July 9 is the sad anniversary of Benjamin N. Cardozo’s death, in Port Chester, NY, at the home of his friend, New York Court of Appeals judge (and later chief judge) Irving Lehman. Cardozo was 68. He had been in very poor health; he had missed all of the U.S. Supreme Court’s spring sessions.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt learned the news in Oklahoma City, where he was campaigning for pro-New Deal candidates. He hand-wrote these words, which then were released to the press:
For the Press
Immediate Release
July 9, 1938
Statement by the President
The news of the passing of Justice Cardozo
comes to me as a great personal shock.
Years ago when
he was
Chief Judge of the high court of New York, I
learned to admire him and to love him.
He had a great soul. The whole nation
has lost a constant friend.
Franklin D. Roosevelt