The Clerks of the Four Horsemen, Part I

Abstract

The names of Holmes clerks such as Tommy Corcoran and Francis Biddle, of Brandeis clerks such as Dean Acheson and Henry Friendly, and of Stone clerks such as Harold Leventhal and Herbert Wechsler ring down the pages of history. But how much do we really know about Carlyle Baer, Tench Marye, or Milton Musser? This article follows the interesting and often surprising lives and careers of the men who clerked for the Four Horsemen - Justices Van Devanter, McReynolds, Sutherland, and Butler. These biographical sketches confound easy stereotypes, and prove the adage that law, like politics, can make for strange bedfellows. This Part I of a two-part article covers the clerks to Justices Van Devanter and McReynolds.

Keywords: Supreme Court clerks, Four Horsemen, Van Devanter, McReynolds, Sutherland, Butler, legal history, constitutional history