(Even as the horrors unfolded, it seemed difficult to conn...)
Even as the horrors unfolded, it seemed difficult to connect them with the shabby figures in the prisoners' dock. And yet, these contemptible men had once been among the most powerful and corrupt on earth. In this short-form book, Francis Biddle, the American judge at the war crimes trial of the twenty-one top Nazis, records the last chapter of their evil careers.
Justice Holmes, Natural Law, and the Supreme Court
(From Biddle's Preface: "THESE LECTURES, given at the Univ...)
From Biddle's Preface: "THESE LECTURES, given at the University of Texas in December, 1960, at the invitation of the Permanent Committee for The Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise, although dealing with legal problems, are not intended primarily for members of the bar, but for a more general audience, who often cannot understand the approach of judges to the controversial problems of constitutional law which they are called on to "administer." The criticism of the Justice by Catholic scholars affords me not only an opportunity of discussing his views on the function and approach of appellate justices, but of inquiring what if any principles can guide them. This I have here attempted."
The fear of freedom : a discussion of the contemporary obsession of anxiety and fear in the United States : its historical background and present expression, and its effect on national security and on free American institutions
(263 pages of excellent text. A comprehensive study of the...)
263 pages of excellent text. A comprehensive study of the treatment of subversives in America, by FDR's Attorney General. Stated First Edition.
Francis Beverley Biddle was an American lawyer and judge. He served as Attorney General of the United States during World War II.
Background
Francis BeverleyBiddle was born on May 9, 1886, in Paris, France, while the family was on a tour of Europe. He was the third of four sons of Algernon Sydney Biddle, a law professor, and Frances Robinson. Biddle's mother had wanted this child to be a girl, which may partially explain his being christened Francis Beverley. If his given names proved an embarrassment and provided a motivation for his becoming the champion pugilist of his school, his family name provided him with all the advantages that an American aristocracy could offer. His mother brought added distinction to the Biddle family of Philadelphia in being of the Randolph family of Virginia.
Education
Upon completing his preparatory training at Groton, Biddle entered Harvard, from which he received his B. A. cum laude in 1909 and his LL. B. , also cum laude, two years later.
Career
Because of his outstanding academic record Francis was chosen to be the personal secretary of Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes during the Supreme Court term of 1911-1912. Holmes proved to be one of the great, enduring influences of Biddle's life. The young man was thoroughly indoctrinated in the Holmesian brand of liberalism, which carried with it a compelling sense of noblesse oblige. When Biddle returned to Philadelphia in 1912 to enter the law firm of Biddle, Paul, and Jayne, he abandoned the traditional Republicanism of his family and campaigned for Theodore Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Progressives. He was a delegate to the 1916 Progressive convention, but lost interest in politics when the Progressives obediently endorsed the regular Republican ticket.
Biddle initially evinced little enthusiasm for participating in World War I. It was not until President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points that Biddle saw purpose in the war. In the summer of 1918, a year after joining the law firm of Barnes, Biddle, and Myers, Biddle began artillery officers' training in Kentucky, but the Armistice was signed and he was discharged before seeing any action. He returned to his law firm, where over the ensuing two decades he had a great variety of clients, ranging from the Pennsylvania Railroad to the Dionne quintuplets. Encouraged by his wife, he also found time to write his only novel, Llanfear Pattern (1927), an unflattering portrait of Philadelphia society, which the New York Times praised as being reminiscent of The Forsyte Saga.
Although still nominally a Republican, Biddle became increasingly disaffected with the party as his concern grew for the plight of the Pennsylvania coal miners during the early years of the Great Depression. In 1932 he actively campaigned against President Herbert Hoover in Pennsylvania. Two years later Franklin D. Roosevelt rewarded Biddle for his political support and for his reputation of being a friend of labor by naming him chairman of the newly created National Labor Relations Board. During his brief tenure in that post, Biddle energetically carried out the mandate to give a new deal to organized labor.
In 1935 Biddle returned to private law practice in Philadelphia, but in 1938 he was asked to serve as legal counsel for a special congressional committee investigating charges against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) of corrupt practices and of engaging in unfair competition with private utility companies. So effectively did the committee under Biddle's direction refute all charges that the TVA did not again come under serious attack during the Roosevelt administration. Biddle always considered the service he rendered to the TVA as his most important contribution to the New Deal program. A grateful President Roosevelt appointed Biddle to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1939. Although this was a life-tenure position, Biddle quickly became bored with the job. He much preferred being on the other side of the bench, arguing rather than judging a case. Biddle's dissatisfaction became known to Roosevelt, and so, after less than one year as a federal judge, Biddle was appointed United States solicitor general. Biddle returned to Washington, D. C. , which would be his home for the remainder of his life.
As solicitor general, Biddle argued before the Supreme Court fifteen major government cases testing the constitutionality of New Deal legislation, most notably the Wage and Hour Act. He won all fifteen cases. In 1940 Biddle was also given the added responsibility of heading the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which had been transferred to the Justice Department as an independent administrative section. When Attorney General Robert Jackson was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1941, Biddle was the obvious choice as his successor. Shortly after the death of Roosevelt in 1945, President Harry S. Truman reorganized the cabinet and asked for Biddle's resignation. Truman later asserted in his memoirs that Biddle had voluntarily left office and had urged the appointment of Assistant Attorney General Tom Clark to be his successor. Biddle vigorously denied this account, insisting that he had specifically counseled against Clark's appointment when Truman asked for his resignation.
At the conclusion of the war Truman appointed Biddle as the chief American representative on the international tribunal to try Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity. When the Nuremberg trials were concluded, Biddle in his report to the president recommended that hereafter the instigation and conduct of all aggressive wars be made a crime under international law, a recommendation that Truman enthusiastically endorsed. Following this assignment, Biddle was nominated by Truman to be the American representative to the newly created United Nations agency UNESCO, but when the Senate delayed action because Senator Arthur Vandenburg regarded the nominee as being "too advanced a New Dealer, " Biddle asked that his name be withdrawn.
Except for serving as chairman of the national committee to plan a memorial in Washington, D. C. , for Franklin Roosevelt, Biddle's years of public service ended with the Nuremberg trials. He remained active in politics, however, and served as chairman of Americans for Democratic Action from 1950 to 1953. He was also national chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union. In both his private law practice and his public service Biddle was a defender of civil liberties. Upon his appointment as attorney general, he stated that "the most important job an attorney general can do in time of emergency is to protect civil liberties. " He found it necessary, however, during his years in the Justice Department to carry out directives that he would later regret, especially his enforcement of the Smith Act of 1940 (later used to prosecute members of the American Communist Party) and the military order in 1942 to remove Japanese-Americans from their homes on the West Coast to internment centers.
During his years of semiretirement Biddle wrote The Fear of Freedom (1951), a vigorous attack on McCarthyism; Justice Holmes, Natural Law, and the Supreme Court (1961), a supplement to his earlier biography of his great mentor; and a candid two-volume autobiography. He died at his summer home on Cape Cod, Massachussets.
Achievements
Francis Biddle was a well-known and successful lawyer. He also served as Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1939 to 1940; 24th United States Solicitor General from 1940 to 1941 and the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg trials.
