engrossed in the organization of the various Departments and in considering the claims of office-seekers."

In Olney's case "considering" such claims would often have sounded to the claimant like euphemism for denying and dismissing them. He would not discuss appointments unless the good of the service required changes.

I have never said a word [so runs a letter to one of the United States District Attorneys1] or had a thought, which authorized Mr. to telegraph you that I was anxious for the removal of Marshal Hunt, or that you were timid in the matter of his removal. . . . Your letter to me on the subject seemed to me non-committal and to indicate, at most, only a personal preference for a marshal in political accord with yourself. If that is all that is to be said in favor of a change of marshal, my inference is that he is a valuable officer and should be allowed to serve out his time.

And to Senator Hoar,'

The rule of the Department, since my connection with it, has been not to ask for removals on political grounds.

His manners to callers were frequently brusque and peremptory, and the first name he got for himself in Washington was that of being "difficult to approach," "formidable," and "icy." Exaggerated stories went abroad, for iciness is sure to annoy the political hangers-on who expect to find that every door in every department is standing hospitably open to them after their party has got into office. Among the news-correspondents, too, he soon made and always maintained a reputation for keeping his own counsel and being hard to interview. But before long 1 To W. O. Hamilton, Texas, August 9, 1894. • December 12, 1894.

all this served him as a protection rather than a handicap. In fact, whoever understood the political situation at all realized that the new Attorney-General was not qualified by experience to be one of the Administration's dispensers of patronage. Any thought that he might be ambitious to assume such a rôle being soon disposed of, and the floodtide of office-seekers having ebbed away, he enjoyed an immunity from political callers which amounted to the most that any Cabinet officer can ever expect.

The duties of the Attorney-General are many and various. He directs and controls the Federal Government's immense law business, not only in the Department in Washington, but also in all the Judicial Districts into which the United States and its Territories are divided. He also exercises certain quasi-judicial functions, interprets the law for the other executive departments and for the President, and considers applications for pardons before they go to the President.

The details of all this were more than enough to absorb a new department head for many months. Olney immediately fell into the sound practice of letting the Solicitor-General and Assistant Attorney-Generals represent him in court, and devoted himself to overseeing, and to keeping himself prepared to advise the President on questions which came before the Cabinet.1 Knowledge of

To a correspondent who was considering an invitation to become Attorney-General in President McKinley's Cabinet, Olney wrote: "So far as strictly legal work is concerned, the duties of the AttorneyGeneral are not more exacting than those of any lawyer having a large general practice. But the truth is that the Attorney-Generalship corresponds to what is known in European countries as the 'Ministry of Justice' that is, the duties are very largely administrative. For the

the law, a habit of dispatch, decision of character these amply assured his success in dealing with routine, and during his first year only one matter emerged to provoke discussion.

This concerned the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, which was still new and almost untested. Olney's estimate of the meaning of the Act corresponded with the better opinion of the Bar; but not with popular demand. He explained what he thought might and what might not be looked for

first year or two, while you were seeing to the appointments of proper persons as United States District Attorneys and Marshals and getting accustomed to the general duties of a Cabinet officer, you would probably have little or no time to prepare and argue cases in the Supreme Court of the United States. There is a vast deal of work to do in the way of giving opinions upon legal questions to other heads of Departments and to the President of the United States. It is probable, too, that President McKinley's Attorney-General will find a great deal of time occupied in the consideration of applications for pardon - a function of which, under President Cleveland's régime, Attorney-Generals have been almost entirely relieved. If I have made myself understood, you will perceive the great importance to the Attorney-General of having a first-rate SolicitorGeneral upon whom he can devolve the conduct of cases in the Supreme Court with entire confidence. In the same view, it is of great importance that the three Assistant Attorney-Generals should be carefully selected. They ought to render valuable assistance, not only to the Solicitor-General in connection with cases in the Supreme Court, but to the AttorneyGeneral in all cases in which legal opinions are called for.... What you want particularly to bear in mind is the administrative character of the position. It took me two years to get the Department - in which term I include district attorneyships and marshalships all over the countrythoroughly organized. I then began to argue cases, but had an opportunity to argue only two the Income Tax cases and the Debs case - before Judge Gresham died and I became Secretary of State."

During Olney's time his principal assistants were: Edward B. Whitney, later a judge of the New York Supreme Court; Lawrence Maxwell, Jr., of Cincinnati, who was Solicitor-General for a while; J. M. Dickinson, afterward Secretary of War under President Taft; Charles B. Howry, subsequently a judge of the United States Court of Claims; J. E. Dodge, later a judge of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin; and Holmes Conrad, SolicitorGeneral after January 30, 1895.

from the Act in two pages of his Annual Report, warning the public that it must not assume a broad interpretation, and consequently must not expect his Department to begin a multitude of prosecutions. It must be admitted that he thus interpreted the law more narrowly than the Supreme Court has since, but the law, it should be remembered, had not yet been passed upon by the highest court, and the lower courts which had been called upon to construe its difficult and uncertain provisions had found them unenforceable in almost every case. The most important and most thoroughly considered of these early decisions had been rendered by Mr. Justice Jackson, and he had been elevated to the Supreme Court by President Harrison shortly after rendering it and just before Olney took office. With the conservative reasoning of Judge Jackson's opinion Olney himself inclined to agree. Clearly he would have been guilty of demagogic and irresponsible extravagance had he launched the Government on a wide campaign of prosecution despite these early decisions, in disregard of his own well-grounded misgivings about the law, and in face of the business panic of '93. Although this appears obvious, it was quite natural too that his course should provoke a constant small-fire of criticism at the time. But it should not be judged by that nor by later events alone. It is hard to justify the extravagance with which Roosevelt and the Republican Party accused the Cleveland Administration, ten years later, of having favored the "trusts."

As a matter of fact, the Attorney-General did not merely pronounce an opinion on the law, but put it to the

test. He selected an important case and had it brought before the Supreme Court as rapidly as possible. This was the so-called Sugar Trust Case (U.S. v. Knight et al., 156 U.S. 1), which was argued before the Supreme Court in October, 1894.1 The Court followed the earlier decisions and decided against the Government, thus confirming Olney's estimate of the then state of the law.

Meanwhile, his eye was also on the wider horizon outside his own Department. During that summer of 1893, the country was rapidly slipping into a slough of financial despond. In April the money market touched fifteen per cent and during the next three months the business panic developed in its full intensity and swept banks, railroads, and commercial houses into bankruptcy all over the country.' Olney's letter-books show that from April on he was encouraging New England bankers and business men like John M. Forbes, Henry L. Higginson, N. P. Hallowell, Charles C. Jackson, and other men outside New England, such as the veteran banker Samuel G. Ward, and Charles E. Perkins of the Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad to send him their observations and recommendations concerning the situation. What use he made of the comments and hints which came to him no record discloses, but Secretary Carlisle was being criticized for not communicating with "Wall Street" as freely and openly as the crisis

1 See also, as to the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, Appendix II.

* Among the railroads that were hard hit was the Union Pacific. Foreseeing that the Government would be involved in the reorganization proceedings, Olney divested himself of his own interest in the company by selling his stock at the price of $19 a share. (R. O. Memo.)