Munsey's Magazine, March 1911

# Munsey's Magazine, March 1911

Isaac F. Marcossan's "The New Supreme Court" examines the reconstituted United States Supreme Court following President Taft's recent appointments. The article covers the nine justices and their judicial significance, focusing particularly on newly elevated Chief Justice Edward Douglass White, a former Louisiana senator and Confederate Army veteran who becomes the first Roman Catholic chief justice since Taney and the first promoted from the bench.

The article profiles White's background—born on a sugar plantation in Lafourche Parish, educated at Georgetown, elected Louisiana state senator, then associate judge of Louisiana's Supreme Court before Cleveland appointed him to the federal bench in 1894. Marcossan details White's courtroom demeanor (meditative and scholarly) contrasted with his home personality (genial and hospitable), describing his study lined with law books and his remarkable memory, demonstrated when he recited an income-tax dissent entirely from memory despite its length and complexity.

The article emphasizes the Court's forthcoming decisions on major Roosevelt administration policies, including antitrust suits against Standard Oil and American Tobacco, the corporation tax law, and Pure Food legislation. Photographs accompany profiles of other justices including Charles Evans Hughes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William R. Day, and James McKenna.