COUNSEL FOR THE SITUATION

"All good things come to an end, as did the 1948 October term of the Supreme Court on the last Monday in June 1949. The justice [Frankfurter] and Elliot [Richardson] left, but by earlier arrangement I stayed on until August 31 to organize the papers of the term and brief the two incoming Frankfurter law clerks, one of whom, Al Sachs , went on to become dean of Harvard Law School and the other, Fred Fishman, a successful partner in the Kaye Scholer firm in New York... "After the end of the 1948 term, the justice wrote me the following letter (handwritten) from his summer home in Charlemont, Massachusetts: "'Dear Bill: Nothing has given me more satisfaction since coming to the Court than the association with you and Elliot--and hardly anything as much. And the root reason, apart from the personal congeniality of both of you, lies in the hold that the Law has for you--so comprehensively put by you when you say that 'without strict adherence 'to reason' and refraining from permitting personal biases to enter adjudication, judges become covert little Hitlers.'... "'I have never known anyone more equipped, better suited for judging than you. And I ardently hope our country may have that service of those faculties in you. But , it is not in mortals to command success--if success means a particular post . And no truly wise man focuses his ambition on a specific place rather than on a direction for his effort...." P. 91, "Life at the Court on the Nation's Capital," COUNSEL FOR THE SITUATION: SHAPING THE LAW TO REALIZE AMERICA 'S PROMISE, by William T. Coleman with Donald T. Bliss (2010)