It centered on the understanding that the law should be applied with an appreciation for the real-world results of its application, not merely its strict conformity to text.
He had by then identified with the new concept of Legal Realism. So he went back east and scored a teaching job at Columbia. He wanted to put his skills to work for the betterment of humanity and the planet they inhabited. In dire financial straits, he took a teaching job at a local public school. MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 191.4īetween hiking trips in the mountains, he tried to find amiable work, but nothing presented itself. At Cape Alava, during Douglas’ beach hike on the Olympic Coast, 1958. He lasted four months at the firm before heading back home to Yakima’s grassy hills and craggy rocks. The money and prestige would be unmatched. If he stayed, he could rise through the ranks, maybe become a partner. This was supposed to be everything a Columbia law grad would want: a coveted position at a powerful ‘white shoe’ law firm in the greatest city in the world. Eventually, he graduated second in his class at Columbia and took a job at an established New York City law firm. He took trips back to Yakima whenever he could, revitalizing himself by tramping the silent trails and taking in the glory of Washington’s snow-capped peaks. Here one stands on a dais looking directly down on the tips of pine and hemlock….” At points along the trail are meadows no bigger than a city lot, from whose edge the mountain drops off a thousand feet or more. The Pacific Crest Trail winds along it under great cliffs that suggest walls and spires yet unfinished. That ridge has the majesty of a cathedral. I have closed my eyes and imagined I was walking the ridge high above Cougar Lake. The stresses of law school were slight compared to the pain of being so far removed from his beloved hills and streams.
William o. sweet collector free#
The boy from Yakima who had spent every free moment exploring the forested mountains of the North Cascades was now trapped in a tiny apartment overlooking a dismal air shaft bereft of anything green and alive. Despite his academic excellence at Columbia, Douglas was troubled by money problems and struggled in the concrete jungle of New York City. With help from his Whitman fraternity brothers, Douglas headed east and enrolled at Columbia University. I saw cruelty and hardness, and my impulse was to be a force in other developments in the law.” “I worked among the very, very poor, the migrant laborers, the Chicanos and the I.W.W’s who I saw being shot at by the police. Working alongside immigrant workers at the cherry orchard inspired Douglas to study law.
While at Whitman, Douglas worked as a waiter, a janitor, and a cherry picker. The view stirred in me a feeling of eagerness and suspense that I have experienced again and again on coming to a ridge overlooking an unexplored lake in the wilderness.” The dark sapphire of its water, its remoteness from the trail, the steep slopes surrounding it, the fir that almost hid it from view-these combined to give it an air of mystery in the faint light that preceded the sunrise. We were camped at Tombstone Lake, and I had risen early to find and explore Diamond, which lay below me 800 feet or more in a deep pocket of the mountains. “I stood at daybreak one August morning on the ridge above Diamond Lake in the Wallowas. As a young student, he was awed by the natural beauty of eastern Washington State. Growing up in poverty in Yakima, Douglas studied hard, worked odd jobs throughout his teens, and earned a seat at Whitman College in Walla Walla. How these two forces existed inside one man’s head is an interesting story-and played a crucial role in the preservation of the wild Pacific coastline of Olympic National Park. Yet he was also a fierce defender of America’s wild places, happy to make public demonstrations of his noble crusade. He was also the longest-serving jurist in the history of the Supreme Court: 36 years and 211 days. In fact, he was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Their success in that exercise is as variable as the people who wear the robe. Usually, they strive to limit that influence and render unbiased decisions. There will always be some influence from their own experiences and personal outlook. We expect judges to be impartial, to render calm decisions free of emotional baggage, but judges are human.
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