To the Editor:
“A Note on Felix Frankfurter” by James Grossman [March] contributes to a better understanding of a complex, not to say complicated, figure.
Though it may be too early for a definitive evaluation of the Justice as a jurist or as a man, it is already clear that he had an important impact on American jurisprudence as teacher and as judge. It is fairly open to serious question, however, whether his judicial statesmanship was equal to his craftsmanship in the law.
If he did not succeed in greatness as a judge—as Mr. Grossman is constrained to conclude somewhat reluctantly—it may have been due to certain defects in his temperament, highlighted by Garson Kanin’s perceptive observations. These aspects of Justice Frankfurter’s personality are not without significance. The image of a judge often reflects the attributes of the man beneath the robe. And these are important; for judges, like other men, as Cardozo carefully pointed out, are “subject to the empire of subconscious loyalties.”
(Justice) Samuel H. Hofstadter
Supreme Court of the State of New York
New York City