William O. Douglas

William Orville Douglas ( born October 16, 1898 in Maine, Minnesota, † January 19, 1980 in Bethesda, Maryland) was an American lawyer and judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. After his appointment by Franklin D. Roosevelt on 17 April 1939, he was a total of 36 years and seven months, the longest serving judge of the Supreme Court in the history of that institution. On December 31, 1974, he suffered a massive stroke in Nassau in the Bahamas, from which he never fully recovered. The ongoing physical problems caused him to travel on November 12, 1975 submitted his resignation as a judge. His successor was John Paul Stevens.

Childhood

Douglas was born in Minnesota, but soon moved with his family to Yakima, Washington, a small town about 200 km southeast of Seattle. His father, also named William, was a Presbyterian minister. He died of a stroke when William was six years old. He is said to have had not much left for his son, which is later compared claimed by William his children. William himself ill the age of three from a mysterious intestinal illness that none of the doctors could cure. He survived this terrible time but what his mother, Julia Bickford, considered a miracle of God and therefore worshiped him as their treasure. She told him repeatedly that he could achieve anything in life, even become President of the United States. This made Douglas his life to a striving for power people, the supposed friends often only used to further his career.

Career

Douglas was awarded a scholarship at Whitman College in Washington and graduated in 1920. Afterwards, he worked for two years as a teacher and then made ​​his way to New York City to Columbia Law School. In 1923 he married for the first time (out of four times). His wife, Mildred Riddle, also a teacher, had to keep him afloat at this time. He was a good student, but not outstanding in his year. Nevertheless his degree he managed with flying colors. He got a job at Cravath, a predecessor of today's law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. After modest success at Cravath and a period of unemployment he started in 1927, a short but more steeper academic career at Columbia. As a supporter of the right realism, which had its origin here, he quickly rose to assistant professor. The Yale University hired him soon after for the subject area. Douglas became friends there with Robert Maynard Hutchins the dean. This soon became president of the University of Chicago and Douglas made ​​an offer to teach in some cases also there. This accepted and rose through the resulting double employment to Sterling Professor at Yale. According to some data Douglas never taught in Chicago.

Starting in 1934, Douglas was in government services. He worked as a Director at Protective Study Committee of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, of which he himself took over in 1936 as a Commissioner and a year later as Chairman. After that, he was nominated by President Roosevelt as the successor of the retired Judge Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court. There he remained until his official change to senior status on November 12, 1975. He died in January 1980 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.