'As Far as I Know, He Was Never a Criminal Type'

There are nine large black chairs behind the bench of the Supreme Court in Washington. Each is of a different size, shape, and material, tailored for the justice who hits in it. President Nixon has found it impossible to fill the ninth chair on the Court, impossible to nominate a candidate acceptable to the Senate, which glares at the Court from across a tree shaded mall. His latest nominee for the Court, however, has passed easily through the Senate Judiciary Committee, and will probably get the approval of the whole Senate this week. Nixon has finally found a man with no skeletons in his closet.

WHEN YOU walk into the Alumni Records Office and ask for information about Harry A. Blackmun '29, they hand you a small brown file card. The top line says "130140-Lowell." The rest of the card tells you that Blackmun was born in Nashville, Indiana on Nov. 12, 1902, the son of Corwin Manning and Theo Huegelf Blackmun, that he graduated summa cum laude in 1929, took a law degree in 1932, and is now a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit.

Harry Blackmun did not make a deep impression on Harvard while he was here. Very few of his contemporaries even remember him, and those who do are suprised when they heard of his nomination. The reaction of one of his classmates, a New York businessman, is typical: "He was a quiet, self-contained, almost monastic type of student-always got his A. I would not have picked him as the man most likely to succeed-I would have picked him as head of the math department of some small Midwestern college."

Blackmun kept a low profile as an undergraduate. The houses were not in existence, so he lived in a dormitory, where he kept to himself. His only undergraduate organizations were Phi Beta Kappa, and a fraternity called Lambda Chi Alpha, which folded in 1932 and took its records with it. He held four different scholarships, and won a Doctor in 1929. He worked his way through Harvard, running the motorboat for the crew and tutoring, and had very little time left over for activities. As one of his classmates put it: "He wasn't interested in athletics-he couldn't have made any of the teams. He was really a drab, colorless grind."

Even after he graduated from the College, Blackmun left little to remember him by. As a law student, he lived in Lowell P-23, and was a mathematics tutor. A professor of Mathematics who was also a Lowell House tutor at that time gave his recollection of Blackmun: "I was aware of his presence. As I recall, he was clean-shaven. That's really all I can remember about him." Elliot Perkins '23, former Master of Lowell House, has no memory of this quiet math student. "I was assistant dean for his class when they were freshmen and sophomores. As far as I know, he was never a criminal type, so I don't remember ever interviewing him."

If Harvard managed to forget Blackmun quickly, Blackmun never forgot Harvard. He contributed biographies of himself to every report of his class. In his Decennial Report, in 1939, he writes that he has served as a law clerk to a Federal Judge in St. Paul, and is now a tax specialist. In addition, he is a junior partner in a law firm in St. Paul, and teaches Real Property at St. Paul College of Law. He is a member of the Tennis Club of St. Paul, and secretary of the Hennepin County Bar Association.

In that same Decennial Report, Blackmun and his classmates are subjected to a statistical breakdown. The median income of all the lawyers in his class is $3,000.00. One makes $11,000, another makes $100.00. Blackmun's income is not given, but it was probably at neither extreme. Three hundred and one of his classmates are Republicans, three hundred and thirty-six are Independents, eighty seven are Democrats, and ten are Socialists. They oppose President Roosevelt, 468 to 182.

TEN YEARS later, Blackmun and his class have changed. The atmosphere is more liberal, and Blackmun is more disillusioned. In his biography, he says: This is my sixteenth year in the practice of law with Dorsey, Colman, Barker, Scott and Barber in Minnesota. We feel far removed from the current of Harvard activities in the East, but every now and then some visiting fireman from the class wanders west unexpectedly. The few of us who are out here are always glad to renew acquaintances."

The tone of pessimism in this report is emphasized five years later, in the class of '29's Twenty-Fifth Reunion Report. Amid biographies of his classmates Leroy Anderson, John K. Fairbank, Alwyn Pappenheimer, and others, Blackmun announces that he has given up law:

"From a professional point of view, the most interesting thing that has happened to me is my metamorphosis from pressure law practice to almost total immersion in the problems of the medical profession.

"In late 1950 I succumbed to the blandishments of another profession, and, after a bit of struggle, deserted the pure practice of law and my partners (who, incidentally, still think I am crazy) to go to the Mayo Clinic at Rochester Minn, as one of its administrative officers.

"Perhaps I have always had a soft spot for medicine as well as for the law, or perhaps I still have some elements of idealism, but there has been satisfaction and reward in the association with an institution which is fundamentally eleemosynary in character and where one's contacts with people of all kinds are apparently unlimited.

"Minnesota, to me, has always been a very interesting political state with leanings generally to the so-called liberal side. I have never participated actively in this game, but I have enjoyed silent participation in a small way."

AND SO Blacken made the most adventurous move of his life, since the day he left home to come to Herr-varied. He gave up the career of a midwestern lawyer to follow his more generous emotions and take a more exciting job. As an executive of the Mayo Clinic, he established a reputation as an intelligent, generous administrator, and also brought himself to the attention of prominent Minnesota politicians. Nobody was very surprised when, in 1959, President Eisenhower appointed him to the Federal Court in Minnesota. As he wrote to his class in his Thirty-Fifth Report:

"For the second time in my life I have made a fundamental change in activity. Although the work [of a Federal Judge] at times has elements of drudgery, tedium, and loneliness, it does have significant compensations. The cases are clear and substantial. One is brought back to the research and scholarship aspects of his profession, and one participates, in a way, in the law's development."

The professional odyssey of Harry Blackmun has turned back on itself. From the bright but wonkish budding mathematician. to the eager young lawyer, to the dissatisfied middle-aged man who gives up the law to follow his benevolent instincts, he has returned to the position of legal scholar. The rest of the journey is well known to everyone. It will probably end in a few weeks when Blackmun takes the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by Mr. Justice Fortas a year ago.

There are few people at Harvard today who know Blackmun, or have seen him recently. One of the few is L. Fred Jewett '57, the Director of Freshman Scholarships. Jewett sees Blackman every year in his capacity as an alumni interviewer, and is very impressed by the judge. "I felt that it was a change from the ridiculous to the sublime in choice for a judge. Blackmun is extremely warm and friendly, he has real perception and an ability to be very fair. I can't imagine anyone I would rather come before of feel more protected by in terms of my legal rights."

In the past decade, Blackmun has sent two daughters to Radcliffe, but he hasn't been seen often in the Cambridge area. His appointment to the Court will give him his big chance to get back into the mainstream of events on the East Coast, and might also prove that Nixon is capable of an occasional intelligent decision.