Eight Young Men

U. S. AT W A R

In Washington's late afternoon twilight one day last week, the eight remaining members of the U.S. Supreme Court gathered at the White House for the annual ceremony of informing President Roosevelt that they were again in session. Out of their visit came the first informal photograph of the 1942-43 Supreme Court (see cut).

Unlike formal portraits, in the robes that make the Court seem eternally changeless, this one illustrated sharply its clean-shaven youthfulness (average age: 56 years, compared with 71 for the 1936 Court) and such nonjudicial phenomena as Associate Justice William O. Douglas' five-gallon hat.

Yet the Court was still in process of change. Missing was Associate Justice James F. Byrnes, resigned to serve as wartime economic czar. Justice Douglas was still mentioned as a possible draftee for some yet unnamed wartime administrative job. And Associate Justice Frank Murphy, who has always been wretched on the bench, had just completed a summer's training with the Army and was doubtless thinking how nice it would be to go back.

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