Ethics

I was given an original copy of the Washington Post (my hometown) for the day I was born: May 29, 1960.  Believe it or not, all those news stories (plus, below the jump, a WaPo editorial about federal judgeships) were in the paper that day.  To keep a feel for the original, I will use some of the out-dated terminology that was used back then.  

Khrushchev said of Eisenhower, ?Everybody knows that the President of the United States has two duties: The first is to play golf and the second is to be President, and golf-playing is more important.?       .  .  .  .  .       The Post surveyed jurors and reported that ?they frequently found lawyers? arguments monotonous.?       .  .  .  .  .       An all-white Alabama jury acquitted Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., of perjury on his tax returns.  A ?Negro reporter? was ejected from the closing arguments when he sat in a section reserved for whites.  [Alabama would go after Rev. King again, unsuccessfully, on perjury charges related to taxes.]        .  .  .  .  .       Communists almost duped a lawyer into giving them aerial photos of Alaska.  They tricked him into acquaintanceship by playing to his enthusiasm for Esperanto.        .  .  .  .  .       Relief efforts were underway for Chilean victims of an earthquake.       .  .  .  .  .      Sen. Al Gore was being quoted about foreign policy.      .  .  .  .  .       An all-white union opposed the hiring of Negro electricians.       .  .  .  .  .       ?Mantle, Maris hit home runs.?       .  .  .  .  .       A Florida Congressman killed a proposal by which the District would have opened a junior college that Negroes could have attended.  [At that time, DC residents couldn?t vote for anything at all.]  Below the jump is an editorial about Chief Justice Warren?s request for more federal judges.

Editorial

With Chief Justice Warren pleading once more for enough federal judges to keep abreast of the courts mounting workload, Atty. Gen. Rogers has pointed to one way in which the present impasse on the judgeship bill can be broken. But the bill be passed to the present session of Congress, he said, and if Congress is not willing to make an effective immediately, let it be made effective early next year. This would enable the new president to name all the 45 new judges for whom the courts are clamoring.

The president had previously offered to divide the proposed new judgeships equally between Democratic and Republican nominees if Congress would enact the bill. That eminently fair and reasonable proposal was not enough to jar the leaders on Capitol Hill into giving courts the manpower they need. Even if the bill should be belatedly enacted in the next few weeks, there would be precious little opportunity to recruit the best available man for the bench in many states and get their nominations confirmed before the scheduled adjournment of Congress in July.

But some time could be saved in the mounting backlog of 75,000 cases could be more promptly attacked if Congress would act now so that the next president could have enough judicial nominees ready for confirmation early 1961. Failure to act this year would force the next Congress to start from scratch and thus delay for at least another year and a start towards restoring the concept of speedy justice that has been so badly blurred.