This photo captures a part of the ceremony, in the chamber of the New York State Assembly, celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the formation of the New York State Supreme Court. The date was May 28, 1941. A privately published book includes a transcript of the proceedings, which notes as participants: President Franklin D. Roosevelt; Governor Herbert Lehman; Chief Judge Irving Lehman of the Court of Appeals; Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfred Arthur Green, the Master of the Rolls of Great Britain; Professor Arthur L. Goodhardt of Oxford University; and John W. Davis.
Chief Judge Lehman organized the program, which included his brother (Governor Lehman) and Lehman family relation (Professor Goodhardt). The book was published by a private printing house (Overbrook Press) owned and operated by another member of the extended Lehman family.
The photograph shows Sir Wilfred Arthur Green, the Master of the Rolls of Great Britain, speaking from the raised podium. To his immediate right with white hair is John W. Davis, the former U.S. Solicitor General; candidate for U.S. President in 1924; and founding partner of Davis Polk. To Davis’ right, is Chief Judge Lehman. What’s remarkable about the photograph is that it is the only one known which shows Lehman wearing a hearing aid. He was then (and for much of his adult life) almost entirely deaf.