Louis D. Brandeis Quotes
We learned long ago that liberty could be preserved only by limiting in some way the freedom of action of individuals; that otherwise liberty would necessarily yield to absolutism; and in the same way we have learned that unless there be regulation of competition, its excesses will lead to the destruction of competition, and monopoly will take its place.
Brandeis, Louis D. Testimony before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce. Control of Corporations, Persons, and Firms Engaged in Interstate Commerce, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1912, p. 1148.
This quotation illustrates one of White’s correct early grasps of what was happening in the political economy of the time and its future direction with growing industrialization and technological complexity. Most historians agree that White passed classified information to the Russians. He was accused of being a Communist, but there was never any evidence of that. Some people believe that he was a spy for the Russians and committed espionage, but others disagree observing that White was very much his own man and felt that much information that was classified never should have been. White substituted his own judgment, it is believed, about what could be given to the Russians for the security system. He was an admirer of what Russian socialism had accomplished economically, educationally and medically since the 1917 revolution deposing the Czar. Russia had been a valuable military ally, which had taken the brunt of both military and civilian casualties in WWII. White’s economics were certainly not Marxist but very much Keynesian. He was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee where he was accused of being a Communist which he denied (see {634907}). He died of a heart attack 3 days later.
The President had decided to aggressively push for railroad regulation to end the rate rebate abuses that were used to support the monopolies like Standard Oil. In vintage Roosevelt tactics, he gave his first major speech on the subject in the setting and forum that would be most opposed to it. The Union League Club of Philadelphia in included the wealthiest men in the area where were most opposed to any Federal Regulation of anything. All the major railroad executives and stock owners and traders were also members. The President wanted to persuade the opponents to change their positions, and sometimes he did. He also was driven by his concept of sports and athletics so that the “opposition” should have “fair notice” for the contest ahead.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents from Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic), who raised him in a secular home. He attended Harvard Law School, graduating at the age of 20 with the highest grade point average in the law school's history. Brandeis settled in Boston, where he founded a law firm (that is still in practice today as Nutter McClennen & Fish) and became a recognized lawyer through his work on progressive social causes.
