KANSAN Comment
Haynsworth lacks judicial caliber
By MONROE DODD Kansan Staff Writer
Amid constant pressure from the White House and threats from Republican congressmen to begin impeachment proceedings against the perennially controversial Justice William O. Douglas, debate on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. moves this week to the floor of the Senate.
The case is a strange one, for the issues are not clear-cut and senators who normally would be expected to toe the administration line are popping up on the side of the opposition. Haynsworth, who has proven as chief judge of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that he is not too eager for greatness, does nothing to dispel the clouds of doubt and confusion that surround him.
Since August, when President Nixon announced from his balmy California retreat that the South Carolinian was his choice to fill Abe Fortas' old chair, opposition has mounted from various sides.
Civil rights groups leery of Haynsworth's southern-fried strict constructionist leanings call him a "laundered segregationist." The AFL-CIO fear of his anti-labor rulings stems especially from the Deering Milliken labor dispute, in which Haynsworth favored the corporation served by a vending company in which he owned stock. And numerous senators, recalling the Fortas scandal, came out against Haynsworth on the conflict-of-interest taint introduced both by the Deering Milliken case and the Brunswick Corp. rulings. (Haynsworth bought stock in the latter after he participated in a decision involving the company but before the court's opinion was written, until which time the final deposition was tentative.)
Haynsworth's confirmation, once seeming a perfunctory matter, is now questionable, with an Associated Press poll showing 35 senators in favor and 37 opposed.
Senate GOP whip Robert Griffin, who led the fight against Fortas, says he cannot in clear conscience vote for Haynsworth, while minority leader Hugh Scott refuses to head the proHaynsworth forces.
Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland, chairman of the judiciary committee that approved the nomination by a 10-7 vote, says, "We very definitely have the votes for confirmation." However, Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield maintains the outcome will be a toss-up.
Meanwhile, the public has heard very little from the nominee, because he refuses to hold press conferences or go before television cameras to speak. Haynsworth claims the reason is that he stammers, but Americans could hardly be so cruel as to deny him a fair hearing over a slight physical defect.
Sensing possible defeat, the Republican establishment has reopened the case against Justice Douglas with the implication that impeachment proceedings against the famous liberal will begin should Haynsworth be denied a seat on the court.
And, according to Newsweek, Chief Justice Warren Burger has told senators that if Haynsworth's nomination is not confirmed, they should inspect his own background.
Yet above the bitterness evinced by both sides there is an issue that is not demonstrable by votes or recorded opinions. After all, the President has the right to nominate anyone to the Supreme Court who is technically qualified, regardless of his political philosophy, and no legal conflict of interest on the part of Haynsworth has been proven.
The problem concerns whether Haynsworth is of Supreme Court caliber. A man who held two corporate offices until the Judicial Conference decided that was improper for federal Judges, doesn't seem to be of such caliber. A man who owned one-seventh interest in a company which did a large business with a corporation having a case before his court—from which he refused to disqualify himself—doesn't seem to be of such caliber. A man who, before the final opinion was written in a case involving a conglomerate, bought stock in that conglomerate, doesn't seem to be of such caliber.
On the last, the Brunswick case, Haynsworth told the judiciary committee, "I didn't check the cases that had been heard in court and were not disposed of. I think I should have . . . and of course I'm very sorry I didn't."
It seems that Judge Haynsworth is continually remiss in examining his own actions, out of carelessness or some other reason. He does the right thing, but apparently only after someone else has told him to do so.
That kind of inconsistency short of legal wrong is acceptable perhaps in lawyers and county and district judges. But the Supreme Court, highest in the land and the final appeal on any case, must demand more from its members. John Marshall, Louis D. Brandeis, Earl Warren and others, while differing in philosophy, were of the stuff from which Supreme Court justices are made.
Vacillating, self-interested Clement Haynsworth isn't.
Readers' write
To the editor:
Having become increasingly bored with the editorial flatus that the Kansan feels constrained to release among us each week, I read the editorial "Nixon's peace is no peace at all" with a somewhat jaundiced eye.
The keynote of the editorial was stated as "what moral right does America have to assume responsibility whenever evil crops up in this big bad world?" And then as if the Lord God Himself had tapped the editor on the shoulder and handed it to her, we are treated to a comparison of mass murder by Viet Cong in Hue with American interventions in Latin America—a fatuous analogy at best.
I find it fascinating that a progressive undaunted paper finds it appropriate to justify its editorial position by quoting Benjamin Harrison—in 1888 yet. But with a resounding plea for neo-isolationism the editorial closes with the picture of an "eagle with talons eager to draw blood wherever Communism pops up."
My friends, we do not live in the 19th Century, nor can we. Isolationism, for a country as powerful as the United States, is not only impossible, it is morally irresponsible. We do have problems at home, but at the same time we will have very little room for social improvement here if, as Eugene V. Rostow succinctly put it a few days ago, "... we have to become a garrison state, isolated in a world of hostility or chaos."
Perhaps the United States' so-called "imperialistic posture" is not the ultimate answer to world problems, but I prefer it to the foreign policy of moral hedonism which you apparently advocate.
L. Lewis Wall
Shawne Mission sophomore
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