ment of constitutional limitations and powers has provided a firm basis for continuity and progress. He was ever faithful to his conviction that the Constitution had not adopted any particular set of social and economic ideas, to the exclusion of others which, however wrong they seemed to him, fair-minded men yet might hold. He had a full appreciation of the role of the law in making accommodations between conflicting interests; and he was sensitive to the unique responsibility which our federal system places upon the Supreme Court to work out such accommodations between the national government and the states.

Along with his broad tolerance for economic development and experimentation Justice Stone carried a firm belief that the Supreme Court, together with all other branches of the national and local governments, must exercise constant vigilance to ensure that the rights of the person be preserved inviolate. His opinions reflect his vivid realization of the unceasing responsibility of the courts in helping to assure that our society remain the self-government of free people which the Constitution. established.

When he succeeded to the Chief Justiceship, in his sixty-ninth year, Harlan Stone still had the tremendous vitality and the capacity for work that had contributed so much to the fruitfulness of his career as a lawyer, teacher, and judge. The burdens of the office were heavy. Yet he never slackened his pace, and continued to maintain an exemplary record in the prompt dispatch of the Court's business. Some of his most important opinions were those written for the Court on novel questions arising out of the Second World War, where he gave due recognition both to the wartime necessities of the government and to the principles of civil liberty which must be maintained, in war as in peace, by a free society.

Throughout his life Harlan Stone maintained an active interest in the arts. He found an enormous satisfaction

in music, painting, and sculpture. As Chief Justice he became ex officio Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art and Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution; he also served as Chairman of the Folger Shakespeare Library. To these tasks he brought not only wisdom but enthusiasm.

No comment on the career of Harlan Stone can adequately reflect the esteem in which the Bar held him as a man, nor the depth of the affection felt for him by all who knew him. He had a fundamental contentment which reflected the happy family life he shared with his wife, Agnes Harvey Stone, and their two sons. He was genial in manner, delightful in conversation, and always accessible to any who came. He was considerate and tolerant of the opinions of others, though he resisted loose thinking even when it was directed toward a philanthropic purpose.

It is accordingly

Resolved, That we, the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, express our profound sorrow at the death of Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone and our thankfulness for the enduring contributions which this great man and wise judge has made to our profession and to our national life: It is further

Resolved, That the Attorney General be asked to present these resolutions to the Court, and to request that they be inscribed upon its permanent records.

MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL CLARK addressed the Court as follows:

May it please this Honorable Court: We are gathered here today to pay tribute to the memory of Chief Justice. Harlan Fiske Stone, a man whose life and works exemplified the highest traditions of our profession. Truly, the law, in actuality, was to this great American and distinguished jurist "a human institution for human needs." He did much to make it so.

Born on October 11, 1872, when Ulysses S. Grant was President of the United States and Salmon P. Chase was Chief Justice presiding over this Court, Harlan Stone rose from the humble surroundings of his birthplace at Chesterfield, New Hampshire, to the highest judicial post in the Nation. Seventy-three years later, on April 22, 1946, he died in the service of his Nation as Chief Justice of the United States. Those three-score and thirteen years were measured by a continuous devotion to the best interests of his fellow man.

From his birthplace in New Hamphsire, young Stone moved early with his parents to northern Massachusetts, and it was there that he grew to manhood. His early interest seemed to be farming, and for a while he attended Massachusetts Agricultural College. It is reportedauthoritatively-that he was asked to depart from that college for some boisterous pranks. Soon thereafter he entered Amherst College. The change was a fortuitous one at least insofar as the law has become the beneficiary of his talents. After completing his studies at Amherst, he enrolled at the School of Law of Columbia University. In 1898 he was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Laws, with very high honors, notwithstanding that throughout his law studies he supported himself by teaching and by tutoring. For him, characteristically, it was no more than normal routine to carry responsibilities that would ordinarily require the full time of two men.

He stayed on to teach at the law school. The maturing influence of study in a great diversity of legal subjects marked this important period of his life. For five years subsequent to 1905, he gave up teaching and occupied himself entirely in private practice in New York City. He returned on the call to become Dean of the Columbia University Law School. There he became recognized as one of the great legal educators of his day.

He left the Deanship on the call of the President of the United States to enter Government Service as the At

torney General of the United States. In the next year, on March 2, 1925, President Coolidge elevated him to Associate Justice of this Court, succeeding to the vacancy left by the retirement of Mr. Justice Joseph McKenna. To this post he brought a wealth of knowledge both in the law and in the affairs of man.

On June 12, 1941, on the retirement of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him Chief Justice of the United States-an appointment which was received with universal acclaim. And foremost among those who praised his elevation was the late Senator Norris who had opposed his nomination in 1925 as Associate Justice. "In the years that have passed I became convinced, and am now convinced, that in my opposition to the confirmation of his nomination I was entirely in error," the late Senator confessed in a speech on the floor of the Senate, and added, "I am now about to perform one of the most pleasant duties that has ever come to me in my official life when I cast a vote in favor of his elevation to the highest judicial office in our land."

Harlan Stone had served as Associate Justice for sixteen years, and was to serve as Chief Justice for five more; these twenty-one eventful years of service on this bench covered fully one-eighth of the history of the Court itself. He met the many problems brought to the Court with a judicial tact and fairness that won him universal acclaim as one of the outstanding champions of the dignity of man. This Court was faced again and again with the task of redefining the power of the Government in its relation to persons and property. Crisis after crisis was met giving this Nation the necessary strength to surmount economic chaos and to defeat the armed might of totalitarianism. And all this while fully preserving and enlarging the individual liberties of our people. Harlan Stone played a leading part in the development of this continuous growth of the law. He would have felt, and we know he did feel,

that his effort was only a part of that of a team. He performed his job as did every other good American citizen.

This common touch, this feeling of friendship and brotherhood with every human being, regardless of his station in life, was perhaps the most noteworthy facet of the character of the late Chief Justice. His ability was indeed superb and outstanding, but it was by no means overweening; his character was in truth righteous and determined, but it was not domineering. His was an outlook fundamentally healthy, for throughout his life he had maintained himself in trim-physically, mentally, and spiritually. He was a man who encompassed a wide and diversified field of interests and who was capable of mastering and appreciating each one. Though partisan of all that he considered right and good, yet when he sat in judgment he held himself strictly to a lofty concept of the nature of the judicial function. A judge by the nature of his calling must needs be thus impartial, but the wellnigh perfect detachment of Harlan Stone may serve as a model to all who may follow him.

I shall not attempt a full evaluation of the contribution made by Harlan Fiske Stone to the law, nor can I here do adequate justice to his character or personality. Such an effort, indeed, would be as injudicious here as it would be impossible of attainment, for the progress which the law has made through his efforts is immeasurable in its vast extent. It touches the full field of legal development. The six hundred opinions of which he was the author are milestones along the pathway of legal advancement. With outstanding independence of thought, they have enriched the product of a Court always justly renowned for its independence.

Basically, I think one may say that the feeling that moved him most in his judicial life was one of humility, accompanied by a clear understanding of what he conceived his task to be and a faith in his ability to accomplish it. The law to him was not an absolute; he was not one of those who felt that the work of a Judge con