TLS as president signed “Wm. H. Taft,” two pages, 8 x 10.5, White House letterhead, August 3, 1912. Letter to former Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Marcus P. Knowlton, marked "Confidential." Writing while engaged in a three-way reelection campaign, Taft seeks to handle the matter of judicial appointments in a delicate way. In part: "I am just now in the throes of giving birth to a United States District Judge in your State and Circuit, and I have under consideration two names. One is James M. Morton, Jr., of Fall River, who is a son of the present Mr. Justice Morton of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and the other is James Arnold Lowell, who is a son of former Judge Lowell…The two men are young men, perhaps about the same age. I believe they are graduates of Harvard and of the Harvard Law School. I understand that both are in active practice, and that both are competent persons for the place.
I think there is a feeling in Massachusetts that there has been too great a disposition in hunting judges to go into that Brahmin class of Back Bayites and not to select some competent lawyer from the State at large; and perhaps if other things were equal I ought to defer to that sentiment, because the times are out of joint and it is exceedingly important that in the selection of judges we should not only have men who can administer justice and who know the law, but that we should also have men of sufficient knowledge of affairs not to involve the Court in unnecessary controversy and to retain among the people as great a respect and friendship for it as possible, consistent with its administering proper justice.
Won't you give me your opinion of the two young men, whom you no doubt have had before you in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts? What you say I shall regard as confidential and not put it on the files of the Department." In fine condition. Taft—who would go on to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States after his presidency—understood the importance of his judicial appointments, and weighed them carefully.
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