ASSOCIATE JUSTICE FELIX FRANKFURTER - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 04/03/1941 - HFSID 47975

FELIX FRANKFURTER
Frankfurter signed this typed letter on his personalized letterhead from the Supreme Court to Col. Edwin A. Halsey, Secretary of the Senate, in 1941, to thank him for sending him "that photograph [not included] which brings back the Victorian era".
Typed letter signed:"Felix Frankfurter", 1 page, 5¾x9, on letterhead from the Chambers of Justice Felix Frankfurter of the Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C., 1941 April 3.Addressed to Col. Edwin A. Halsey. In full: "Dear Colonel Halsey: How kind of you not only to have spotted that photograph [not included] which brings back the Victorian era, but also to have sent it to me! Very cordially yours," EDWIN A. HALSEY was Secretary of the United States Senate from 1933 to 1945. A renowned legal scholar, Frankfurter (1882-1965, born in Vienna, Austria) influenced Supreme Court decisions for more than 20 years (1939-1962). A former advisor to the NAACP and co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, Frankfurter had affirmed that any form of discrimination against Blacks violated the 15th Amendment (Lane vs. Wilson,1939). Believing that the Court should not interfere with laws established by the people's elected officials, he upheld President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation. In the realm of civil liberties, Frankfurter would play a pivotal role in deciding the famous school desegregation case Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954), ensuring its historic importance by securing a unanimous decision. He dissented when the Court overturned Minersville West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette(1943) and when it ruled in favor of legislative reapportionment (Baker vs. Carr, 1962), which he felt was strictly a political problem to be solved by the legislature, not the judiciary. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the staunch advocate of judicial self-restraint stabilized the liberal Earl Warren Court and promoted "procedural fairness" in criminal cases. Frankfurter was presented the Medal of Freedom by John F. Kennedy in 1963. Lightly toned, soiled and creased. Folded twice and unfolded. Otherwise, fine condition.