Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Rezensionen

Print: (1943; Library of Congress Catalog Number 54-6897); First Modern Library Edition 1954; The Modern Library of the World’s Best Books [Random House Inc.]. (Audio: No). (Film: No).

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
I came upon this 1954 book about Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in my favorite Friends of the Library bookshop (Newport Beach Public Library), and considering it’s age thought I should not count on being able to find an audio version, so purchased it. I was right. No audio. There is a newer reprint- 2017, which on Amazon is a shocking $120.00 for the hardback and $47.00 for the paperback, so it must have been a very limited printing. So I’m quite glad I spent the dollar on it!
While trying to find an audio of it, I’d run into a biography which I ended up listening to first, because I have so little time for actual reading. Listening I can do while washing dishes and other menial tasks, but reading requires all my faculties.
Therefore, after consuming two books about the Justice, I’ve come to feel that O. W. Holmes (how he signed his letters) is my friend. While this one contained many of the same judicial opinions, essays and speeches as the biography I’d read, it also contained others and of course different explanations of what they were about. It also has a few letters. Apparently, there were and are folks who thought him conservative—he did grow up among the well-monied in Boston, after all—but others who consider(ed) him liberal. My own take is that he was unconcerned about political party loyalties –his opinions sprang from his intellect and conscience. In fact, the assumption President Taft held about his views when he appointed him, that he would be a supporter of Taft’s own opinion regarding a case involving a railroad, proved false, and, having disproved the loyalty Taft felt he was owed, Holmes lost Taft’s high opinion and some of his better graces in the process of deciding on the case. Even the editor of this book, seems to have been a challenge to permanently pin down, having made himself an enemy of the Nixon Administration, but a supporter of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
I love what a scholar Holmes was—sooo well read on every subject. This book names so many book titles, in the process of his recommending books to friends, or just mentioning what he'd been reading, that I was hoping to get a list from my new Kindle’s x-ray feature—but even the Kindle version of this book is $42.00, so never mind. I’ll just have to pore back over the pages for italics to make my own list. Of course, many are titles that are at least a century old, but most are prominent enough for the possibility of their works to still be available—perhaps on Project Gutenberg.

AUTHOR:
Max Lerner (Editor) (12/20/1902), Wikipedia has this, and more, to say:
“Maxwell Alan Lerner was born on December 20, 1902 in Minsk, in the Russian Empire, the son of Bessie (Podel) and Benjamin Lerner. His Russian Jewish family emigrated to the U.S. in 1907, where his father sold milk door to door.[1] Lerner earned a B.A. from Yale University in 1923. He studied law there, but transferred to Washington University in St. Louis for an M.A. in 1925. He earned a doctorate from the Brookings Institution in 1927.[citation needed]
Career
Once out of school, Lerner began work as an editor for the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (1927–32), The Nation (1936–38), and PM (1943–48). After PM sold, he continued as a contributor to its short-lived successor, the New York Star (ended 1949).
His column for the New York Post debuted in 1949. It earned him a place on the master list of Nixon political opponents. During most of his career he was considered a liberal. In his later years, however, he was seen as something of a conservative since he expressed support for Margaret Thatcher and the Reagan administration.[2]
He taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Harvard University, Williams College, United States International University, the University of Notre Dame, and Brandeis University. Lerner was also a close friend of film star Elizabeth Taylor during her marriage to Eddie Fisher.[3] He is referenced in the lyrics to the Phil Ochs song, "Love Me, I'm a Liberal": "You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden".”

GENRE:
Non-fiction, Law, Supreme Court Justices, Biography, Philosophy

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
The editor's preliminary comments on an excerpt of Holmes's opinion from "They Created a Nation, Not a Document"
"Missouri v. Holland
252 U. S. 416 (1920)
After all the learned words that have been written about the treaty making power and about the place of this crucial decision in it, Holmes's own words retain a daring simplicity that needs little commentary. We had entered into a treaty with Great Britain by which the United States and Canada were each to enact laws for the protection of migratory birds. Congress passed an enforcing statute which Missouri challenged on the ground that the regulation of the killing of migratory birds was a state rather than a national matter, being part of the powers reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment, and that the national power cannot effect by treaty what it could not effect by legislation. There was in Holmes an impatience with all forms of dwarfing pettiness which never wholly slumbered, and which was most summary when the crippling views were sought to be applied to the national power and majesty in war or in international relations. 'It is not lightly to be assumed,' he wrote in rejecting Missouri's contention and affirming the constitutionality of the Act, 'that in matters requiring national action,' a power which must belong to and somewhere reside in every civilized government' is not to be found.'
There is in this opinion more than a hint of John Marshall's manner and approach. My own belief is that even in Marshall's opinions one would have to search long to find as sharp and powerful an expression of the view that national survival is not only a political but also a constitutional imperative. Holmes's words bear repeating: 'When we are dealing with words that also are a constituent act, like the Constitution of the United States, we must realize that they have called into life a being the development of which could not have been foreseen completely by the most gifted of its begetters. It was enough for them to realize or to hope that they had created an organism ; it has taken a century and has cost their successors much sweat and blood to prove that they created a nation.'
Such a view means, in its broadest terms, that Holmes saw constitutional law as far more than commentary on a document. He saw it as the relation between a document and the organic fact of American national life. And in this relation, instead of pruning American life to a stunting conception of the document, he preferred to infuse a largeness into the document which would make it measure up to the greatness of American life.' We must consider what this country has become instead of deciding what the Amendment has reserved.' Justices Van Devanter and Pitney dissented."

RATING:
5 stars. The matter selected for this book seems to be an excellent representation of the man, and the annotations that precede the opinions, speeches, and letters are quite helpful. (But there are many biographies available on Oliver Wendell Holmes, so I probably would not recommend purchasing the book in any form considering the high cost.)

Originally I read this in 1971, just before going to law school. It was the most useful book I read as I prepared for the experience. Some of his discussion about the law is dated, but that doesn't matter. What is most useful about the book is that it helps you learn how the system of common law works -- as opposed to what the law is on any given subject.

Highly recommended for pre-law students and intellectually curious non-lawyers.

This book presents a series of twelve lectures by the author on the nature, and history of law; and the judicial process.

Holmes spent the first ten years of his service on the Supreme Court known as "The Dissenter", and for most of the chamber discussion was literally holding his head in his hands in utter despondency.
As for "Negligence", he reminds us that "like ownership, [it] is "a complex conception". [115] Importantly, he finds the element of "public policy" in the concept. In other words, liability flows not merely from breach of a standard of care of the tortfeasor (fault), but upon public policy. 115. A "stricter rule" applies if damage is caused "by a pistol, in view of the danger to the public". 116. In other words, we analyze the burden on the victim in light of the benefit to the public. As Justice Traynor suggested, the necessity of "spreading the burden among those who benefit", arises from this public policy analysis. Unfortunately, jurors today (and in spite of Holmes and Traynor's best efforts) still find little help for applying this leg of liability.

Holmes is the liberal Justice appointed to an archly conservative bench, and the author of the best opinions of the SCOTUS in his day, mostly Dissents. Harold Laski (1893-1950) was a political theorist and a leading British intellectual. Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics from 1926 until his death in 1950, he was a notorious figure loved and respected by students and colleagues alike. He knew both the great and the good, including Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. Holmes berated him for trying to be a 'do-gooder'. He was a member of the Labour party and wrote many of its policies, influenced more by Stuart Mill than Marx. Laski was the author of "The Rise of Liberalism; the philosophy of Business Civilization" (1936) which shows that Status was replaced by Contract as the foundation of society and it accelerated the spread of prosperity.
The Letters are edited with erudition, and contain an INDEX of Names, and a Biographical Appendix (alas, omitting 'Holmes' or 'Laski').