Message to Congress on the Bequest to the Nation by Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

To the Congress:

The Congress is aware that Mr. Justice Holmes bequeathed his residuary estate to the Government of his country. It is the gift of one who, in war and in peace, devoted his life to its service. Clearly he thereby sought, with a generous emphasis, to mark the full measure of his faith in those principles of freedom and justice which the country was founded to preserve.

I shall, I think, be interpreting aright the feeling of the country and the wishes of the Congress if I suggest that this striking gift be devoted to some purpose worthy of the great man who gave it. Mr. Justice Holmes was fond of saying that we live by symbols. Our fellow citizens of this generation would, I am confident, desire the Congress to translate this gift into a form that may serve as a permanent impulse for the maintenance of the deepest tradition that Mr. Justice Holmes embodied.

That tradition was a faith in the creative possibilities of the law. For him law was an instrument of just relations between man and man. With an insight into its history that no American scholar has surpassed; with a capacity to mold ancient principles to present needs, unique in range and remarkable in prophetic power; with a grasp of its significance as the basis upon which the purposes of men are shaped, Mr. Justice Holmes sought to make the jurisprudence of the United States fulfill the great ends our Nation was established to accomplish. Our generation will not soon forget, as the learned the world over will long remember, his extraordinary achievements as judge, as historian, and as philosopher of the law.

The Congress will, I am sure, agree that it is fitting to utilize this opportunity to remind those who will come after us of our sense of the eminence of Mr. Justice Holmes. In so doing we do not merely commemorate the distinction of an American to whom the whole world has paid tribute. We also mark for posterity our pride in his faith in American democracy, his confidence in the power of our legal institutions to realize, when rightly used, the highest American ideals. Posterity which learns the significance of a life such as that of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., draws inspiration from its understanding.

I therefore commend to the Congress that the bequest of Mr. Justice Holmes be not covered into the general fund of the Treasury, but that it be set aside in a special fund at this time, and at a later date be devoted to purposes which will effectively promote the contributions which law can make to the national welfare. Once it is decided that the Holmes bequest be set apart for special use the precise object may await ample deliberation. A select committee of the Congress, acting in collaboration with a committee of the Supreme Court of the United States, will doubtless evolve the wisest uses to which this noble bequest should be put.