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35 Iowa L. Rev. 663 (1949-1950)
Mr. Justice Rutledge and Civil Liberties

handle is hein.journals/ilr35 and id is 677 raw text is: MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
Howard Mann?
I believe in law. At the same time I believe in freedom. And I
know that each of these things may destroy the other. But I know
too that, without both, neither can endure .... justice too is a part
of life, of evolution, of man's spiritual growth . . . . Law, freedom,
and justice-this trinity is the object of my faith.'
The above quotation from the pen of Wiley Rutledge expresses the
faith of a great man, a great teacher, and a great judge. Rutledge
possessed unbounded faith in democratic institutions, and abiding faith
in his family, in his friends, in his law schools, and in his students.
This faith, attended by a warmth and humaneness outstandingly unique
among men, created an interchange of complete confidence between
Rutledge and those with whom he associated.
Rutledge expended himself widely in the affairs of the communities
in which he lived. He was a close friend of all who knevw him-com-
munity leaders, lawyers, churchmen, grocers, garagemen, oil-station men,
former students and colleagues, law clerks; a list would run into the
hundreds. His letter writing was as renowned as it was voluminous.
Yet he remained without political ambitions, a man of great courage
and high standards of honesty and ethics in all his relationships.
Intensely democratic, Rutledge stood for definite principles and
took sides on many controversial issues of the day, such as the child
labor amendment. The social and political views of Rutledge were his
own and were not tied to or controlled by any group. His was an in-
dependent liberalism of the type of Senator Norris of Nebraska, with
whom he had a long and close friendship. He greatly admired Norris,
- AB., Monmouth College, 1932; JD., State University of Iowa, 1941. Law Clerk
to Mr. Tustice Rutledge, 1941-3, and to Mr. Justice Burton, 1945-6. Assoc. Prof. of
Law, Indiana University School of Law.
IRumnoF; A DECLARAriON or LEGAL FAr, 6, 9, 18 (1947). Rutledge states
further:
I believe therefore in justice. I believe in abstract justice, though I cannot
define it. But in any legal sense I believe in it only as the source from
which conceptions of concrete and legally relevant justice arise. I believe
in concrete justice, in particular justice, and in the possibility of its growth
and expansion. I believe in it as the end of legal institutions and in them
as the means by which it may be achieved. I believe too in growth of
the law and in this as the only means for making reconciliation between the
conflicting forces and conceptions, separately considered, or order and free-
dom. Only thus may right accommodations in social living and the main-
tenance of stable, social relationships be fulfilled.
663

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