June 16, 1977
Page 19573
TRIBUTE TO JUSTICE TOM C. CLARK
Mr. MUSKIE Mr. President, the death of former Justice Tom C. Clark takes from us a rare individual whose sense of propriety and deep commitment to justice served all of us well.
Tom Clark was tireless. He heard more law and argued more often and more vigorously for the cause of justice in America in the 10 years since his retirement than many lawyers do in a lifetime.
It was 50 years ago that he began the first of many careers as a lawyer for the people. It proved to be the kind of job he could never give up for long.
He served as head of the Justice Department's Antitrust and Criminal Divisions, and became Attorney General under President Truman, serving 4 years as the Nation's chief lawyer.
Truman named him to the Supreme Court. His opinions on the rules of evidence and civil rights questions in the 1960's were highlights of 18 years on the bench.
When his son became Attorney General in turn, Tom Clark retired, fearing conflict of interest. But seldom has the word "retired" been so ill fitting. At the time of his death, he was sitting with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. He is believed to be the only retired Justice so generous with his time as to sit on all 11 circuits after retirement.
He also gave generously to sundry causes and campaigns to improve the quality of justice and the skill of the judiciary in America. Those improvements were one of his life's goals, and he was both eloquent and tireless in that work.
My wife Jane and I extend our sympathy to Tom Clark's family. We know they are proud of his accomplishments, and over time their pride will ease their loss.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article from the June 14, New York Times and an editorial from the June 15, Washington Post on the death of Tom Clark be printed in the
RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
TOM C. CLARK
Tom C. Clark was one of the rare associate justices of the Supreme Court whose stature continued to grow after he "retired." He left the Court a decade ago to avoid any possible appearance of conflict of interest after his son, Ramsey, was named Attorney General. But he never really retired. He continued to make his judicial services available, on spot duty, around the country, helping out other judges who were overworked. And he gave endlessly of his time to organizations and groups working to improve the administration of justice. In the process, he gained new friends and admirers almost everywhere.
Tom Clark came to Washington from Texas 40 years ago as a lawyer in the Department of Justice. He became an assistant attorney general during World War III, Attorney General in 1945 and a member of the Supreme Court in 1949. But he never seemed far removed from Texas. He liked to conceal a keen mind behind the drawl and words of a poor country boy, and he always had time to be friendly with anyone who wanted a few words from him.
His record during 18 years on the Court was marked far more by pragmatism than by theory. His opinions, particularly in the early years, were often criticized vigorously so by this newspaper — for displaying the attitudes of a prosecutor more often than the attitudes of a judge. But he cast the crucial vote, and wrote the Court's opinion, in a 1961 case expanding the exclusionary rule to cover criminal trials in state courts over the violent objections of most prosecutors and police officials. And he wrote the Court's opinion in 1963 when it held unconstitutional the use of prayer and Bible reading as devotional exercises in the public schools.
But Tom Clark's greatest contributions were off the bench. He fought for better judges — state as well as federal. He urged them, once they were judges, to go back to school to learn the art of their new jobs. He worked for more efficient courts and for ways to ease the burdens of citizens who became enmeshed in them. He wanted the substance of justice, not just the form of it, to be available to all citizens wherever they happened to live. And he spent what would be normally considered the golden years of retirement trying to advance that worthy cause.
TOM C. CLARK, FORMER JUSTICE, DIES; ON THE SUPREME COURT FOR 18 YEARS
WASHINGTON.— Tom C. Clark, a retired justice of the Supreme Court who also had served as Attorney General in the Truman Administration, died in his sleep in New York early today at the home of his son, Ramsey.
The 77 year old Texan, generally regarded as a judicial conservative who became more moderate in the Warren Court years, had remained active since his retirement in 1967, accepting assignments to sit on the various circuits of the United States Court of Appeals.
At the time of his death, Mr. Clark was sitting with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. He was believed to be the only retired Justice in history to sit on all 11 circuits.
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger said in a statement, "No one in the past 30 years has contributed more to the improvement of justice than Tom Clark." Among other tributes, former Justice Arthur J. Goldberg said that Mr. Clark had been "totally dedicated to the Constitution, the Court and the country."
Mr. Clark's death was apparently a result of heart problems. Chief Justice Burger said that Mr. Clark had been in a Boston hospital for four or five days last fall but insisted on resuming his judicial duties. Ten days ago Mr. Clark told a reporter that he was suffering from fibrillation, a rapid and erratic heartbeat, but expressed confidence that medication would control it.
Through most of a private and public legal career that culminated in his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1949, Mr. Clark was supported by strong political friendships with Senator Tom Connally and Representative Sam Rayburn of Texas and Senator, later President, Harry S. Truman of Missouri.
Mr. Clark retired from the court in 1967 at the relatively young age of 67 to clear the way for his son, Ramsey, to become Attorney General under President Johnson. Otherwise, Government cases before the Supreme Court would have posed an obvious conflict of interest for him.
Tom Campbell Clark was born Sept. 23, 1899, in Dallas, where this father was a prominent lawyer. He attended the Virginia Military Institute for a year in 1917-18 and served briefly as a sergeant in an infantry regiment in Texas, but did not get overseas before World War I ended.
In four years at the university of Texas, he received bachelor of arts and law degrees. He was admitted to the Texas bar in 1922 and joined his father's firm. Two years later, he married Mary Jane Ramsey, the daughter of a State Supreme Court justice, with whom he had attended university.
SERVED AS A DISTRICT ATTORNEY
After five years of private practice, his friendship with Senator Connally helped him obtain appointment as Civil District Attorney of Dallas County, and he reportedly did not lose a case in his six years there. He returned to private practice in 1932, resuming an active role in Democratic politics.
In 1937, Mr. Clark shifted to Government legal work again, joining the Justice Department in Washington as a special assistant. He worked on war risk insurance and antitrust cases and coordinated the program under which 60,000 JapaneseAmericans were evacuated from the West Coast and interned in the early days of World War IL
Returning to Washington in 1942, he worked with the Senate War Investigating Committee, headed by Senator Truman. As head of the antitrust and later the criminal division at the Justice Department, he successfully prosecuted a number of war fraud cases.
Attorney General Francis Biddle assigned Mr. Clark to prosecute two German spies who had been landed off the coast of Maine by U-boat. Their eight-day military trial behind closed doors resulted in a death sentence for both men, later commuted to life imprisonment by President Truman.
In the Democratic maneuvering proceeding the 1944 party convention, Mr. Biddle supported the renomination of Vice President Henry A. Wallace, but Mr. Clark, after Speaker Rayburn had withdrawn from competition, pushed for Mr. Truman, the winner.
CLARK SUCCEEDED BIDDLE
Less than two months after he became President, Mr. Truman supplanted Mr. Biddle with Mr. Clark as Attorney General. In four years in that office, he was particularly active in antitrust prosecutions and argued three cases personally before the Supreme Court, a function normally filled by the Solicitor General.
Attorney General Clark is probably best remembered for his investigation and prosecution of Communists and other alleged subversives. Under his leadership, the United States brought the historic case against American leaders of the Communist Party for conspiring to overthrow the Government.
When President Truman sought election in his own right in 1948, Mr. Clark defended him against Republican charges that he was "soft on Communism."
Ten months later, Associate Justice Frank Murphy of the Supreme Court died, and President Truman filled the vacancy with Mr. Clark. Although some labor, civil rights and civil liberties leaders criticized the appointment, the American Bar Association and the two Texas Senators, Connally and Johnston, ran strong interference, and Mr. Clark was easily confirmed by a Senate vote of 73 to 8.
Richard Kirkendall, writing in "The Justices of the United States Supreme Court," said Mr. Clark tended to vote loyally with the Chief Justice, Fred Vinson, in his early years on the Court, generally rejecting claims by supporters of civil liberties.
Professor Kirkendall, a historian now teaching at Indiana university, saw Mr. Clark assuming a more "effective and independent role on the Court" when Earl Warren became Chief Justice. In 1957, however, he dissented when the Court overturned the convictions of the 14 American Communists whose prosecution he had initiated.
CHANGE IN CLARK NOTED
The same year, Mr. Clark, as a dissenter, denounced the majority's decision that the defendant in a subversion case had a right to access to certain prosecution documents. "In the 1960's," Professor Kirkendall wrote, "Clark appeared to be a much calmer man and much happier about the behavior of the Warren Court. Questions of loyalty and security no longer dominated it."
In subsequent years, he wrote the opinion extending to state courts Federal rules excluding illegally obtained evidence. He concurred in the 1962 decision enunciating the one-man, one-vote principle in legislative apportionment. In 1962; he wrote the opinion banning daily Bible reading in the public schools.
Justice Clark also was the author of several civil rights decisions, barring Louisiana from printing candidates' races on the ballot and upholding the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Justice Clark was a relatively tall man, dark haired through most of his life and graying in retirement. Aside from his long public record, he was best known for an indelible Texas drawl and a penchant for bow ties.
Surviving Mr. Clark are his wife, Mary; their son, Ramsey, and a daughter, Mrs. Thomas Gonlund of McLean, Va., and seven grandchildren. Ramsey Clark was in Europe at the time of his father's death and was reported to be flying home from London.
TRIBUTES PAID BY COURT MEMBERS
Mr. Clark was one of four living former Justices. The others are Stanley F. Reed, Abe Fortas and William O. Douglas.
Among the statements issued by past and present justices of the Supreme Court were these:
William O. Douglas: "Mrs. Douglas and I greatly admired Tom Clark for the stand he always took on the independence of the judiciary and his willingness to face every issue in turbulent times as well as in peaceful day."
Potter Stewart: "The lawyers and judges of our country will long remember Tom Clark for his tireless devotion to the fair administration of Federal justice."
William J. Brennan, Jr.: "His great distinction as a judge is the reflection of his conviction that it is wrong to live life without some deep and abiding social commitment."
Thurgood Marshall: "Tom Clark is also to be remembered as the first Attorney General of the United States to file a brief amicus curia in a civil rights case ...This act was doubly important because it was the first brief by an Attorney General in support of civil rights, and it was ordered by a man from Texas."
Lewis F. Powell Jr.: "It is likely that Mr. Justice Clark was known personally and admired by more lawyers, law professors and judges than any justice in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States."