Harvard Law School - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Later Beale was approving the case of a wedding on a fishing schooner. It went out for the day from Long Beach, California, and after the captain had conducted the ceremony nine miles out he took the happy couple right back to shore. Since he had no authority from California to perform marriages, the pair learned in court that the voyage had done them no good. Beale: A vessel takes its law with it, a person does not. Suppose a marriage in the interior of Africa and there is no law whatever. Can there be a valid marriage there, and if so, how? There is no way to get married if there is no law to marry you, and territorial law is the only kind. Some law has got to get at the parties and change their status. A man can't change his status by himself. Tap: Suppose a murder there. One American kills another American while they are exploring in darkest Africa. Can't the tribal law fill in gaps of the territorial law? But Beale stood firm that the survivor could go back to the United States without ap- prehension because there was no law to punish him. Bob Taft roomed in Craigie Hall on Mount Auburn Street, which ceased to be a Law School dormitory years ago. Most of the Yale men in our class roomed in Craigie and kept pretty much to themselves for several months. This and his shyness made Bob hard to know at the start, but he always ate at Lincoln's Inn fthen charmingly housed on Brattle St.j and the crowd there eventually got to know him well. In our third year, when I had acquired the unusual distinction in those days of being married, Bob was often one of the half dozen men who came to our house for Sunday night suppers. He stayed rather quiet to the end of our Cambridge days and none of us would have believed then that he would carry Ohio by 400,000 votes. We soon ceased to think of Bob as his father's son, because he had attained such a high position among us as himself. I do not recall his ever saying anything to indicate that he was related to a President. He was busy with law and enjoyed being young along with the rest of us. In all the conversations where I was present, the bitter row between Theodore Roose- velt and his father went unmentioned and so did the exciting 1912 campaign. Politics was something we tactfully did not talk about to Bob. None of us had the slightest realization it would be his chief career. We looked forward to his being a great lawyer. When I next saw Bob, long after graduation, the change which struck me was his alfability and power to get on easily with people. This is not the place to discuss Bob's political views, but I do want to ex- press accord with one action which it is now fashionable to condemn-his voting in the summer of 1941, long before Pearl Harbor, against the breach of faith in keeping young men like our recent graduates in peacetime army service beyond the year for which they had been told they would have to serve. Bob was not fated to be President. Even if he had been nominated in 1952 when he had the best chance of election, he would be linked with the short-lived Presi- dents - William H. Harrison, Taylor, and Garfield. Instead, he stands as one of our greatest Senators, beside Webster, Clay, Trumbull, Aldrich, and Norris. The loyal efliciency with which Taft worked with Eisenhower, after losing the bitter convention fight, is one of the heartening episodes in American political life. -Zechariah Cbafife, jr. Camlzridge, Marmclmxettr

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KW-msn' ,-..-.. -, .af ,f My classmates who entered Harvard Law School in 1910 included several men of great ability like Merrick Dodd, LeRoy Percy, and Tracy Vought, not to mention those who happily are still alive. Bob Taft was outstanding among them from the very first and graduated at the top in 1913 as President of the Law Review and holder of the Fay Diploma. His yearly averages were 83, 82, 84. When I succeeded to Professor Brannan's office and books, I found tucked away just two examination papers out of his fifteen years of teaching, one of them Bob Taft's. I had the pleasure of turning it over to his son while he was also at the School. Some of our best students have confined their achievements to their examina- tions and contributed almost nothing to classroom discussions. Not so with Bob. First-year lectures had hardly started when his renown began. I-le was in the other section from mine, and I kept hearing stories at lunch of what Bob had said that morn- ing. One day when Mr. Williston had a distinguished visitor behind the desk with him in Contracts, he put on a good show for the guest by calling on Bob and Steve Philbin and a few of his other prize performers during the entire hour. Whenever I look through one of my Law School notebooks, Bob's name often crops up in the classroom col- loquies. After forty years I am struck by his penetration and soundness. Here are two passages from my notes on Conflict of Laws, one of the two best courses I ever had. Every time we thronged into Austin North, we looked forward to a delightful exhibition ofjoey Beale's marvellous acrobatics. Especially enjoyable were the clashes between his intellectual ingenuity and Bob's common sense. One day Beale was explaining how the power of choice was essential to domicile. A jailer can acquire a domicile at the jail, but a prisoner cannot because he is unable to select his home. Beale: There may be physical impossibility as when X is on a desert island. Tuf?: How large must the island be before X has a domicile? joey: Large enough so that he can live in one of two places on it.

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Memoriam I , Q . FREDERICK MOORE VINSON CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES I89O-I953