Background
John Lord O'Brian was born on October 14, 1874, in Buffalo, New York, to John O'Brian, a justice of the peace, and Elizabeth Lord.
https://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Individual-Freedom-OBrian/dp/0674421566?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0674421566
(The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and ...)
The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 contains the world's most comprehensive collection of records and briefs brought before the nation's highest court by leading legal practitioners - many who later became judges and associates of the court. It includes transcripts, applications for review, motions, petitions, supplements and other official papers of the most-studied and talked-about cases, including many that resulted in landmark decisions. This collection serves the needs of students and researchers in American legal history, politics, society and government, as well as practicing attorneys. This book contains copies of all known US Supreme Court filings related to this case including any transcripts of record, briefs, petitions, motions, jurisdictional statements, and memorandum filed. This book does not contain the Court's opinion. The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping ensure edition identification: Power Reactor Development Co v. International Union of Elec, Radio and Mach Workers, AFL-CIO; United States v. Petition / JOHN LORD O'BRIAN / 1960 / 315 / 367 U.S. 396 / 81 S.Ct. 1529 / 6 L.Ed.2d 924 / 8-12-1960 Power Reactor Development Co v. International Union of Elec, Radio and Mach Workers, AFL-CIO; United States v. Brief in Opposition (P) / HAROLD CRANEFIELD / 1960 / 315 / 367 U.S. 396 / 81 S.Ct. 1529 / 6 L.Ed.2d 924 / 10-27-1960 Power Reactor Development Co v. International Union of Elec, Radio and Mach Workers, AFL-CIO; United States v. Petitioner's Brief / JOHN LORD O'BRIAN / 1960 / 315 / 367 U.S. 396 / 81 S.Ct. 1529 / 6 L.Ed.2d 924 / 2-13-1961 Power Reactor Development Co v. International Union of Elec, Radio and Mach Workers, AFL-CIO; United States v. Reply Brief / JOHN LORD O'BRIAN / 1960 / 315 / 367 U.S. 396 / 81 S.Ct. 1529 / 6 L.Ed.2d 924 / 4-24-1961 Power Reactor Development Co v. International Union of Elec, Radio and Mach Workers, AFL-CIO; United States v. Memorandum (P) / JOHN LORD O'BRIAN / 1960 / 315 / 367 U.S. 396 / 81 S.Ct. 1529 / 6 L.Ed.2d 924 / 11-2-1960 Power Reactor Development Co v. International Union of Elec, Radio and Mach Workers, AFL-CIO; United States v. Motion / R M STROUD / 1960 / 315 / 367 U.S. 396 / 81 S.Ct. 1529 / 6 L.Ed.2d 924 / 4-24-1961 Power Reactor Development Co v. International Union of Elec, Radio and Mach Workers, AFL-CIO; United States v. Amicus Brief / R M STROUD / 1960 / 315 / 367 U.S. 396 / 81 S.Ct. 1529 / 6 L.Ed.2d 924 / 4-26-1961 Power Reactor Development Co v. International Union of Elec, Radio and Mach Workers, AFL-CIO; United States v. Respondent's Brief / HAROLD CRANEFIELD / 1960 / 315 / 367 U.S. 396 / 81 S.Ct. 1529 / 6 L.Ed.2d 924 / 3-29-1961
https://www.amazon.com/Development-International-Transcript-Supporting-Pleadings/dp/127045689X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=127045689X
(Excerpt from Protestant Episcopal Church in America: Cour...)
Excerpt from Protestant Episcopal Church in America: Court of Review for the Second Judicial Department; In the Matter of the Appeal of Rev. Algernon S. Crapsey, From the Decision of the Trial Court of the Diocese of Western New York; Brief for Respondent Finally, and apart from all these considerations the contention of the appellant is without force for the reason that the law of the Diocese provides that the law of this State relating to evidence shall govern the Court. (ordinances Ecc. Court. W. N. Y. Sec. Under the law as administered in New York State. Such opinion evidence must be excluded, and this fact is a conclusive answer to appellant's contention. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
https://www.amazon.com/Protestant-Episcopal-Church-America-Department/dp/1331232589?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1331232589
(The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and ...)
The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 contains the world's most comprehensive collection of records and briefs brought before the nation's highest court by leading legal practitioners - many who later became judges and associates of the court. It includes transcripts, applications for review, motions, petitions, supplements and other official papers of the most-studied and talked-about cases, including many that resulted in landmark decisions. This collection serves the needs of students and researchers in American legal history, politics, society and government, as well as practicing attorneys. This book contains copies of all known US Supreme Court filings related to this case including any transcripts of record, briefs, petitions, motions, jurisdictional statements, and memorandum filed. This book does not contain the Court's opinion. The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping ensure edition identification: Stassen for President Citizens Committee v. Frank M. Jordan, Secretary of State of California. Petition / JOHN LORD O'BRIAN / 1963 / 1028 / 377 U.S. 914 / 84 S.Ct. 1195 / 12 L.Ed.2d 184 / 4-21-1964 Stassen for President Citizens Committee v. Frank M. Jordan, Secretary of State of California. Brief in Opposition (P) / STANLEY MOSK / 1963 / 1028 / 377 U.S. 914 / 84 S.Ct. 1195 / 12 L.Ed.2d 184 / 4-24-1964 Stassen for President Citizens Committee v. Frank M. Jordan, Secretary of State of California. Motion / JOHN LORD O'BRIAN / 1963 / 1028 / 377 U.S. 914 / 84 S.Ct. 1195 / 12 L.Ed.2d 184 / 4-21-1964 Stassen for President Citizens Committee v. Frank M. Jordan, Secretary of State of California. Amicus Brief / RICHARD G LOGAN / 1963 / 1028 / 377 U.S. 914 / 84 S.Ct. 1195 / 12 L.Ed.2d 184 / 4-24-1964 Stassen for President Citizens Committee v. Frank M. Jordan, Secretary of State of California. Amicus Brief / ALLAN BROTSKY / 1963 / 1028 / 377 U.S. 914 / 84 S.Ct. 1195 / 12 L.Ed.2d 184 / 4-24-1964
https://www.amazon.com/President-Committee-California-Transcript-Supporting/dp/127047961X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=127047961X
(Excerpt from Civil Liberty in War Time: Paper Presented a...)
Excerpt from Civil Liberty in War Time: Paper Presented at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting of the New York State Bar Association, Held in the City of New York on January 17 and 18, 1919 In no field was this temper more evident than in the attitude cre ated by these unofficial organizations toward unnaturalized Germans and austro-hungarians throughout the country. Early in the war these people were naturally regarded by the public as the largest potential element of danger in this country. The expression alien enemy, used in the old internment statute of 1798 to describe these unnaturalized residents, in and of itself carried the impression of hostility to this country. Thousands of intelligent citizens and some important newspapers advocated the internment indis criminately of all alien enemies. And no amount of statistics on their loyalty or of good conduct on the part of this large class of persons seemed to have the effect of lessening the agitation. They were under suspicion by the majority of their neighbors in every community; they were the subject of incessant investigation at the hands of police officials and amateur detectives, and the extent to which their normal lives were interfered with can only be a matter of conjecture.. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Liberty-War-Time-Forty-Second/dp/1333744072?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1333744072
(O'Brian's recollections of conversations held at "The Tab...)
O'Brian's recollections of conversations held at "The Table of Twelve" at the Metropolitan Club between 1925- 1958, which include some interesting accounts involving President Calvin Coolidge. In the Wilson administration the Table was set aside for members of the President's Cabinet.
https://www.amazon.com/Table-1925-1958-John-Lord-OBrian/dp/B0007J3LTQ?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0007J3LTQ
John Lord O'Brian was born on October 14, 1874, in Buffalo, New York, to John O'Brian, a justice of the peace, and Elizabeth Lord.
John Lord O'Brian attended public schools in Buffalo and Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1896. He then studied law at the University of Buffalo Law School, where he received his law degree in 1898.
O'Brian also received honorary degrees from Hobart College (1916), Syracuse University (1938), Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1943), Brown University (1945), Harvard University (1946), Yale University Law School (1948), and Harvard Divinity School (1966).
In 1907, at the age of thirty-three, John Lord O'Brian was elected to the first of two terms in the New York State Assembly. Two years later, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him U. S. attorney for the Western District of New York; he was subsequently reappointed by Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. In 1913, he was narrowly defeated by the incumbent in a race for mayor of Buffalo. He ran on the combined Progressive and Citizens party ticket.
After the outbreak of World War I, O'Brian was asked by the U. S. attorney general to prosecute the Franz von Rintelen conspiracy case, United States v. Rintelen, which focused on an attempt to encourage labor leaders to call strikes at munitions factories. His successful use of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law marked the beginning of a long career in antitrust action.
In 1917 President Wilson appointed O'Brian head of the War Emergency Division of the Department of Justice. O'Brian wielded tremendous power in this position, originally established to protect the interests of the federal government, but whose mandate he expanded to protect the rights of individual citizens, a lifelong concern of his. As many as one thousand complaints per day came into his office. In Schenck v. U. S. , his argument before the Supreme Court led Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. , to elucidate the doctrine of the "clear and present danger" test under the First Amendment.
During this same period O'Brian recruited J. Edgar Hoover to work for him; Hoover went on to head the General Intelligence Division which was the successor to the War Emergency Division, and then the FBI.
After World War I, while in private practice in Buffalo, O'Brian was appointed vicechairman of the New York State Reorganization Committee for New York State Government. Working in close collaboration with Alfred E. Smith and Charles Evans Hughes he helped to bring about significant constitutional reform for the state of New York.
In 1929, President Herbert Hoover called O'Brian back to Washington to serve as head of the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice. Over the next four years he prosecuted more than twenty cases, including one that prevented the merger of General Electric, Westinghouse, and the Radio Corporation of America. In 1936, he became special counsel for the Tennessee Valley Authority at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Until this time the U. S. government had never engaged in private enterprise.
O'Brian successfully argued that water as it went over a dam gained a special value and as such was a public property that should not be wasted. Winning the case Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority before the Supreme Court was one of his greatest triumphs.
In 1938, the trial was delayed so that O'Brian could run for the U. S. Senate on the Republican ticket. He was drafted six weeks before the election and, despite winning fifty-seven out of sixty-one counties, he lost the race because he did not prevail in the heavily populated counties of Kings (Brooklyn), Queens, and New York (Manhattan), as well as in the small county of Albany. He lost in part because of his opposition to some of Roosevelt's programs and his unwillingness to compromise his ideals for political expediency.
Although O'Brian served under many Democratic presidents he maintained a lifelong allegiance to the Republican party. In 1940 he gave the nominating address for Thomas E. Dewey, a Republican candidate for president. Despite his support for the opposing party, in 1941 President Roosevelt asked him to serve his administration again, this time as general counsel for the War Production Board. He accepted this position because of his strong sense of duty to his country and because he saw it as a logical extension of his work during World War I.
O'Brian assembled a legendary array of legal talent to ensure that military contracts were awarded in a fair manner, such that the best possible war effort was made. He asked for and received far-reaching emergency powers over the nation's businesses. It was a testament to his wisdom and sense of fairness that only once was his board's decision questioned in court and that suit failed.
In 1945 President Truman asked O'Brian to chair a panel investigating a possible strike at the Oak Ridge Atomic Energy Plant; he successfully resolved that dispute. By that time O'Brian had joined the Washington firm of Covington, Burling, Rublee, Acheson, and Shorb, though he still remained a member of his Buffalo firm of Slee, O'Brian, Hellings, and Ulsh, which he had joined in 1917. He was seventy years old when he joined Covington and Burling, an age by which most men would have retired. Yet for another twenty-eight years he pursued a private career in law.
In 1955 O'Brian delivered the Godkin Lectures at Harvard University, hailed as a "brilliant analysis of our society" by James Reston.
In addition to his outstanding public career and precedent-setting private career, O'Brian devoted much time to education. He served as trustee for the University of Buffalo from 1903 to 1929, as regent for the University of the State of New York from 1931 to 1947, as overseer for Harvard University from 1939 to 1945, and as chairman for the Endowment Fund of Harvard Divinity School from 1950 to 1957.
John O'Brian was still visiting his Washington, D. C. office at the age of ninety-eight and in fact died just one week after his last visit there. He is buried in the Washington National Cathedral in recognition of his life devoted to the nation's service and the pursuit of excellence.
Working in collaboration with Alfred E. Smith and Charles Evans Hughes, John O'Brian helped to bring about significant constitutional reform for the state of New York. At war's end, President Harry Truman awarded John O'Brian the Presidential Medal of Merit for his unique accomplishments and outstanding service to his country. O'Brian argued many cases before the Supreme Court, including some involving the United Nations. One of the greatest triumphs in O'Brian's career was winning the case Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority before the Supreme Court. Serving as head of the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice over four years since 1929 O'Brian prosecuted more than twenty cases, including one that prevented the merger of General Electric, Westinghouse, and the Radio Corporation of America. In 1945 John O'Brian successfully resolved the dispute about the strike at the Oak Ridge Atomic Energy Plant. An endowed chair was established in his honor at the Harvard Divinity School in 1955 to "reflect his broad compassion, his constant search for truth in every quarter, his insistence on the right of all men for a fair hearing for their opinions. " The law school building at the State University of New York at Buffalo is named after O'Brian.
(Excerpt from Civil Liberty in War Time: Paper Presented a...)
(O'Brian's recollections of conversations held at "The Tab...)
(Excerpt from Protestant Episcopal Church in America: Cour...)
(The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and ...)
(The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and ...)
John Lord O'Brian was devoted to the legal profession but also believed "that a lawyer ought to take some part in the life of his time. " He wrote that "we progress as a race only as we consciously increase the intensity of our sense of injustice. " He lived by these principles and won the respect, friendship, and admiration of many of America's finest lawyers and Supreme Court justices.
John O'Brian was member of the Republican party; he was elected as a Republican candidate to represent Buffalo in the New York State Assembly (1906 - 1909).
O'Brian also served as vicechairman of the New York State Reorganization Committee for New York State Government.
John O'Brian was a superb courtroom lawyer with "matchless powers of legal and factual analysis. "
O'Brian gave inspiration to countless thousands because above all he was a very human person, very kind, and very gentle.
Quotes from others about the person
O'Brian was "a man for all seasons, " in the words of Arthur Krock, the famed Washington biographer.
When a sportswriter looked up references to see why O'Brian had been selected as Chandler's lawyer, the writer quipped, "His record leads me to believe that he must be three persons. "
Erwin Griswold, the dean of Harvard Law School for twenty-two years, wrote that O'Brian was "the lawyer whom I admired perhaps most of all. "
In 1962 Chief Justice Earl Warren paid tribute in the Supreme Court to O'Brian, who was then eighty-seven, saying, "I am told that this is the fiftieth anniversary of your own admission to the bar of this Court. Few men in history have had a longer or more active practice before the Court. During all of these years you have served the Court well. " On another occasion Warren confided to one of O'Brian's grandsons, "He's my favorite lawyer. "
In 1902, John O'Brian married Alma E. White, with whom he had five daughters, including twins. He and Alma remained married for sixty-six years, until her death in 1968.
