Scope and Content Note
The papers of Robert Houghwout Jackson (1892-1954) span the years 1816-1983, with most of the material concentrated in the period 1934-1954. The collection consists of twelve series: Family Papers, General Correspondence, Subject File, Speeches and Writings File, Legal File, Biographical File, Financial Papers, Miscellany, Photographs, Additions, Oversize, and Classified.
Although the papers present a comprehensive record of Robert Jackson's life dating from his school days, the Legal File series dominates the collection. The earliest of the papers relates to the private law practice which he established in 1913 in Jamestown, New York, and represents a period of twenty-one years of legal service in western New York. The bulk of the law practice material pertains to cases in which Jackson was involved as counsel to the Jamestown Telephone Company, the Jamestown Westfield and Northwestern Railroad Company, Jamestown Worsted Mills, and the Niagara, Lockport and Ontario Power Company. The papers also contain a few smaller files on other cases, including Lyle P. Gates v. Prudential Insurance Company, the typhoid carrier case which received extensive coverage by the Jamestown press.
Jackson's appointment as assistant general counsel at the Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1934 was the beginning of a seven-year career as a law officer with the United States government. During his years at the Bureau of Internal Revenue, he received national attention for his prosecution of a case against Andrew Mellon. Copies of many of the documents and material assembled for this litigation are included among these papers. The Bureau of Internal Revenue files also contain studies on the concentration of wealth by individuals and corporations in which wealth is related to the amount of income taxes paid. Jackson's files also document his support of the Revenue Act of 1935. For a brief period during his service with the Bureau, Jackson was detailed to the Securities and Exchange Commission to act as special counsel in the trial of cases arising under the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. A small file relating to the Electric Bond and Share Company, chosen as a test case, is among Jackson's legal papers.
From 1936 to 1941, Jackson served with the Justice Department as assistant attorney general of the Tax and Antitrust divisions, solicitor general, and attorney general. Although only a small number of papers remain in the collection from his service with the Tax Division, they include a significant file relating to several cases challenging the constitutionality of the Social Security Act. The office files from Jackson's other Justice Department appointments are more voluminous and reflect his working relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt in the implementation of New Deal programs and in the preparation of contingency plans for the anticipated effects of the outbreak of war in Europe. Among the prominent anti-monopoly cases prosecuted by Justice Department offices under Jackson's aegis were those concerning identical bids for steel products, automobile financing by automobile manufacturers who financed automobile purchases through companies which they controlled, the manipulation of oil prices, control of the aluminum industry by the Aluminum Company of America, operations of fuel and utility companies, and practices within the milk and motion picture industries. Numerous files of the solicitor general and attorney general offices focus on topics relating to the impact of World War II on the American economy, military preparedness, and national defense. They encompass such issues as aircraft production, gathering of intelligence information, immigration and naturalization matters, investigations of subversive activities by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, operation of the selective service system, price stabilization and economic controls, registration of aliens and treatment of alien property, regulation of foreign cargo vessels in American ports, taxation of excess profits earned by companies producing war materials, trade embargoes, and United States neutrality.
In addition, Jackson's Justice Department files depict his role in drafting the president's messages to Congress, particularly the anti-monopoly message, Roosevelt's veto of the Walter-Logan Bill, the tax message of 1938, and the state of the union message in 1940. They also reveal that Roosevelt sought Jackson's advice on proposed legislation, such as the reorganization of the federal judiciary in 1937, the enactment of a wages and hours bill, the Lend-Lease Act, and the destroyer exchange issue. Evidence of a more personal relationship between the two men can be found in memoranda and autobiographical notes by Jackson describing his meetings with the president.
The retirement of Charles Evans Hughes and the subsequent appointment of Harlan F. Stone as chief justice created a vacancy on the Supreme Court to which Roosevelt nominated Jackson in 1941. Jackson's papers are complete for his years on the court except for the 1945 term when he was United States Chief of Counsel at the Nuremberg Trials. The files of cases are arranged chronologically by October term and contain summaries of the issues prepared by Jackson's law clerks, drafts of opinions, circulated opinions, final opinions, correspondence and memoranda exchanged between the justices, correspondence from the public, and printed matter. An alphabetical card file index to the cases is included at the end of the papers. Except for 1946, Jackson did not maintain separate docket books for the court terms; instead, pages from docket books are generally incorporated in the case files.
The Supreme Court papers include some of Jackson's most famous opinions, such as the Jehovah's Witness cases involving civil liberties (Board of Educ. v. Barnette, Douglas v. Jeannette, Martin v. Struthers, Murdock v. Pennsylvania); cases growing out of World War II concerning treason and the treatment of Japanese (Korematsu v. United States, Cramer v. United States, Haupt v. United States, and Terminiello v. Chicago); those pertaining to the Communist Party (Dennis v. United States, American Communications Ass'n v. Douds); those involving taxing powers of states (State Tax Comm'n of Utah v. Aldrich, Helvering v. Griffiths, District of Columbia v. Pace, Massachusetts v. United States, Wheeling Steel Corp. v. Glander); and cases concerning use of public funds for support of parochial or private schools and segregation of public school systems (Everson v. Board of Educ., Illinois ex rel. McCollom v. Board of Educ., Brown v. Board of Educ.). The segregation cases heard by the Court in 1954 are treated as a group filed with Oliver Brown v. Board of Education, Shawnee County, Topeka, Kansas. Except for the case file on the Jewell Ridge Coal Corporation case, all papers relating to the controversy over Jackson's statement about Justice Hugo LaFayette Black's failure to recuse himself from that case and cases involving his former law partner are found in the Subject File series and in the Supreme Court correspondence file in the office files of the United States chief of counsel in the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial papers.
In 1945, following a speech by Jackson denouncing the criminal acts of the Nazis, he was contacted by Samuel Rosenman on behalf of President Harry S. Truman and asked to head the United States team for the prosecution of Axis war criminals. The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial papers in the Jackson collection consist of personal copies of many documents assembled for and during the course of the trial and papers sent to Jackson after October 1946 when Telford Taylor was United States Chief of Counsel. The subseries also includes correspondence and selected printed matter written by staff members for several years immediately following the trial. The official records of the trial are housed in the National Archives.
Among the more interesting papers found in the Nuremberg materials is the diary Jackson kept from the day of his appointment to the day preceding the beginning of the trial. Jackson incorporated several of the original documents mentioned in his entries among the pages of the diary. His papers also contain original shorthand notes made by his secretary, Elsie Douglas, during the London Conference of 1945, where the protocol for the trial was drafted and agreed upon. The office files for the United States Chief of Counsel reveal the planning and logistics of handling, assembling, and disseminating the vast amount of material generated by the trial, the methods of resolving problems caused by differences between American and European criminal procedure, and the working relationship between the military and civilian trial staff members. An extensive number of photographs concerning the trial is filed in the Photograph series.
The Subject File and the Speeches and Writings File focus on Jackson's unofficial activities with law societies and bar associations, service on special committees, speeches and attendance at annual, national, and regional meetings, law school student bar association programs and moot court competitions, and extensive writings on legal subjects. Although Jackson never sought political office, his support of the Democratic Party is demonstrated by numerous speeches, particularly in Jamestown and the presidential campaigns of 1936 and 1940. The Subject File series also documents Jackson's contribution to the Democratic Party platforms of 1936 and 1940. Letters in the General Correspondence series attest to his friendship with members of the legal profession, professors of law at various universities, and acquaintances from his years in Jamestown. Letters exchanged between members of the family generally concern routine family news, genealogical records, or memorials to Jackson. Letters written by Jackson and his son, William E. Jackson, during 1945 and 1946 contain comments and personal assessments of the meetings of the London Conference, describe social activities of staff members, and discuss the accomplishments of the trial at Nuremberg.
The Biographical File contains an autobiography started by Jackson in 1944 which covers his life through his appointment as attorney general. The second item, "Justice Jackson's Story," is the transcript of a series of oral history interviews conducted by Harlan B. Phillips of the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University between January 1952 and February 1953. The biographical papers are complemented by clippings in the Miscellany series and scrapbooks located in the Oversize series documenting Jackson's life and professional career from 1910.
The Addition series, 1940-1955, consists of two parts supplementing the first installment of the Jackson Papers. Addition I contains correspondence concerning Jackson's daughter, Mary Jackson Loftus Craighill, legal material pertaining to the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, and a program and facsimile souvenir. The file of Nuremberg documents consists of a typescript release and a German edition of Jackson's opening statement of the trial as chief of counsel for the United States and a translated copy of Adolph Hitler's will. The program and a facsimile of Behind the Ballots (1938) relate to a testimonial dinner for James Aloysius Farley in 1940. Addition II consists of a nine-volume edited oral history transcript, "The Reminiscences of Robert H. Jackson," based on the interviews conducted by Harlan B. Phillips for the Columbia University Oral History Research Office. An earlier draft of this transcript, "Justice Jackson's Story," is located in the first segment of the papers. This later edited oral history includes an index.
Correspondents in the Jackson Papers include Sidney S. Alderman, Thurman Wesley Arnold, Wendell Berge, John L. Blair, Ernest Cawcroft, Homer S. Cummings, Gordon E. Dean, William O. Douglas, John E. Durkin, Charles Fairman, Felix Frankfurter, Whitney R. Harris, J. Edgar Hoover, Charles A. Horsky, Robert M. W. Kempner, Arthur Alden Kimball, Alfred A. Knopf, Frank Murphy, C. George Niebank, Stanley Forman Reed, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Charles B. Sears, Robert G. Storey, Herbert Bayard Swope, Telford Taylor, Philip J. Wickser, and John H. Wright.