The only photo we have found of then-Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo and then-Governor Franklin Roosevelt together. The picture was taken on February 22, 1932. The occasion was commemorative exercises celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of George Washington, at Chancellor Hall, in the State Education Building, in Albany. A few days before the picture was taken, President Herbert Hoover (a Republican) nominated Cardozo (a Democrat) as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, to succeed Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. At the time, too, Roosevelt was preparing to run in November for President against Hoover. To the right of Cardozo in the picture was Nathan Miller, a former NY Governor, Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals, and NYSBA President.
Roosevelt, Cardozo, and Miller spoke at the event, which was broadcast to the nation via radio. There was particular interest in Cardozo’s remarks, a speech entitled “Washington, Constitution Builder,” as they represented his first public utterance since being nominated for the Supreme Court. It is a gem; classic Cardozo, stylistically and substantively.