Thomas Day Thacher

Background

Thacher was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, in September 10, 1881. He was the oldest of four children and the only son of Thomas Thacher and Sarah McCulloh (Green) Thacher. His paternal grandfather was Thomas Anthony Thacher, professor of Latin at Yale and influential in its administration. His father was a prominent lawyer in New York City.

Education

After preparatory education at Taft School and Phillips Academy, Andover, young Thacher followed family tradition by attending Yale, from which he received a B. A. degree in 1904. During the next two years he studied at Yale Law School. He left without completing his degree.

Career

In 1906 was admitted to the New York bar and entered the office of his father's firm, Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett. Except during periods of public service, Thacher remained associated with the firm throughout his life, becoming a partner in 1914. A Republican, Thacher took his first government post in 1907, when he became an assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York under Henry L. Stimson. Over the next three years he won recognition for his prosecution of customs frauds. Thacher's great admiration for Stimson was probably responsible, at least in part, for his subsequent dedication to public service.

When the United States entered World War I, Thacher joined the American Red Cross Commission to Russia (1917 - 1918) with the rank of major. The commission, led by William Boyce Thompson and Raymond Robins, at first supported the Russian war effort and then, after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, sought to prevent German seizure of Russian resources. Like his superiors, Thacher respected the new Soviet government and vainly urged Washington to cooperate with the Bolshevik leadership. In 1925 President Coolidge appointed Thacher to the United States district court for the Southern District of New York. He resigned five years later to become solicitor general of the United States under President Hoover, a post he held until 1933.

As a federal judge, Thacher was instrumental in investigating the operation of the bankruptcy law in New York City, and as solicitor general, the nation's second highest legal officer, he directed a thorough examination into this subject. His report to Hoover was the basis for amendments to the bankruptcy law that reduced the opportunities for abuses on the part of greedy lawyers by extending the control of the courts over bankruptcy proceedings and hastening the process of settlement.

Thacher returned to his law practice in 1933. In that same year, along with such prominent New Yorkers as Samuel Seabury, Charles C. Burlingham, and Charles H. Tuttle, he fathered the Fusion movement that made possible the election of Fiorello H. La Guardia as reform mayor of New York City. The continued support of Thacher and other prominent Republicans was also vital in helping the pro-New Deal La Guardia gain the Republican nomination when he ran successfully for reelection in 1937 and 1941. La Guardia appointed Thacher in 1935 as head of a commission to write a new city charter; and Thacher took an active part in the campaign the next year, which secured voter approval of the charter, along with a proposal for the election of councilmen by proportional representation.

Through the Citizens Non-Partisan Committee. whose chairman he became after Seabury stepped down, Thacher worked to elect antimachine candidates to the city council, defended proportional representation against attacks, and advanced the cause of county government reform by campaigning for the creation of citywide offices of sheriff and register (finally achieved in 1941).

Thacher often acted as a referee or the head of a city fact-finding committee in cases involving possible corruption of public officials. Though receptive to municipal reform, Thacher looked with less favor on the New Deal program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Along with other eminent lawyers, he expressed doubt of the constitutionality of many New Deal measures. Yet during World War II, Thacher joined three other noted attorneys--Burlingham, George Rublee, and Dean Acheson--in an important letter to the New York Times (August 11, 1940), which argued that ample legal authority existed for Roosevelt's plan to transfer overage naval vessels to England. Mayor La Guardia appointed Thacher corporation counsel of New York City in January 1943, but several months later Thacher was named by Gov. Thomas E. Dewey to fill a vacancy on the New York State Court of Appeals. He was elected that fall to a full fourteen-year term, having been nominated by all major parties, and served until circulatory illness forced his retirement from the bench in 1948.

Thacher died of a coronary thrombosis at his home in New York City at the age of sixty-nine. He was buried in Brookside Cemetery, Englewood, N. J.

Achievements

• Thacher drew and held the loyalty of his associates. He impressed those who knew him by his meticulous care for detail and his practical knowledge of how to achieve results. Collections of his personal and official papers are archived at Columbia and Yale universities.

Works

More photos

• book

  • In The Matter of The Application of Thomas K. Coyne, an Honorably Discharged World War Veteran, Petitioner-Appellant, For an Order against William ... of The City of New York, Joseph D....

    (Full Title:In The Matter of The Application of Thomas K. ...)

  • City of New York v. U S U.S. Supreme Court Transcript of Record with Supporting Pleadings

    (The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and ...)

Membership

Thacher was a fellow of the Yale Corporation from 1931–1949 and as president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York from 1933 to 1935. He was a member of numerous social clubs.

Personality

He was trim and vigorous in appearance, direct and unpretentious in manner, a man of high ideals and steadfast integrity.

Connections

Thacher married Eunice Booth Burrall of Waterbury, Connecticut, on November 9, 1907. They had three children: Sarah Booth, Mary Eunice, and Thomas. His first wife died in January 1943, and on July 20, 1945, he married Eleanor Burroughs (Morris) Lloyd of Philadelphia.

Father:

Thomas Thacher

Mother:

Sarah McCulloh (Green) Thacher

Spouse:

Eleanor Burroughs (Morris) Lloyd

Spouse:

Eunice Booth Burrall

child:

Mary Eunice

child:

Sarah Booth

child:

Thomas