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Show Washington Comment The triumph of the new deal loudly proclaimed by itself and others over the impeccable quality qual-ity of its latest supreme court appointment, Stanley Reed, who succeeds Justice Sutherland is tempered by the .sad foreboding that there may soon be anothei vacancy on the august bench, since Justice Cardoza's current illness ill-ness may make it necessary fo him to retire. The justice is ill of heart disease at this writing and there is indication that he may not be physically able to continue hi3 supreme court duties when he recovers; re-covers; in that case, rumor has it, that the young governor of Michigan, Michi-gan, Frank Murphy, may be the iavored son in event of a new vacancy. va-cancy. Justice Cardoza is particularly parti-cularly beloved in Washington anu it is said that Mr. Roosevelt has great affection for him, more than for any other supreme court justice. jus-tice. Twenty-five years ago, wh; Mr. Roosevelt was beginning a career in Albany, Mr. Cardoza was serving on the New York court ot appeals. Later, when Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt was governor for two terms, (Continued on last page) - Washington Comment (Continued from first page) his friend was chief justice. It was Justice Cardoza who was invited in-vited to the White House on the night of March 4, 1933 to swear in the members of Mr. Roosevelt's first cabinet. The defeat of the Ludlow wai referendum last week by the a of the Republicans, proved anothei occasion when congress was bombarded bom-barded 'by lobbyists, flooded by letters and telegrams, propagandized propagan-dized within an inch of its life. It recalled the other recent controversies, contro-versies, such as the world court, public utilities and supreme court, when the telegraph and telephone wire3 were burned up and Mr. Farley's' blue-gray-clad employes nearly walked off their feet while the so-caled public registered pro and con opinioae of the measure. The Republicans certainly sa the day and the countTy am. are patting themselves and beln patted on the back for thei.-organized thei.-organized and successful efforts. With only 60 per cent of the Democrats standing by the president presi-dent on this occasion, the advocates advo-cates of the Ludlow amendment threaten to make the measure a campaign issue, thus causing plenty uneasiness for the new deal at next fall's congressional election. . . . With all this peace movement in the air, it is particularly parti-cularly interesting to Washington to find itself host, on January 25-26-27, to the thirteenth "Women's Conference on National Defense for an Enduring America". There will be more than 1000 delegates from 40 organizations with a combined com-bined membership of 2,500,000. The abject of the organization is the intelligent safeguarding of American democracy" and is evidence evi-dence of "American women's determination de-termination to preserve it" not, however, on a peace-at-any price basis. Among the speakers who will address the conference on armed forces and safeguards at home and abroad are such notable authorities as former Ambassador Gerard, Federal Commissioner ot Education Studebaker, President Leslie Buell of the Foreign Policy association, Professor James Harvey Har-vey Rogers of Yale, and CCC Director Di-rector Fechner. The nomination of Stanley Reed to the supreme court lowers the average age of court members b slightly more than two years. The former solicitor general is only 53, whereas the man he succeeds was 75. This will make the average ave-rage age about 66 23; it is now a bit over 69. Last year, this time, before Hugo Black, who is 51, succeeded Justice Van Devan-ter, Devan-ter, who was 78, the average was slightly less than 72. According to the law of averages so some enterprising authority has figured out Stanley Reed should have a eourt service of 16 years. Statis- j tics showr that since the court fi i met-in 1790, 16 years has been t: -; average time that justices have j served. As the respective indivi-! indivi-! dual ages of the justice now stand, Brandeis is oldest at 81; Hughes i and McReynolds follow as 75; Butler But-ler is 71; Cardoza 67; Stone 65, j and Roberts 62. |