The Caucasian

VETERAN CHOSEN CHIEF JUSTICE
White's Experience Includes 16 Years on Supreme Court.

DEMOCRAT AND CONFEDERATE
Appointment Welcomed by Colleagues.

Van Devanter Adopted Son of the West, While Lamar Has Been Legal Light of South For Many Years on Georgia's Highest Tribunal.

The appointment of Edward Douglass White of Louisiana to be chief justice of the court on which he has served for sixteen years was as pleasing to his associates as it was a surprise to the public. Justice White's appointment was not subject to that criticism which might have been privately spoken by older members of the court had Justice Hughes been named. Two points were raised against Justice Hughes—that he had not been long enough actively in the practice of law and that some other man might be temperamentally better fitted for the place.

Justice White delivered the opinion sustaining the Hepburn rate law. He was with the minority in favor of upholding the income tax law and in the Northern Securities case. He was with the majority in upholding New York's eighty cent gas law.

Justice White President's Friend.

Justice White is an intimate friend of the president. He accompanied him on board the Mayflower last summer when the president went from Beverly to Provincetown to review the Atlantic battleship fleet. He was born in November, 1845, in the parish of Lafourche, La., and is sixty-five years of age. He was educated at Mount St. Mary's, near Emmitsburg, Md., at the Jesuit college, in New Orleans and at Georgetown (D. C.) college. He served in the Confederate army.

When Justice White was in the senate from the state of Louisiana in 1894 he was in serious trouble over the adjustment of the sugar schedule. While at breakfast with his sister one morning in a Washington hotel he received word to call at the White House.

"Well," he said to his sister, "I suppose I will now go down to have my last quarrel with the president."

He went, and when he entered President Cleveland's office the president threw up his hand in greeting and said:

"Hello, White! How would you like to go on the supreme court of the United States?"

Justice White's license to practice was granted by the state of Louisiana in December, 1868. Six years later he had entered politics and been made a state senator. He became an associate justice of the Louisiana supreme court in 1878 and succeeded James B. Eustis in the United States senate in 1891.

Justice White is heavily built and of blond complexion. He wears no beard and has a kindly face, which lights up as he enters upon conversation or when interested. He ranks next to Justice Harlan on the court and is followed by Justice McKenna.

Van Devanter From the West.

Judge Willis Van Devanter, who won the appointment over his associate on the bench, Judge Hook, is only fifty-one years of age. He was born in Indiana and began practice in Marion. He moved westward with the people of his generation and established himself in Cheyenne, Wyo., where he now lives. He entered politics in 1884 in the territorial legislature. He was made a chief justice of the Wyoming territorial supreme court by President Harrison. After being chairman of the state Republican committee he was elected a delegate to the national Republican convention of 1896 and went to Washington as assistant attorney general in the interior department in 1897, to remain there for six years.