Justice White

At last the unseemly wrangle in the Senate, whereby the exalted position of Associate Justice of the i Supreme Court of the United States has been made the football of yar■ ring factions, to the detriment of public business and the disgust of i the people, has been settled, and for 'the first time since 1806 the great 1 state of New York, which furnishes far more litigation before that trij bunal than any other state of the union, is without a representative upon the bench. Monday afternoon, the President, ; to the surprise of everybody, sent in the name of Senator Edward Douglas White, of Louisiana, for Associate Justice. The nomination did not go through the formality of a reference to the Judiciary committee, but was confirmed at once by the unanimous vote of the Senate. Mr. White is a man in the prime of physical and intellectual manhood, being but 48 years of age, of commanding presence and agreeable manners, scholarly, able and brilliant. He has had experience upon the Supreme Bench of nis native state and is said to possess a mastery of the civil law as practiced in Louisiana, knowledge possessed by but few of the ablest lawyers of this country. He is very popular among his own people. We believe under the circumstances, President Cleveland did wisëly in going outside New York for the nominee, even though the honor was conceded to belong to that state. He had shown by his previous nominations that he fully appreciated the claims of that state upon the position and his willingñess to give them due weight, but the opposition of Senators Hill and Murphy to any man who had opposed the unfit nominee of the Hill machine for justice of the New York court of appeals last f all, rendeied it difficult to find a man of recognized ability who could secure this support. Upon Mr. Hill, therefofe, rests the responsibility for the fact that New York is unrepresented npon the supreme bench of the United States. It should prove a valuable lesson to the state, in this, that in the time to come if that state is to receivè the recoghition to which its importance entitles it, it must lay aside its dictatorial pohcy and miserable factional fights.