Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Fair Labor Lawyer 20160906

According to the preface, he didnt take notes and then he lost the first two he got burned up and still wrote it. If you read the book it has enormous detail about the sand a dunes and what happened on the day of the movement. I dont know how he could possibly remember all of it. Its some of the most elegant writing ive ever read, so i read at night to go to sleep and i read a little bit of the seven pillars of wisdom and after zonkars of wisdom and after you have enough airplane time to read . I dont read much on the plane. I go back and forth to tennessee. Nd thats about an hour. So i usually read a newspaper or catch up on work or sleep. I read when im by myself and at night before bed or sometimes early in the morning. Or in the summer i go fishing for a couple of weeks and ive take some books to read. Mrs. Alexander is also a reader. Big time. She loves to read. We went to a discussion recently and she was talking about her list of the best which she had done for parade magazine and as she went through them i knewin every one of them. Senator Lamar Alexander and former University President , appreciate your time on book tv. Good afternoon everyone. I am a member of the archive staff at the Franklin Roosevelt museum and on behalf of the museum i would like to welcome you to the 2016 reading festival. Franklin roosevelt planned for the library to become the institution for the studying of the entire roosevelt era thats one of the busiest of all into this years group of authors reflects the wide variety of research done. If you love the reading festival and want to support this and other programs do i encourage you to become a member and please consider us for the programming later this month. You can learn more about the membership at fdr library. Org. Let me go over the format for the festivals concurrent sessions. Then the authors will move to the table in the lobby after the new deal store where you can purchase your books and have the office find them and at the top of the next hour if you have a question please use the microphone located at the left side of the room and the author will call on me with your questions. Now that is my pleasure to introduce marlene for the authof the fair labor lawyer. Bessie is a writer of history at the new orleans jewish homes 1855 to 194 1946 pager on the personal experiences at age 11 she was a ward of the agency that seceded the home that he was raised a half century earlier. The two men spent time together while they attended college and George Washington University Law school and started her legal career. A former special assistant to the attorney general in the Consumer Protection laws governing tobacco, alcohol and internet safety adviser and Exceptional Service awards. For her writing she received funding for the National Endowment for the humanities, the American Jewish archives and a literary award from the Supreme Court to go society. Please join me in welcoming marlene trestman. [applause] thank you. It is an honor to be here at the library. It wasnt even a twinkle in my eye. Im grateful and very honored to be here. The biggest issues of her day she served on the brilliant legal team that defended the constitutionality of fdrs new deal Tennessee Valley authority. She drafted rules for the war crimes trials, and for more than three decades she championed the fair labor standards act ultimately including the equal pay act and was a founder of the National Organization for women. Entrusted with the Labor Departments litigation, she presented 24 arguments at the Supreme Court one of only three women in the 20th century to do so and she prevailed in 21 of them. For 20 years solicitors generals assigned those arguments to her and she does the last Labor Department lawyer to receive the distinction. She began her legal career in 1930 when only 2 of americas lawyers were women. She served in the federal government under six president s from fdr to nixon and nine labor secretarys starting with frances perkins. She received every award of the Labor Department offered and by 1963 was promoted to associate solicitor in the top nonpolitical legal possession. In short, before there was a notorious rvg as Justice Ginsburg has been called. After retiring in 1972, however, she stated from the Public Record its not hard to understand why she deserves to be rescued from obscurity by would like to explain how i came to the task. In the fall of 1974, i was a freshman in baltimore ar far frm my home in new orleans. My High School Guidance counselor had written as a distinguished alumni from the class of 1925, the letter of introduction shown here. Through college, law school and into my legal career i got to know the first female voyeur i ever met and we were connected by common childhood experiences. We were words of the same Welfare Agency which educated us at the school and half a century apart. She personified excellence in the wall and Public Service at the time when attorneys were discouragethe attorneys weredist prevented from pursuing opportunities available t to men and while protecting the rights of millions of American Workers she also advanced to the careers of countless government lawyers and employees many of whom sought out her prestigious and demanding tutelage. The chief judge of marylands court of appeals and the federal Fourth Circuit and a former solicitor general offered only two suggestions for lawyers seeking a career in federal appellate practices. They should work in the office of the solicitor general of the office of bessie. I would like to share her journey from the beneficiary of social justice to its powerful advocate and along the way i will offeivewill offer just a s of wonderful resources here at the library that enabled me to understand the journey. These were resources that preserved the needles of her remarkable life amid the haystacks of the more celebrated individuals. In the home bessie grew up with more than 150 other orphans from the deep south. The trustees were not content to provide them with mere subsistence instead they grew address the allamerican girl to put on on the local Jewish Community to reflect the values and culture of her prosperous benefactors. And in addition to religious education that preached and mottled social justice the home provided bessie a robust secular education at the Training School where the cutting huge edge curriculum and the size to manual skills like woodworking and Home Economics as well as rigorous academic. The home built this unique school to educate its own also ignited new orleans children of all religions with parents paying tuition it quickly became one of the souths finest college pasquales planned fare best c. Excelled in every subject graduating from newman 1925 as the 16 yearold leader who was comfortable in a colead the setting in competing in succeeding and winning respect besides leading the debate club she was valedictorian and will honest scholarship to attend college the twolane college courted college of women she spent two years their ranking among the top 10 in her class but she wanted more she decided to attend law school something no other girl from the orphanage had ever done as the Tulane Law School only woman she felt isolated and selfconscious but she and her male classmates indigested to each other. When a professor assigned a tort case nobody wanted to resize the facts of the case because they were embarrassed to use the word to waylay in mixed company 114 fellow blurted out the of word washroom they all side with relief she completed her liberal arts and loss studies with honors in only five years and graduated second in her class and for his editor of the law review. Pas the Tulane Law School dean urged deal Law School Dean clarks to higher offer or award for a fellowship for graduate studies he found her worthy of a job but refused to consider her for a fellowship because he did not want to encourage her to pursue a career teaching law that simply did not exist for a woman. Harris assured clark she was a levelheaded girl who knows something should be taken as they are or so he thought. With her fate determined by did to deans she accepted a Research Position was a expert of comparative law in conflict. While in new haven she impressed both him and a faculty member William Douglas the future Supreme Court justice in with their help she overcame the earlier opposition and became the first woman awarded hillel sterling fellowships for graduate studies. With her yale doctorate she moved to washington for a new opportunity and applied for a job at the Tennessee Valley authority that congress had just created to realize the fdr new deal vision to supply electricity to the most impoverished residents. Among her letters of recommendation the professor wrote a letter to convince them to hire their first woman lawyer she was intentionally legal career for which she would not be deflected from considerations of marriage says she began her federal government career she would be married to her job instead of a man. Fearing tva competition they through charges that quickly turned into lawsuits to defend the new deal cornerstone t6 hired a harvard law graduate and trial lawyer from the justice apartment and sly made bessie a key member of the brilliant legal team to landmark Supreme Court cases to establish the legality of the tva Power Program and the Tennessee Electric Power Company to overshadow the legal work of the early years and she research temporary witnesses in both cases and her other tva worksheet negotiate contracts to get quorum experience through despite fierce resistance for a woman lawyer from local attorneys and judges and witnesses. Bessie won the respect for colleagues including herbert who was in the top left of the phototubes serve as general counsel to the Atomic Energy commission and who is papers i research here at the of library. How does she feel of large chosen professor and profession . She shared her thoughts with considerable prejudice against them she offer the nononsense advice, a womans attorney mismanage be accepted and treated as another man and willing to take responsibility criticism and hard work in the same spirit as to the men attorneys and aim to become one of the men without becoming masculine overly aggressive in her approach. Shipwrecked just what she preached. March 1939 she joined the Labor Department for another great new deal program waited the fair labor standards act of 1938 in vote federal commerce powers to prohibit child labor and guarantee minimum wages. She was there with every new aspect was tested the first week she traveled home to new orleans where she won a motion to quash the subpoena but then she returned several times including the Supreme Court found lawsuit to challenge the minimumwage for textile workers that was 0. 32. 5 per hour the press loved her local orphan girl story one fulllength photo captures her in a post that is more cheesecake why wasnt she married . The reporter recounted her response. I havent had time for love. Then she smiled but not immune im just uncontaminated. Brushing back of lock of hair so far she added will hurt remarque merits several notes it was very witty like from the movie revealing her passion for wordsmith. She did not seem defensive or selfconscious of being single and it wasnt true. I will digress to talk about her personal life and doesnt fit with in her career history precisely illustrates the challenges she faced as a professional will never time. Of her time she was engaged to her classmate bob butler broke off late 1933 surprising no one who knew her except bob. Little did he realize his dream to marry her was doomed from the start when he gave her a book inscribed to my sweetheart to best she inscribed in the margins with extensive passages from Virginia Woolf recent feminist essay extolling the importance of women having space literally and figuratively. And then there was larry hurt tva boss married with two children and in their affair was a widespread secret with colleagues and his wife and her as daughter remarkably the romance did not impede his supervision they praised semaphore running one of the best law departments inside of government nor did they ever say that he favored her at tva with a promotion she did not merit. The romance had other consequences for margolin and sly appointed chair of the fcc and in 1943 georgia congressman and cox commandeered a Congressional Committee to investigate the fcc accusing sly and the agency of gestapo tactics to control the of media and other american activities. Cox investigators scrutinized thereby travel vouchers to uncover the honeymoon trips they took together a government expense and interrogated bessies housekeepers and landlords and coworkers but before coxey ever questioned publicly of congressmen rayburn and johnson interceded. He reportedly told cox there aint going to be no sex in this investigation there are too many of us that her vulnerable on that score laugh laugh although he obliged her romance kept resurfacing. 1947 her membership in the National Lawyers guild and other liberal groups best raised a red flag from the government loyalty bird to refer the matter to the fbi. All the data uncovered no evidence of disloyalty agents learned that bessie was sly is mistrust that they recorded in her file. And her loyalty was again questioned in the 50s the charges were again dismissed but only after the fda revisited her file and illicit love affair. The affair resurface one more time in the 60s when president johnson considered bessie for federal judgeships. Responding to a name check request the fbi sent a memo to the white house to summarize the prior investigation including nearly set love affair from two decades earlier. There are least three lessons she should have learned from romance. Dont get involved with the director. We very discreet in dont be involved with a married man. She hated the first to when she fell in love with bob the general counsel to the interstate Commerce Commission he was not heard direct report all the way professional colleague who argued dozen more times that the Supreme Court and she did and she was very discreet. Friends and family were stunned when bessie announced 1981 after bobs wife died that they planned to marry. Bloodily because they were both in their seventies and everyone figured she would never marry but mostly because no one knew anything about the relationship which started two decades earlier. Sadly he died in 1984 before they realized their plans for marriage. When the trauma to the personal life never impeded her work in her early years at the Labor Department xipe do reduce traveling in reviewing time sheets in visiting backroads to organize the Labor Departments regional offices to train the regional attorneys and began arguing and winning appeals in the Circuit Court and started to work with the Solicitor Generals Office headed for the Supreme Court for highquality work earned her reputation of the solicitor general the future appellate judge to newspapers are preserved here at the library was delighted with a brief she principally wrote in her help to prepare him for his Supreme Court argument when he learned she already argued in every federal circuit across the country country, he promised she ted argue the next fair labor standards case to go to the Supreme Court. March 1945 only the 25th woman ever to argue that the Supreme Court, margolin argued speaking to ensure the act protected the warehouse employees of the interstate grocers torching. Store chain. Justice Robert Jackson marked the occasion with a thoughtful note the first of several he wrote over the years. I hope youre satisfied with the way the court to argue your first case in any event of every reason to feel satisfied with the way you took care of yourself under fire. I am sure there is no dissent from the opinion that you should argued here often. She won the case establishing that fair labor standards act exceptions must be narrowly construed. In 1945 alone she argued for more times at the Supreme Court and prevailed in three of them. These are the cases that she argued advance to the tax humanitarian purposes by extending coverage and restricting exemptions to protect wage earners from the fullest extent congress intended. When bessie presented the fourth and fifth Supreme Court argument Justice Jackson was not on the bench. Guest is in nuremberg as the chief prosecutor for the nazi war crimes appointed by president truman to weeks after fdr is that this new and exciting legal pursuit attracted bessie who in may 1946 when Turner Berger to help organize the American Military tribunal. For six month tour of duty the Army Commanding officer acknowledged bessies primary role to draft the rules that govern the remainder of the nazi war, not crime trial including the judges and the doctors and the industrialists. Nee, in december 1946 bessie return to the Labor Department to resume her work as assistant solicitor and epitomize the post war ideal of a glamorous career girl as depicted here in the january 1948 issue of glamour than known as the magazine for the girl with the job. But glamour did not interfere by the time she retired 1972 she directed the preparation and review of approximately 600 Supreme Court and Appellate Court briefs with an addition 150 petitions for review. Most impressive, Bessie Margolin briefed impersonally argued 177 cases in both the Supreme Court and Circuit Court. Of the 150 Circuit Court cases she argued she had favorable rulings and 114. Only one of which the Supreme Court later reversed and it was argued by someone argued other than margolin. Of the cases that she lost a Supreme Court later reversed seven in the governments favor six of which she argued. She was no great orator betting gauge the justices who respected her meticulous preparation and encyclopedic knowledge of the fair labor standards act and was able to employ humor, not often done with success at the Supreme Court. In this audio clip you will hear bessies bar with justice frankfurter where she successfully argued that battery plant workers whose jobs involve contact with toxic chemicals had a right to wages for the time they spent it showering and changing clothes all you cannot hear everything he is saying you can hear justice frankfurters and audience with congress for imposing on the court which he considered an undue burdens of interpretation in noisy frequently read directed at bessies. Many say that the question should be for congress and not the court the congress has 500 people after get into agreement on main bridge with the court it is just nine. [laughter] i am sure justice i need to tell you that language is something that you need to make clear. In this 1960s clip, you will hear how comfortable bessie was with the justices probing her questions and positions to dissect her argument. Here you will hear her play in having fun with the way the Justice Whitaker worded one of his questions. An opportunity to straighten out. All last this question. Did you stand under actions. I dont fall on either. [laughter] she won the case ace eight one with whitaker providing the loan dissent as for frankfurter despite the banter you heard they enjoyed a cordial relationship outside the courtroom. Frankfurter inscribed a copy of his book to her, for Bessie Margolin who pleases me more often than i through no fault of mine please her perk and decided to pursue a federal judgeship as a particularly audacious pursuit given the fact there were only two women federal judges in the country but clinton did cst support from congress the Supreme Court and the Labor Department her name was considered by lbj himself. It is unclear if any role her affair played in the decision but she faced other hurdles. One male white house staffer criticized her fashion for appearance in another said that her age of 58 would preclude her from consideration. By 1960 she was passed over 15 federal judicial youll vacancies all filled by men and seven were older than she was. The Silver Lining for her not to get the judgeship is that she remained at the Labor Department promoted in 1963 to associate solicitor for trial litigation and appeals in developed a strategy in personally argue the first appeals under the equal pay act and age discrimination employment act. By the time she retired 1972 she oversaw the filing of 300 equal pay act lawsuits altman uncovering nearly 4 million for the 18,000 employees and earning the title of the nations number one fighter for equal pay for women. One such battle was the margolin most significant appellate victory that was like into a second round the board of education. Issue is able to convince the third Circuit Court of appeals to overrule a trial court to establish a precedent that remains in existence today that work need only be substantially equal and not identical to warrant equal pay under the acapulco but the company sought review from the Supreme Court in next you will hear at her retirement dinner 1972 how they describe what happened next. As i told you with the decision that was sweeping in scope saw a footnote that says he will give you anything you want dont send her down again. [laughter] and counsel for the other side petitioned and we discussed at. You could see the light skin in the eyes sweeping decision of the Third Circuit as an opportunity to go to the Supreme Court saying we should not oppose it wide never thought we would get a decision that was better than that. I dont think theyre trying to be is terrorizing in the Third Circuit although there is another speaker this evening that can talk to that point. But i figure the way to deal with the problem i just said i have never argued a case that the Supreme Court. [laughter] she did not want anyone else to argue at the Supreme Court if she couldnt set the retirement dinner the chief justice retire with the guest speaker and credited it bessie with having put the flesh on the bare bones of the fair labor standards act to be wholly inadequate without the implementation that margolin forged in the courtrooms of our land it is hard to talk with the chief justice said so this is the one concluding comment. Costs fair labor lawyer prefers literally to the new deal legislation that she shepherded through the courts but also refers to the fairness of her career and the obstacles she faced as a woman, the opportunities of influential support this plan dash supporters of for charm and personal life. The title also represents the challenge that i impose on myself to restore her place in history in to do justice to tell her remarkable story i hope by have succeeded they give your attention. [applause] with the time remaining and be happy to answer questions. Could you say more about the orphan home and was sustained that for so many years . And still does . The close to 1946 which was the byproduct of the new deal legislation the Social Security act made it possible for surviving parents to have some form of welfare income to keep the kids at home also coupled with the new notions that children should be kept in families but the orphanage transformed into a special Service Agency but it continues to serve the route the deep south. That the impetus of the yellow fever epidemic the worst in history