Beyond Knox: James C. McReynolds’s Other Law Clerks, 1914–1941

Abstract

Beyond Knox: James C. McReynolds’s Other Law Clerks, 1914-1941 CLARE CUSHMAN One ofthe more poignant scenes in John Knox’s memoir of clerking for James C. McReynolds during October Term 1936 is when one ofthe Justice’s former clerks pays a call at his apartment during lunchtime. Having been told that Maurice J. Mahoney was McReynolds’s “most successful” clerk and had stayed with him for many years, Knox, new to the clerkship and still starry eyed, was curious to meet him. Spying on the clerk-Justice reunion in the dining room, however, Knox sees to his dismay that his new boss does not even invite Mahoney to sit, let alone dine, and that the Justice “main­ tained a cool, detached formality toward his caller and scarcely gave any indication that he had ever seen the young man before.” “Ifhe is as formal and cold as that with a Southerner who was the most successful secretary he ever had,” Knox worries, “then there is absolutely no hope that I can be a success in this position.”1 Poor Knox’s prediction ended up coming true, as his compelling chronicle of his abysmal experience clerking for McReynolds reveals. Thanks to Knox’s extraordinary docu­ ment, a great deal about how McReynolds mistreated his private secretary in the 1936 Term is known. But what about the other seventeen clerks McReynolds engaged dur­ ing his lengthy Court tenure (1914-41)? In his recent work examining the clerks of McRey­ nolds, Barry Cushman has helpfully rescued these men from obscurity and given them their due alongside Knox.2 We now know who they were, where they came from, when they clerked, and what they did after their clerkship. We can also conclude that Knox was an anomaly in that his post-clerkship career never took off and he had to cobble together various low-level legal jobs to remain solvent. By contrast, McReynolds’s other clerks went on to solid, even stellar, careers in government, law, the military, and business.3 But the question that remains unanswered is, was Knox’s experience during 148 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY his clerkship typical? While Knox alone recorded an account of his clerkship for posterity, there are enough clues from other clerks to provide a framework in which to place Knox’s experience, especially letters written home by Milton S. Musser, the Justice’s penultimate clerk. Clerk Selection With the exception of Knox, a North­ western Law School and Harvard Law School graduate, McReynolds recruited clerks from local D.C. schools.4 An exception to this is Blaine Malian, the only clerk the Justice selected from his alma mater, whom he met in D.C. at a University of Virginia Law School alumni banquet shortly after Malian gradu­ ated law school in 1916.5 McReynolds mainly hired from Georgetown University, which offered evening classes for students who needed to support themselves with day jobs in nearby government agencies.6 Some of McReynolds’s clerks had already finished law school, but others undertook the exhaust­ ing challenge of working as a stenographer during the day while pursuing their law studies in the evening. For example, T. Ellis Allison graduated from Georgetown Law School in 1918, halfway through his two-year tenure with McReynolds. His classmates viewed his clerkship as difficult, writing on his yearbook page: “Ellis admits that he likes the ladies but his social functions do not keep him from doing his arduous duties as Secretary to Supreme Court Justice James C. McReynolds.” Norman Frost also finished his legal studies during his clerkship, double­ duty, which his yearbook entry said took its toll: “Due to his rather strenuous life as Secretary to one of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices, Norman has not been as active in school affairs as some of his ‘buddies.’”7 Hiring law students for Supreme Court clerkships was fairly common in the 1910s because the duties were mostly clerical. “Stenographic clerks,” as they were then called, performed such humble tasks as taking dictation in shorthand and then transcribing the words on a typewriter, carrying written opinions to the printer, and running personal errands. In 1920, Congress began providing salaries...