- Person
- Louis Brandeis
- Lived
- 1856–1941
- Field
- Law
- From
- American
The story
By the early 1900s the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, controlled by the banker J. P. Morgan, was buying up railways, trolley lines and shipping companies across New England to build a single network. Louis Brandeis, a Boston lawyer who had become known as 'the People's Lawyer' for his unpaid public interest work, was then also battling the life insurance industry on behalf of policyholders.
In June 1907 stockholders of the Boston and Maine Railroad asked Brandeis to make their case against the New Haven, which was trying to take over its chief competitor. Once again he insisted on serving without payment so that he could act as he thought best. His opponents included the region's wealthiest families, Boston's legal establishment and the big State Street banks.
After months of research he published a 70-page booklet arguing that the New Haven's acquisitions were endangering its finances and predicting that within a few years it would have to cut dividends or become insolvent. He warned Boston's citizens publicly that the railroad sought to monopolise transport in New England. He was attacked by newspapers, magazines, bankers, chambers of commerce and even college professors, and wrote to his brother that he had made more enemies than in all his previous fights together.
He was proved right. In 1908 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the New Haven had acted illegally in earlier acquisitions, and after Brandeis met President Theodore Roosevelt twice, the Justice Department filed an antitrust suit. At an Interstate Commerce Commission hearing, the railroad's president admitted to a political slush fund. Its finances collapsed as Brandeis had forecast, and in 1914 the commission charged it with extravagance and corruption. The New Haven gave up its Boston and Maine stock and sold off recent acquisitions. A 1914 newspaper said his prophecies had been fully justified.
The nine-year campaign made Brandeis a national figure and an adversary of almost mythical proportions to the House of Morgan, as the historian Ron Chernow put it. It also showed how one determined lawyer, armed with careful financial analysis, could hold even the most powerful corporation to account.
Why it matters
Brandeis's long, unpaid campaign protected New England passengers and investors from a reckless monopoly and helped revive the enforcement of antitrust law.
About Louis Brandeis
“The People’s Lawyer” who became the first Jewish Supreme Court justice in 1916, wrote classic defences of free speech and privacy, and led American Zionism.
More about Louis Brandeis
- Louis Brandeis, the "People's Lawyer" on the Supreme CourtLouis Brandeis, known as "the People's Lawyer", became the first Jewish US Supreme Court justice in 1916 and wrote some of the greatest defences of free speech and privacy.
- Louis Brandeis defended "the right to be let alone"Louis Brandeis's 1928 dissent against warrantless wiretapping in Olmstead v. United States was vindicated in 1967, when the Supreme Court overturned Olmstead in Katz v. United States.
- Louis Brandeis brought fair life insurance to workersAfter finding that most low-wage workers' life insurance policies lapsed unpaid, Louis Brandeis created Massachusetts savings bank life insurance, signed into law in 1907.
- Louis Brandeis called sunlight the best disinfectantIn a 1913 Harper's Weekly article Louis Brandeis wrote that "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants", a line that still defines the case for open government.
- Louis Brandeis wrote a classic defence of free speechLouis Brandeis's 1927 opinion in Whitney v. California has been praised as perhaps the greatest defence of free speech ever written by a Supreme Court justice.
- Louis Brandeis helped design the Federal Trade CommissionLouis Brandeis urged Woodrow Wilson to give the government real power to enforce antitrust law and became one of the architects of the Federal Trade Commission.
- Louis Brandeis held 57 hearings to reform Boston poorhousesIn 1894 Louis Brandeis spent nine months and held 57 public hearings on Boston's poorhouses, leading the city to completely reorganise how it cared for the poor.
Sources
- Louis Brandeis Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.