Arthur T. Vanderbilt political, professional, and judicial papers

1888, July 7 - Born, Newark, New Jersey

1901-1905 - Attended Newark Public High School. Class president each of four years. Graduated, 1905.

1905-1906 - Worked outdoors for a year with a surveying crew of the Lackawanna Railroad in New Jersey.

1906-1910 - Wesleyan University Undergraduate. With his savings from working with the railroad and additional financial support from an aunt, Vanderbilt entered Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He became a campus leader, and among his achievements were editorship of the Argus, the campus newspaper, and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. He also founded and managed the Debate Council. Fraternally, Vanderbilt was an active member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. In his senior year, he was elected president of both his class and the college body. Vanderbilt completed work for both the A.B. and A.M. degrees in four years. At the inauguration of Dr. William A. Shanklin on November 12, 1909 as the tenth president of Wesleyan, Vanderbilt spoke for his fellow students. A festive occasion, he shared the platform at the Middlesex Opera House with such national notables as President William Howard Taft, Vice President James Schoolcraft Sherman and United States Senator Elihu Root of New York 1910-1913 - Attended Columbia Law School. Taught classes in the Newark Evening High School during this period. LL.B., Columbia, June, 1913.

1914, September - Married Florence J. Althen of Newark. There were five children, three daughters and twin sons.

1913-1947 - Law Practice. Before admission to the Bar, Vanderbilt clerked in the Newark law firm of Sommer, Colby and Whiting. In 1913, upon admission to the Bar, he practiced for two years with Jerome T. Congleton, later to serve as Mayor of Newark. From 1915 to 1947, Vanderbilt engaged in individual practice in Newark. Vanderbilt's practice largely represented fire insurance companies, corporations, and banks. He was engaged in equity receiverships, particularly the Virginia Carolina Chemical Company case in 1923-1925. He was founder and Chairman of the Board of the Public Fire Insurance Company and the Public Indemnity Company, both of Newark, New Jersey from 1928 to 1933, and served on the board of directors of various banks, and corporations. An increasing amount of his professional work came from other lawyers and, hence, he became known as a "lawyer's lawyer." Served as New Jersey's counsel for the Port of New York Authority from 1926 to 1927. Trial and appellate work continued through all these years. These included notable civil liberties cases. In the Paterson textile strike of 1926 Vanderbilt represented Roger N. Baldwin, Secretary of the American Civil Liberties Union, and won this early state case upholding the constitutional right of public assembly. [State v. Butterworth, 104 N.J.L. 579, 142 A. 57 (1928).] Ten years later Vanderbilt defended the durable Socialist leader Norman Thomas in a free speech case arising out of Frank Hague's efforts to control Jersey City. This case of Thomas v. Casey, 121 N.J.L. 185, 1 A.2d 866 (1939) was among the cases linked to the landmark on public meetings of Hague v. C.I.O., 307 U.S. 496 (1939). [Clark, "Conservatism and Civil Liberty," American Bar Association Journal 24 (Aug. 1938), 640.] During the 1930s Vanderbilt was among the most active lawyers in trial and appellate litigation in the country. Between 1928 and 1932 he argued twenty-one cases before the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals and won them all. He successfully represented claims of teachers without tenure in Seidel v. Ventnor City, 110 N.J.L. 31, 164 A. 901 (1932) and in Downs v. Hoboken Board of Education, 113 N.J.L. 401, 181 A. 688 (1935). He was a specialist in municipal law, handled anti-trust matters, and dealt with a major government contracts case during World War II. [Copies of all court briefs prepared by Arthur T. Vanderbilt are bound and shelved in the law firm of Toner, Vanderbilt & Toner, 554 South Livingston Avenue, Livingston, N. J. 07039.] Association with the Pepsi-Cola Company began in September 1938 as the result of a ruling in a proxy fight by Chancellor Josiah O. Wolcott in the Delaware Court of Chancery. Seven directors were then placed in control of the company: six named by the litigating parties, three for each side, and the seventh by the Chancellor. "As the seventh Director -- the man who obviously would have the controlling vote on contested matters--the Chancellor named Mr. Arthur T. Vanderbilt." He played varied roles as a director, as Chairman of the Board and as counsel to the Pepsi-Cola Company from 1938 to 1947. [Milward W. Martin, Twelve Full Ounces (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2nd edition, 1969), pp. 80-92.] 1919-1948 - Law Teacher and the Reform of Legal Education. Vanderbilt served on the faculty of the New York University School of Law on a full-time basis simultaneously conducting his law practice. He was an instructor from 1914 to 1918, professor of law from 1918 to 1943 and Dean of the Law School from 1943 to 1948. He taught nearly every course in the curriculum, published hundreds of articles in legal periodicals, and originated numerous ideas in legal education that brought research, teaching, practice, and continuing education together. One summary of his contributions at N.Y.U. follows: "Another outstanding achievement was Arthur Vanderbilt's origination of the modern law center as a place where scholars, judges, practicing lawyers, businessmen and labor leaders could collaborate on the great problems of the day. He brought the Law School out of isolation; he recognized its obligation not only to teach law but to aid in the continuing education of the bar and to engage in co-operative projects of reforming and simplifying the law. "It was therefore, fitting that the building on Washington Square, New York City, for which he, by prodigious effort raised the building fund, be named 'Arthur T. Vanderbilt Hall' by New York University, and that the building, with others to follow, should be dedicated to the Law Center program which he established." ["Arthur T. Vanderbilt," Wesleyan University Alumnus, November 1957, pp. 15-16.] Wesleyan University Trustee. Vanderbilt was a trustee of Wesleyan University from 1934 to 1957 and in 1946 to 1947, was President of the Board of Trustees. He was chairman of the presidential search committee which in 1941-1942 nominated Victor L. Butterfield to be President of Wesleyan, a post Butterfield then held for twenty-five years.

1919-1948 - Politics. Vanderbilt cared deeply about the quality of local government and in 1919 founded and led to power an organization stressing clean government called the Essex County Republican League in Essex County, New Jersey. In 1922, he became County Counsel, a position he held for twenty-five years. Though an insurgent, he remained a Republican throughout his life, dominated Essex County and eventually came to be thought the benign Republican "boss" of the state of New Jersey. [See Thomas Reed, Twenty Years of Government in Essex County, New Jersey (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1944).] Interested in national political affairs as well, he was a supporter of Thomas E. Dewey. He was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1936, 1940, and 1944. 1920-1947 Bar Association Leader. Vanderbilt served with the American Bar Association as a member of the General Council from 1932 to 1934; as founder and first chairman of the Section on Insurance, 1933-1934; as a member of the Executive Committee, 1934-1935; and on the Board of Governors, 1935-1937. Long active in the state bar, Vanderbilt became vice president and member of the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey State Bar Association between 1934 and 1937. During 1937-1938 he served as president of the American Bar Association. During his term of office, the American Bar Association established an ad hoc committee on the Bill of Rights to provide counsel to anyone who felt that his civil rights were violated. This committee worked with the American Civil Liberties Union and filed an amicus curiae brief in Hague v. C.I.O., 307 U.S. 496 (1939), among others. The American Bar Association also advocated a simplification of the federal court system. The Section of Judicial. Administration was established during his presidency of the A.B.A. with Federal Circuit Judge John J. Parker as chairman. Studies by the Judicial Administration Section resulted in seven committee reports of suggested reforms and standards. These reports, along with Vanderbilt's Minimum Standards of Judicial Administration (New York: New York University Law Center, 1949) have been stimuli for several states to reform judicial administration. 1930-1957 Improving the Administration of Justice. Vanderbilt's ideals over many years of leadership in law practice, legal education and bar association activity were to see that the courts functioned properly, to improve their personnel and to revise their procedures to accommodate modern conditions. He worked closely with Roscoe Pound (1870-1964) whose now famous speech to the American Bar Association in 1906, entitled "The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction With the Administration of Justice," awakened national interest in the subject. Judge John J. Parker was a close associate of Pound and Vanderbilt in this movement. Vanderbilt's preeminent place in the movement to reform the administration of justice is neatly captured in the following assessment: "Before long, public-spirited members of the bench and bar began to take notice. The chief vehicle for their early efforts at reform was the American Judicature Society, formed in 1912. In the 1930s, the organized bar began to lend its strength to the growing movement, largely as the result of the enthusiasm of Arthur T. Vanderbilt, who was destined to become not only president of the American Bar Association, the American Judicature Society, and the Institute of Judicial Administration, as well as chief justice of New Jersey, but also the acknowledged leader of the entire movement." [Delmar Karlen, "Judicial Administration," International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968), vol. 8, p. 298.] Vanderbilt's detailed activities are amply shown in his papers and the positions he held listed in the short biographical sketches listed below. His own formulation of the problems and solutions are expressed most profoundly in two of his books, Minimum Standards of Judicial Administration (1949) and The Challenge of Law Reform (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955). He served as chairman of the New Jersey Judicial Council from 1930 to 1940. He was also chairman of the National Conference of Judicial Councils from 1933 to 1937 and chairman of its executive committee from 1937 to 1957. In 1938-1939 Vanderbilt chaired a committee named by the Attorney General to consider reforms in administering the entire federal court system. As a result, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts was created by act of Congress approved August 7, 1939 (53 Stat. 1223; 28 U.S.C. 601). From 1938 to 1946 Vanderbilt chaired an advisory committee to the Supreme Court on federal rules of criminal procedure. The work of his committee resulted in adoption of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure. In December 1938 the Attorney General of the United States in a letter to President Roosevelt stated that "there is need for procedural reform in the wide and growing field of administrative law," and recommended the creation of a committee to make the necessary studies and recommendations for Congressional consideration. (S. Doc. No.8, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 251) Vanderbilt was among the persons named to the resulting Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure, and with Carl McFarland and E. Blythe Stason filed minority views in 1941 which became the direct basis for the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946. This act aimed to establish reasonable uniformity and fairness in administrative procedures throughout the Federal government. It was really the result of a nine-year study of administrative justice with Vanderbilt's ideas coming into the proceedings at numerous points. [For a cogent legislative history, see House Report No. 1980, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in U.S. Code Congressional Service, 1964, pp. 1195-1206. For the statute itself, see Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 237, 5 U.S.C. 551.] Uniform, Code of Military Justice. At the conclusion of World War II, there was much criticism of the justice systems of the Army and the Navy which then embraced all the military services. As a result both departments created independent boards to study their courts-martial systems. Vanderbilt, in 1946, chaired an advisory committee to the Department of War. Hearings were held throughout the country and the committee recommended taking away from field commanders the power of appointment and review of courts martial and other modifications of the Articles of War. After the Department of Defense was established, many of the proposals of the Vanderbilt Committee were utilized in drafting the Uniform Code of Military Justice enacted into law May 5, 1950. [For a legislative history, see the committee reports reprinted in U.S. Code Congressional Service, 1950, pp. 2222-2269. Also, see Uniform Code of Military Justice of 1950, 64 Stat. 108, 10 U.S.C. 801.] Vanderbilt also chaired the National Committee on Traffic Law Enforcement from 1945 to 1956 and advocated unification of legal codes to overcome the widely varying statutes from state to state. From 1945 to 1957 he was also on the President's Highway Safety Conference. His concern for traffic law later resulted, in 1951, in Traffic Law Enforcement and the Sixteen Resolutions of the Chief Justices and the Governors.

1941-1947 - New Jersey Constitution and Court Reform. In 1941-1942, Vanderbilt was a member of the New Jersey State Constitutional Revision Commission and from 1942 to 1945 served as an assistant to the attorney general to defend the constitution when it came up for referendum. The proposed constitution was defeated in the elections of 1944; however, a modified constitution was adopted in 1947.

1947-1957 - Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. On November 3, 1947 Vanderbilt was sworn in as a New Jersey Circuit Judge, a prerequisite to his eligibility for appointment to the new state Supreme Court. In December, 1947 Governor Driscoll nominated him and the Senate confirmed him as the first Chief Justice of the new Supreme Court then in formation under the New Jersey Constitution of 1947. On September 15, 1948, he formally assumed his new duties serving until his death in June 1957. An innovation in the state constitution made the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court the administrative head of all the courts in the state. Vanderbilt took the leadership in soliciting suggestions from all sources for improving justice under this new system and the Court issued on June 21, 1948, Rules Governing the Courts of the State of New Jersey. As Chief Justice, Vanderbilt followed through in setting standards for swiftness in settling cases, working to keep the courts staffed, staying abreast of judicial business, and conferring and corresponding with judges at all levels throughout the state. He thus inaugurated the improved judicial system of New Jersey. During nine full terms as Chief Justice, Vanderbilt wrote 166 opinions. His court's work is embraced in the first 24 volumes of the new series of New Jersey Reports. [See "Table of Chief Justice Vanderbilt's Judicial Opinions, Classified by Subject," in Fannie J. Klein and Joel S. Lee, Selected Writings of Arthur T. Vanderbilt, 2 volumes (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1965), vol. 2, pp. 265-271.] The Conference of Chief Justices. Vanderbilt was one of the organizers in 1949 of the Conference of Chief Justices, now composed of the Chief Justices of the courts of last resort of the fifty states and Puerto Rico. Its purpose is to provide for the exchange of information and ideas on the operation of the judiciary and for consultation pointed to improvement of the administration of justice. The Conference is affiliated with the Council of State Governments. Vanderbilt was the elected chairman of the Conference of Chief Justices in 1953-1954. [For reports on the work of the Conference and of the state of judiciary, see the standard biennial reference work The Book of the States, published by the Council of State Governments, especially the volumes since the 1948-49 edition.]

1947-1957 - Continued Leadership in Legal Education. During his years as Chief Justice, Vanderbilt continued to bring ideas into the N.Y.U. Law School at Washington Square. In 1948 he became a member of the Council of New York University and served as president of the Law Center Foundation. In 1951 he helped in the initiation of the Root-Tilden Scholarship Program at the Law School, awarded yearly to twenty students as a means of competing with other law schools for promising applicants by providing special seminar and independent study opportunities. Citizenship Clearing House. Vanderbilt persuaded the governing bodies of the American Bar Association and the American Political Science Association to endorse the idea of an organization to promote the teaching of "practical politics" in college in order to prepare educated men and women for political activity after graduation. He organized a founding conference for 300 at the Waldorf-Astoria in September, 1947; enunciated the central ideas and purposes of the Citizenship Clearing House; won key foundation support; and established its permanent headquarters at Washington Square in close affiliation with the New York University Law School. C.C.H. changed its name to the National Center for Education in Politics (N.C.E.P.) in 1962 and that organization expired in 1966. During its existence this Vanderbilt-created organization held numerous conferences on politics throughout the country and brought countless professors and students into touch with campaigns and other political activity. A major force in its day, the Citizenship Clearing House was one of several vehicles for the reforming zeal of Arthur T. Vanderbilt." [See Political Education and Political Science: The National Center for Education in Politics, 1947-1966 by Bernard C. Hennessy (1966), N.C.E.P. Mimeographed Report, 161 pages.] Institute of Judicial Administration. In 1952 Vanderbilt established the Institute of Judicial Administration at N.Y.U. School of Law. Chief Judge Charles Clark of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote in 1963, "The Institute of Judicial Administration is a permanent non-profit corporation chartered under the laws of New York of over 600 leading lawyers, judges and laymen charged with the task of a continuing study--originally on a national, and now on an international basis--of the problems of court organization, administration and procedure with the purpose of developing an art as well as a science of judicial administration. So long as he lived, Chief Justice Vanderbilt was its president, and it has already become the outstanding center for correlating all source material and research publications in its unique field. It has already developed a series of advisory and consultative studies where its advice has been sought here and abroad in problems in original or improved court organization. A broadened field of opportunities open before it continuously. It was uniquely designed to carry on the faith and perpetuate the ideals of the most notable law reformer of an era." [See Klein and Lee, Selected Writings, vol. 1, p. xxiii.] Honors. Vanderbilt was awarded thirty-one honorary degrees in the United States and Canada. In 1948 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Bar Association, given rarely. He also won numerous other honors. [See details in Who Was Who in America, vol. 3, p. 872.]

1957, June 16 - Died, Short Hills, New Jersey, age 68.