77th

A little before noon one day early this week Chief Justice Hughes led a bald, bespectacled man of 53 into the sanctity of the Justices' robing room in the new Supreme Court Building. A few days before the Senate had confirmed President Roosevelt's second Supreme Court appointment --even more perfunctorily than in the case of Hugo Black. The Chief Justice administered the Constitutional oath to Stanley Reed, who then marched into the courtroom in his brand-new black robe to take his place as the 77th Justice to sit on the high bench, succeeding Associate Justice Sutherland. Before the former Solicitor General could sit in judgment, however, he had to take a second, judicial oath, swearing by God to "do equal right to the poor and to the rich."

Justice Reed did not of course take part in a unanimous and significant decision that was promptly handed down. Written by Justice Brandeis it held that Federal District Courts were without power to enjoin the National Labor Relations Board. The case involved Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. and Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. Said Justice Brandeis: "Since the procedure before the Board is appropriate and the judicial review . . . is adequate, Congress had power to vest exclusive jurisdiction in the Board and the Circuit Court of Appeals."

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