The Clerks of the Four Horsemen (Part II, George Sutherland and Pierce Butler)

The Clerks of the Four Horsemen (Part II, George Sutherland and Pierce Butler) BARRY CUSHMAN This is the second part of a two-part article. Please see volume 39, no. 3, pages 368-424 for the Introduction and Part I, discussing the clerks to James C. McReynolds and Willis Van Devanter. The Sutherland Clerks Justice Sutherland served from 1922 to 1938, but during that time he had only four clerks. The first, whom he inherited from his predecessor in office, was a career civil servant. The others were all graduates of George Washington University’s Law School, and went on to enjoy interesting and highly successful careers in private practice. Samuel Edward Widdifield was an 1898 graduate of the Detroit College of Law who clerked for Sutherland during the 1922 and 1923 Terms.1 Widdifield might be character­ ized as a career or serial clerk: he clerked for four different Justices. Bom in Uxbridge, Ontario, Widdifield moved to Michigan as a young boy in 1880 and was naturalized in Detroit in 1896. He was admitted to practice in Michigan in 1898, and in Massachusetts in 1904. Early in his career, Widdifield handled collections in the office ofa Detroit lawyer and practiced with the Traverse City, Michigan firm of Gilbert & Widdifield. He then moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he was secre­ tary and law assistant to the president of the Stanley Electrical Company.2 He first came to the Court in 1904 at the age of twenty-nine to clerk for Justice Rufus Peckham. After Peck­ ham’s death in 1909, Widdifield clerked for Justice Joseph Rucker Lamar during the 1910 and 1911 Terms.3 Following his clerkship with Justice Lamar, Widdifield engaged briefly in private practice in Lansing, Michigan before returning to Washington to serve as a secretary to Senator James P. Clarke ofArkansas and as a messengerto the Senate Commerce Committee from 1913 to 1916.4 He then returned to the Court to clerk for Justice John Hessin Clarke, 56 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY and, upon Clarke’s resignation in 1922, Widdifield moved to the chambers of Clarke’s successor, Justice Sutherland.5 After two years with Sutherland, Widdifield left to serve for more than five years as assistant counsel to the German Mixed Claims Commission in the State Department. In 1930 he operated his own real estate business in North Beach Maryland, where he served as mayor. From December of 1930 to August of 1931 he worked as an assistant clerk to the House Judiciary Commit­ tee. Widdifield then returned to the Court as assistant clerk, a position that he held for eighteen years until his retirement in 1949.6 In 1937 he sought to return to the position of law clerk, unsuccessfully applying for a position with the incoming Justice Hugo Black.7 He died in 1960 at the age ofeighty-five, a widower survived by two children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.8 Alan E. Gray clerked for Sutherland from the 1924 term through the 1930 term.9 Gray may have been the most colorful of the Sutherland clerks. His father was a Scottish immigrant who came to Minnesota at a young age and settled in Grafton, North Dakota in 1891.'° Alan was bom in 1899, took his B.A. from the University ofNorth Dakota in 1921, and received his law degree from George Washington University in 1924.11 That year he married fellow Graftonite Grace Lunding Hope, and the couple moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland.12 Following his clerkship with Sutherland, Gray remained for several years in Washington,13 where he engaged in a law practice focused on tax matters.14 By 1938, the Grays had moved to Southern California, where they divorced by 1948. Gray quickly married Joan Kettering in 1949, but was as quickly divorced from her the following year. He then married Jan Hanson Fisher, who left him a widower. In 1967 he married his old Grafton schoolmate Helen Tombs, to whom he remained married until his death.15 Gray practiced in Southern California for the balance of his career.16 He continued to specialize in the tax area,17 and was recognized as an “income tax expert.”18 This...

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