JUDGE FRANKFURTER

In announcing his appointment of Professor Frankfurter to the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth, Governor Ely has stated what is well-known,--that Professor Frankfurter is heartily endorsed by such justices as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Brandeis, and Cardoso. He also makes plain that the new appointee's efforts were enlisted in behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti through a conviction that the defendants were innocent, and not because of any sympathy with their political creed.

Yet none will hesitate to class him as a marked liberal. His close association with the three liberal justices of the supreme bench would assure this, and his pronouncements and publications have made it plain. At a time when the social and economic structure is being continually altered, there is room for jurists who have an eye to the whole scene and are not bound too closely by tradition. Professor Frankfurter is an idealist and an enthusiast, who will not confine himself to more defense of the status quo; that he is endowed with the judicial temperament is to be doubted. He will, however, collaborate with six other justices, with whose opinions, doubtless, he will frequently express dissent. In this over-worked court, criticized as too narrowly legalistic, his will be a leavening influence; the combination should result to the benefit of Massachusetts.