Abstract

The Hughes Rebellion

The article discusses the historical significance of the furious fight waged in the U.S. Senate against the confirmation of Charles Evans Hughes as Chief Justice of the U.S. The limberness of conviction, the absence of a proper pride, which in recent years have allowed Hughes to hire himself out along both sides of the street to whoever could pay his price, were objections grave enough to explain the terrific opposition to placing him at the head of the Supreme Court. The fight on him resolved itself with dramatic swiftness into a protest against the social philosophy embodied in the present majority of the Supreme Court itself. It became a popular uprising against the practice of "legal legerdemain" whereby court sets up billions of dollars in fictitious values and then requires the public to pay profits on them.