Louis D. Brandeis
Chapter One
PREFACE
THE IDEALISTIC PRAGMATIST
In 1920 theHarvard Law School professor Manley Hudson journeyed to Washington, and while there paid a visit on Justice Louis D. Brandeis and his law clerk, Dean Acheson. As he usually did, Brandeis quizzed his guest about recent events at the law school and also about Hudson's role as a legal adviser to the League of Nations. While discussing his work, Hudson alluded to international law as conditional, with principles varying depending upon the situation and the nations involved. He had barely finished when, to his great surprise and alarm, Brandeis stood up and began, as Acheson described it, to thunder like an Old Testament prophet. Principles are fixed and immutable, Brandeis declared, because without reliance on established values democratic society and individual freedom are impossible. He quoted Goethe and Euripides, and on it went, a frightening display of elemental force.
The incident is indicative of a key aspect of Louis Brandeis's nature— his idealism. He once told his niece that "ideals are everything." His attraction to the law derived in part from his belief tha ... read full excerpt from: Louis D. Brandeis ebook
