The Members of Our Highest Tribunal Have to Be Not Only Jurists but Constructive Statesmen. Justice Brown, of the Supreme Court of the United States, has retired from active service. Before he laid aside the robes of his office a dinner was given in his honor by the bar of the District of Columbia, and on this occasion short speeches were delivered by several prominent men, including President Roosevelt, who said: In all the world--and I think, gentlemen, you will acquit me of any disposition to needless flattery--there is no body of men of equal numbers that possesses the dignity and power combined that inhere in that court over which, Mr. Chief Justice, you preside. Owing to the peculiar construction of our government, the man who does his full duty on that court must of necessity be not only a great jurist, but a great constructive statesman. The Men and the Tradition. It has been our supreme good fortune as a nation that we have had on that court, from the beginning to the present day, men who have been able to carry on in worthy fashion the tradition which has thus made it incumbent upon the members of the court to combine in such fashion the qualities of the great jurist and of the constructive statesman. Mr. Justice, we Americans are sometimes accused of paying too much heed to mere material success, the success which is measured only by the acquisition of wealth. I do not think that the accusation is well founded. A great deal of notoriety attaches, and must attach, to any man who acquires a great fortune. If he acquires it well and uses it well, he is entitled to and should receive the same meed of credit that attaches to any other man who uses his talents for the public good. The Nation Sound at Bottom. But if you will turn to see those whom in the past the nation has delighted to honor, and those in the present whom it delights to honor, I think that you will all agree that this nation is sound at bottom in the bestowal of its admiration in the relative estimate it puts upon the different qualities of the men who achieve prominence by rendering service to the public. The names that stand out in our history in the past are the names of the men who have done good work for the body politic, and in the present the names of those whom this people really hold in highest honor are the names of the men who have done all that was in them in the best and most worthy fashion. In no way is it possible to deserve better of the republic than by rendering sane, honest, clear-sighted service on the bench, and, above all, on the highest bench of this country. Men who fear for our democratic institutions too often forget the Supreme Court. Macaulay evidently forgot it when he described our Constitution as "all sail and no anchor."