr., Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society
CHH
Charles Hamilton Houston
ChiDef
Chicago Defender
COH
Columbia Oral History
CSM
Christian Science Monitor
CT
Chicago Tribune
CW
Chaim Weizmann
CWP
Chaim Weizmann Papers
CZA
Central Zionist Archives
DA
Dean Acheson
DAP
Dean Acheson Papers, Yale University
