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Show Another Vacancy Coming? By BRUCE CATTON to any other plac In th federal Judiciary, tor that matter the attorney at-torney general ia almost alway consulted. The consultation may be either formal or Informal. That is, th president may submit, aay, three names, and ask for a written report re-port on each; or he may simply sit-down with the attorney general and diacuss hia possible choice more or less casually. There isn't any set procedure. In the end, the president generally gen-erally get from th attorney general gen-eral a more or less detailed report re-port on the two or three men he is considering. With supreme court appointees these reports may be extremely brief; usually a man who rates nomination to the highest court Is o well known that not much of a check-up Is needed. With appointee to th lower court, it' different Th report will examine auch prospect's pros-pect's legal record, summarise a study of his legal opinion if he ha been on the bench before) and may even go Into hi credit standing, stand-ing, hir personal habit and so on. Anyhow, th president finally pick on man and notifies th attorney at-torney general to draft a commission. commis-sion. The commission I sent to ' thl happen right out In th open. ' After Brandei quit, for Instance, a bloc of western senators promptly prompt-ly demanded the appointment of a westerner 'most any westerner and Representative Martin Kennedy Ken-nedy of New York made a public plea for the appointment of Senator Sena-tor Robert Wagner. More often it is a roundabout affair. The word begins to circulate that so-and-so is "in line." A day or so after the Brandei retirement, retire-ment, the goasipers were Insisting that Justice Harold M. Stephens of the U. S. court of appeals waa due to get the nod. The next day they were talking up Senator Lewis B. Schwellenbach of Washington. Wash-ington. Next day th word was about that Tommy Corcoran himself him-self was backing W. O. Douglas of ths SEC. Only President Really Kaow - It would be perfectly pouibl for a man to start a rumor about himself for the publicity. More often, hie friend start it Often it Is a form of pressure a little campaign aimed at the White House. It is. of course, perfectly proper for anyone who can get in to call at the White House and plead the cause of a possible nominee. WASHINGTON A bit of spec- ulatlon engrossing Washington these days Is: Will Justice Jam Clark McReynold presently retire re-tire from the supreme court? For a couple of years rumors of his impending retirement have been current, but they have never Jelled. One generally accepted atory had it that ha wanted to retire, but refused to do so a long a Justice Brandei was on the bench. Now Justice Brandei Is in retirement. re-tirement. Will Justice McReynold McReyn-old foilow him? Or s some of the current gossip ha it will he feel that Justice Frankfurter Ia no improvement and that he must atay on the bench to counterbalance counterbal-ance him? Dopeaten' Delight The opening of a supreme court vacancy provide a field day for th private-pipeline, inside-dope boys down here. The field day i Just as good even if the pipeline are all clogged and the dope I all wrong a 1 very often the case. On thing to remember is that until the nomination I actually ent to the aenate, no on but th president really know who I being be-ing choaen. The attorney general may know the three or four men from whom the choice will be made: the president's secretariat may have a line on -the men the president ia considering: but no pipeline can go any farther than that. I All ef which leaves the way wide open for the creation of booms and boomleta. Sometime the senate, and stays there until the man is confirmed. Then it goes back to th attorney general who transmits It to th president who sign it and send it back to the attorney general who, thereupon, there-upon, mail It to th nomine, who hand it in at th supreme court take tbe oath, and becomes a Justice, Ths whole business atarta as soon as th vacancy occurs, and doe not end until th vacancy Is filled. Everybody goes around looking wis . . . but no one really know anything about it but th president Before anyone actually Is nominated nomi-nated te th supreme court er |