"God Save the U. S."

"Oyez, oyez, oyez!" will cry, for the first time since June, a dark, handsome, neatly morning-coated gentleman in the most august room in the national Capitol a few minutes after noon on the first Monday in October. "All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!"

The handsome crier is named Thomas E. Waggaman. His admonishment, uttered after the Justices are seated, has been preceded by the flash of a light over the courtroom's side door. He has banged his gavel for all present to rise as the Justices march in. Now all may sit, at Crier Waggaman's next gavel-bang, and Justice takes its course.

The March from the Court's robing room is a thing of simple grandeur never witnessed in its entirety save by members of the Court and their Maker. Out of the robing room on the west of the Capitol's central public corridor, across the corridor between heavy red-plush ropes held by ununiformed attendants, the Justices pass into and through a private corridor to a door at the northeast corner of their Chamber. To and through this door they march in a peculiar order. They must sit at the bench in the order of their seniority, with juniors at the ends and seniors nearest the Chief Justice. And a march formation is required that will get each to his seat at exactly the same moment. Therefore: Nos. 1, 2 and 3 lead off, followed by 5, 7 and 9. Then come 4, 6 and 8. The Chief Justice and Nos. 2 and 3 march behind the great marble pillared screen with red plush panels back of the bench to its centre, where they halt. Nos. 5, 7 and 9 also march behind the screen, past their seniors to the end. Nos. 4, 6 and 8, entering the chamber last, pause until Nos. 5, 7 and 9 are ready. Then all move forward to their seats, the seniors passing through the red curtains at the centre of the screen.

Perched on a cornice in the private side passage, into which bulges the Chamber's semicircular wall, an observer would behold this year's line of march of the nation's highest court, as follows:

Chief Justice Taft, less massive, less twinkling but no less human after aggravating illnesses in his 72nd year just ended. He summered as usual quietly on Murray Bay, Que.

Associate Justice Holmes, deep-lined but erect in his 88th year, eldest of the nine.

Associate Justice Van Devanter, whom Mr. Taft put on the High Bench a generation ago.

Associate Justice Brandeis, the brilliant Jew and liberal. He summers at Wood's Hole, Mass.

Associate Justice Butler, the railroad lawyer from Minnesota, strong-chinned, almost truculent in concentration.

Associate Justice Stone, the muscular junior of all the rest, onetime footballer, onetime Columbia professor, onetime Attorney General.

Then Associate Justices McReynolds, Sutherland and Sanford, the last two wearing the Court's only chin-whiskers. August in black-silk, tailored to flow sedately, to their tasks they file.

The Docket. It is more difficult than formerly to get a case before the Supreme Court. To keep their docket clear the Justices spend their first two weeks in executive session, rejecting cases in which new and unimportant points of Federal law are not at issue.

Carried over from last spring are some 400 cases, only twelve of them now under advisement. None of the latter have prime importance. One case, for example is to test Nebraska's right to make railroads pay for grade crossings in farmers' fields. Another is between the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila and one Raul Rogerio Gonzalez, a youth seeking a certain rich chaplaincy. Another: a Washington, D. C. shade shop being sued for its trade name. Another: over a patent latch for refrigerator doors.