Carol Weiss King was an American lawyer. She was an editor of the International Juridical Association Bulletin from 1932 to 1942 and maintained her own law practice from 1937 to 1952.
Background
Carol Weiss King was born on August 24, 1895 in New York City, New York, United States, the daughter of Samuel Weiss, a prominent attorney, and Carrie Stix Weiss, who came from a rich mercantile family. Both her brothers also became lawyers; one, Louis, founded the prestigious Wall Street law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison. Despite a comfortable, even sheltered, childhood, Carol developed a rebellious temperament, possibly because she had a domineering father who expected women to be submissive. Combined with her rebelliousness, however, was a warm-hearted, courageous personality, and she early ranged herself on the side of the underprivileged, the dissenters, the despised.
Education
Carol Weiss graduated from the Horace Mann School in 1912 and entered Barnard College. A history professor there, Juliet Stuart Poyntz, interested her in labor unions, and while she was earning the Bachelor of Arts degree (1916) she did clerical work for the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union. In 1917 she attended New York University Law Schools and graduated in 1920, into an America in which the Bill of Rights had been virtually suspended by the "Red scare" and the Palmer raids, in which thousands of allegedly dangerous aliens were rounded up without warning and nearly a thousand were summarily deported.
Career
It was not easy to find a law firm that would hire a woman, or one that would defend victims of the anti-Red hysteria, but the firm of Hale, Nelles and Shorr let King have space in their office, and she soon became a law clerk for Max Lowenthal. In 1920 she was admitted to the bar and promptly plunged into immigration and civil liberties law. She went into private practice in 1937. Even a partial list of United States Supreme Court decisions in which King played a key role reads like a "Who's Who" of civil liberties cases. In Bilokumsky v. Tod (1923), Mahler v. Eby (1924), and Strecker v. Kessler (1939) the Court clarified the deportation process, and the decisions in Tisi v. Tod (1924) and Vatjauer v. Commissioner of Immigration (1927) defined the elements of a fair hearing in deportation cases. In the case of the "Scottsboro Boys" (1932), the Court upheld the right of blacks to be tried by fairly chosen jurors. DeJonge v. Oregon (1937) and Herndon v. Lowry (1937) overruled convictions based upon guilt by association. Schneiderman v. U. S. (1943) established protection of foreign-born against loss of citizenship because of Communist party membership; and the Harry Bridges cases (Bridges v. Wixon in 1945, and Bridges v. U. S. in 1953) upheld the rights of radicals to freedom of speech and of aliens to stay in this country despite their espousal of unpopular views. In Carlson v. Landon (1952) and Zydok v. Butterfield (1952) the Court ruled that defendants prosecuted under the McCarran Act were entitled to bail.
Despite King's involvement in so many land-mark decisions, little has been written about her, because although she did the research and wrote the briefs--she was universally recognized as knowing more about immigration law than any other attorney in the country--she only once argued a case before the Supreme Court. Instead, she often persuaded distinguished lawyers with impressive conservative credentials to appear before the Court. Her greatest success in so doing was in obtaining Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican candidate for president, to defend William Schneiderman, a Communist party official, before the Supreme Court in 1942.
In 1932, while continuing to represent immigrants in the courts, King organized the International Juridical Association Bulletin, a monthly devoted to legal problems in labor, civil liberties, rights of blacks, and immigration. For ten years until it merged with the Lawyers Guild Review, she oversaw the dissemination of ideas and information throughout the legal profession in the scholarly and influential journal. She also helped found organizations that defended civil liberties and the rights of immigrants: the International Labor Defense, the National Lawyers Guild, the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, and the American Committee for Protection of the Foreign Born. Although these groups were frequently accused of being Communist fronts, it appears that King was not a party member, only a fearless civil libertarian.
In December 1951 King appeared before the Supreme Court to argue on behalf of an immigrant, one Zydok, in Zydok v. Butterfield. But her health was almost gone; Ann Fagan Ginger described her appearance on that day: "Her face was drawn, her manner tense, her voice shrill. . " A month later she died, following surgery, in New York City.
Achievements
Carol W. King was remembered as a prominent lawyer specialized in cases involving immigration and civil liberties legislation. In her career, she represented over hundreds of foreign-born radicals threatened with deportation in administrative proceedings in the lower courts and in the Supreme Court. She was also credited as the founder of the International Juridical Association, and the National Lawyer's Guild in the United States.
Membership
Carol Weiss King was active in a number of civil libertarian organizations. She was a member of the National Lawyer's Guild and of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"She was a hard and tireless fighter but no matter how bitter the controversy, her presentation was fair and dependable. Her single-mindedness, her strength and integrity inspired respect. Her clients were devoted to her, and her opponents in the Immigration Department and the United States Attorney's Office held her in high esteem. " - Carl Stern
Connections
In 1917 Carol Weiss married George Congdon King, a writer and playwright. They had one son.
