New Deal Years
Following the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Frankfurter quickly became a trusted and loyal adviser to the new president. Frankfurter was considered to be liberal and advocated progressive legislation. However, he was also a firm believer in judicial restraint. He argued against the extreme economic plans of Raymond Moley, Adolf Berle and Rex Tugwell, while clearly recognizing the need for major changes to deal with the inequalities of wealth distribution that had led to the devastating nature of the Depression.
Frankfurter successfully recommended many bright young lawyers toward public service with the New Deal administration, so many indeed that they became known as "Felix's Happy Hot Dogs". Among the most notable of these were Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin Cohen. He moved to Washington, DC, commuting back to Harvard for classes, but as with previous experiences, was never fully accepted within government circles. He worked closely with Louis Brandeis, lobbying for political activities suggested by Brandeis. He declined a seat on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and, in 1933, the position of Solicitor General of the United States. Long an anglophile, Frankfurter had studied in Oxford in 1920, and in 1933-4 he returned to act as visiting Eastman professor in the faculty of Law.
Read more about this topic: Felix Frankfurter
Famous quotes containing the words deal and/or years:
“There is a great deal of self-denial and manliness in poor and middle-class houses, in town and country, that has not got into literature, and never will, but that keeps the earth sweet; that saves on superfluities, and spends on essentials; that goes rusty, and educates the boy; that sells the horse, but builds the school; works early and late, takes two looms in the factory, three looms, six looms, but pays off the mortgage on the paternal farm, and then goes back cheerfully to work again.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Mee of these
Nor skilld nor studious, higher Argument
Remaines, sufficient of it self to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climat, or Years damp my intended wing
Deprest, and much they may, if all be mine,
Not Hers who brings it nightly to my Ear.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)