Harold Hitz Burton

(b. Jamaica Plain, Mass., 22 June 1888; d. Washington, D.C., 28 Oct. 1964; interred Highland Park Cemetery, Cleveland, Oh.), associate justice, 1945–1958.

During the October 1954 term, the Court's law clerks voted on the one justice they would choose to preside if they themselves were on trial. Out of a Court that included Earl Warren, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, and William O. Douglas, they overwhelmingly selected Harold Burton. His service on the Court was dedicated to producing painstakingly crafted opinions, most resting on narrow grounds, designed to appeal to as many of his colleagues as possible.

Burton was raised in Boston where his father was dean of the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He graduated summa cum laude from Bowdoin College in 1909, where he had been active in athletics. He received the LL.B. from the Harvard Law School in 1912, married Selma Florence Smith, and moved to Cleveland, where he practiced law. Serving in the army in World War I, he rose to the rank of captain and received the Purple Heart.

Burton was elected to the Ohio legislature in 1929 after a failed attempt to win appointment to a vacancy on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. He also served as the chief legal official of Cleveland from 1929 to 1932. He was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1935 and was reelected twice. As mayor, his principal achievement was coping with high unemployment and inadequate welfare funds. In 1940 Burton easily won both the Republican nomination and the general election to the United States Senate. In his service in the Senate Burton exhibited a mildly conservative, predominantly moderate stance.

After the October 1944 term of the Court ended, Justice Owen J. Roberts announced his retirement, giving President Harry Truman, a Democrat, his first opportunity to make a high court appointment. The president was under considerable pressure to name a Republican to the vacancy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had only appointed Democrats to the Court (with the exception of Stone's elevation to chief justice); no Republican had been named for over a decade. Truman selected Burton not only because he thought well of him but also because the governor of Ohio, a Democrat, was likely to appoint a member of his own party to Burton's Senate seat. Burton was confirmed within a day of his nomination; the “Senate Judiciary Committee heard no testimony and the full Senate approved the appointment unanimously.

During his thirteen terms Justice Burton staked out a moderate position on a highly fractured Court. In segregation cases he was a leading member favoring the extension of constitutional protection for African‐Americans, while in other cases he tended to favor more often Justice Frankfurter's doctrines of restraint. For example, in civil liberties and national security cases he usually voted to uphold government authority against claims of individual rights (see First Amendment; Speech and the Press). In business cases he mostly voted in an economically conservative fashion, often against labor union power and in favor of narrow construction of antitrust laws.

Shortly after the October 1958 term began, Parkinson's disease compelled Justice Burton's resignation. His health slowly deteriorated and he died six years later.

Bibliography

• Mary Frances Berry, Stability, Security, and Continuity: Mr. Justice Burton and Decision‐Making in the Supreme Court, 1945–1958 (1978)

— Eric A. Chiappinelli

• Born: June 22, 1888, Jamaica Plain, Mass.
• Education: Bowdoin College, B.A., 1909; Harvard Law School, LL.B., 1912
• Previous government service: Ohio House of Representatives, 1929; director of law, Cleveland, Ohio, 1929–32; mayor, Cleveland, 1935–40; U.S. senator from Ohio, 1941–45
• Appointed by President Harry S. Truman Sept. 19, 1945; replaced Owen J. Roberts, who resigned
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Sept. 19, 1945, by a voice vote; retired Oct. 13, 1958
• Died: Oct. 28, 1964, Washington, D.C.

Harold Burton, a Republican, was Democratic President Harry Truman's first appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was the only Republican appointed to the Court between 1933 and 1953. Burton achieved an outstanding career in public life before joining the Court. He practiced law in Cleveland, where he had also been the mayor, and served one term in the U.S. Senate.

Justice Burton became a leading advocate of expanding the constitutional rights of African Americans. He spoke strongly against racial segregation and the “separate but equal” doctrine. He participated enthusiastically in the Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) to end racial segregation in public schools. Burton resigned from the Court in 1958 because of illness; he died in 1964.

Burton, Harold Hitz, 1888–1964, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1945–58), b. Jamaica Plain (now part of Boston), Mass. Admitted to the bar in 1912, he built a prosperous law practice in Cleveland and taught law (1923–25) at Western Reserve Univ. (now Case Western Reserve Univ.). He later served as a representative (1929–31) in the Ohio state assembly and as a reform mayor (1935–40) of Cleveland. As U.S. Senator (1941–45), Burton vigorously pressed for U.S. participation in the United Nations. Appointed by President Harry S. Truman to the Supreme Court, he firmly supported the decisions overturning racial segregation in schools and public transportation.

Harold Hitz Burton served as a Supreme Court justice during the years the Court outlawed segregation.

Burton was born June 22, 1888, in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. He attended Bowdoin College, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated summa cum laude in 1909. He then entered Harvard Law School where he received his bachelor of laws degree in 1912. He married Selma Florence Smith and the couple set out to take advantage of opportunity in the burgeoning Midwest. They settled in Cleveland where Burton established a successful law practice.

Burton served in the infantry in France during World War I. He rose to the rank of captain and was awarded the Purple Heart. In 1923 he began teaching law at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) and he remained on the faculty there until 1925.

Burton's political career began to take shape when he was elected to the Ohio legislature in 1929. He also acted as chief legal official of Cleveland from 1929 to 1932. In 1935 he was elected mayor of Cleveland and he was returned to office twice. By 1940 Burton's name and reputation for integrity were well established and he easily won election to the U.S. Senate. He became known in Washington, D.C., as a moderate conservative who advocated U.S. membership in the newly formed United Nations.

When a vacancy occurred on the Supreme Court in 1944, President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, was under pressure to name a Republican to fill the slot. Truman did the politically expedient thing: he named Burton, a moderate Republican whom he admired and who would likely be replaced in the Senate by a Democrat. Burton was a popular choice. He was confirmed within a day of his nomination with no testimony heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee and unanimous approval by the full Senate.

Burton was a hardworking, conscientious, dispassionate, and open-minded justice. His moderate conservatism was a unifying influence on a highly fractious court. He was noted for his ability to bridge conflicting factions with narrowly written opinions that settled an issue without taking a philosophical stand. He generally supported states' rights against interference by the federal government, except where his sensitivity to human suffering was aroused. In 1947 he wrote a vigorous dissent from the Court's decision to allow Louisiana to execute a prisoner after several previous attempts to execute him had failed. The Court held that the state's continued efforts to execute the man did not constitute "cruel and unusual" punishment. Burton wrote, "It is unthinkable that any state legislature in modern times would enact a statute expressly authorizing capital punishment by repeated applications of an electric current separated by intervals of days or hours until finally death shall result" (Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459, 67 S. Ct. 374, 91 L. Ed. 422 [1947]).

Burton's decisions in antitrust and labor disputes tended to favor corporations and management over unions. He was generally opposed to extending individual rights beyond the letter of the Constitution, but he digressed from that stance in matters of racial segregation and discrimination. A decision he authored in 1950 struck down the practice of confining black passengers in railway dining cars to a separate area. "The curtains, partitions and signs [used to mark that area]," he wrote, "emphasize the artificiality of a difference in treatment which serves only to call attention to racial classifications of passengers holding identical tickets and using the same public dining facility" (Henderson v. U.S., 339 U.S. 816, 70 S.Ct. 843, 94 L. Ed. 1302 [1950]). Burton was also a member of the 1954 Court that unanimously declared that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional (Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873).

Burton was compelled to retire in 1958 because of deteriorating health due to Parkinson's disease. He died October 28, 1964, in Washington, D.C.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)