Felix Frankfurter

by Liva Baker

For half a century Felix Frankfurter played a significant role in American life. Beginning with the administrations of William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson and climaxing with FDR's, he was intimately involved in the machinery of Presidential policy making. On the Supreme Court from 1939 to 1962 he was a brilliant jurist who distinguished himself as a leader of the advocates of "judicial restraint." And at Harvard Law School, where he became a legend in his own lifetime, he was one of the nation's foremost scholars of the Constitution. Based in part on his personal papers, this new and freshly evaluated life of Felix Frankfurter concentrates on these three vital aspects of his career. It also offers a vivid, incisive portrait of a man about whom few people could be neutral....

376 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Mark Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on a lark. My character, Porter Milgrim, in the Ira Levin play, Deathtrap, uses the name Felix Frankfurter as a laugh line. But I found Baker's biography of the man at a library and had to find out for myself who this man was behind the happy name.

My goodness, what an incredible man! I now regard him as the penultimate civil servant, a savant around the Law and Constitution, and a Supreme Court member of account. His 23 years of service on that Court, his several hundred opinions, concurrences, and dissents, and his role in the unanimous Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 make him an unsung 20th Century American hero. Why is there no postage stamp of him? or tribute? Is it because of his last name?

He was a friend and confident of FDR and helped shape the many years of his presidency. He taught thousands of lawyers through Harvard Law, where he was a professor for three decades. He was an unofficial ambassador, building alliances from behind the scene. He was a kind, decent, brilliant man.

Baker's account of his life I found informative, even inspirational. She recounts his legal experience with precision and acumen. I am a better man having read this biography of Frankfurter.