Rest

Justice is blind; justice is stern--perhaps it is thus in other lands. In the U. S., however, the Chief Justice has laughter in his eye and kindness in his heart. His decisions are the law of the land, but his proportions are its admiration. He is a very substantial answer to the aphorism that nobody loves a fat man.

In all his long and honorable career that led him to the high and happy seat of Chief Justice of the U. S., there is only one portion which lies in shadow. That is his tenure as Chief Executive of the Nation. But having escaped from the shadow of what was a valley for him, he has attained to the Elysium beyond--to honor, love, obedience, troops of friends.

For him another season of labor has concluded. He and his associates have recessed for the Summer. In October of 1923 they had assembled to find 580 cases on the docket. In June, 1924, they adjourned leaving 412 cases on the docket--44 more cases than they had left the June before.

Although the Court has fallen still a little further behind, it has been a term of hard work for the Chief Justice. He deserved his vacation. But that vacation was not to be all that he anticipated. In June, that rotund figure which the inhabitants of Washington were accustomed to see striding smiling to the Capitol of a morning had customarily been seen in New Haven. The famous smile shone, rain or shine, upon the Yale-Harvard baseball game. This year it was not so.

This year the Convention of the American Bar Association is to assemble an London. Who would have graced the occasion, who have enjoyed it more than William Howard Taft? He is not to go.

With the completion of the heavy term of the Supreme Court, all that awaited the very merry and beloved gentleman was rest, complete rest. His doctor forbade all divertisements in the haunts of men. He was bidden to go straight to his home at Murray Bay, near the Saguenay River, and there wait the Summer out. Sitting on the St. Lawrence, he must practice being healthy according to his dictum: "Oranges and discipline, that's the recipe."