The appointment by President Johnson of Abe Fortas, the prominent Jewish lawyer, as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy left open by the naming of Arthur J. Goldberg to the post of head of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, was lauded today in editorials in the New York press and in leading newspapers throughout the country.
The New York Times said in an editorial that President Johnson’s selection of Mr. Fortas for the Fortas for the Supreme Court “gives every promise of proving an excellent appointment.” It pointed out that “the newest member of the Court is not likely to be as uniformly progressive in outlook as his predecessor, former Justice Goldberg, nor as personally influential as his predecessor save one, the late Justice Frankfurter,” but added that “he can be expected to strengthen the libertarian approach of the Court’s majority.”
The New York Herald Tribune editorial said that “for his first appointment to the Supreme Court, President Johnson chose a lawyer of unquestioned ability, widely known and highly thought of throughout the legal profession.” It stressed the fact that, on a number of occasions, “the Supreme Court itself has repeatedly demonstrated its respect for Abe Fortas.”
The New York Post, the Journal-American, and the World-Telegram similarly praised the appointment of Mr. Fortas. The Wall Street Journal said that Mr. Fortas as a Supreme Court Justice is expected to reflect his long association with President Johnson. “He looks upon the President’s Great Society as a logical and necessary extension of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,” the Washington correspondent of the Wall Street Journal asserted.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
