He was a quiet boy, became a quiet man, unless talking criminal procedure, football, or big ideas. He called himself a Democrat, but today would be a Republican. He had many lives: Rhodes Scholar (Oxford), professional football player (Detroit Lions), U.S. Naval Officer (WWII), U.S. Supreme Court Justice. They just called him “Whizzer.”
Not long ago, only last century, kids were taught lessons in excellence. Work hard and things work out, stay fit, mentally tough, morally centered. Look ahead eagerly, rise early, turn hope into action, apply yourself. When you fall – get up. Whizzer did all that.
His parents and a small farm town taught those values. Whizzer took them to heart. Born in 1917, they defined his entire generation – The Greatest – and defined the American Dream – conceive, believe, and work, have faith, love freedom, prosper.
Whizzer’s brother, who taught the same values, was also a Rhodes Scholar, but Whizzer went further. An All-American halfback, he was runner up for the Heisman in 1937, drafted (NFL) in 1938, and led the league in rushing as a rookie.
His life was twists and turns, as so many lives are. He listened for God’s direction, took nothing for granted, set his own standards, college valedictorian, Rhodes Scholar, Yale Law School’s top student, played for the Detroit Lions, then U.S. Navy intelligence officer in WWII (Pacific), LCDR with Bronze Star (bravery). Duty defined him.
After law school, he clerked, briefly volunteered on JFK’s campaign. JFK did not forget; he nominated him later for the U.S. Supreme Court. There, Whizzer served 30 years on the High Court, wrote remarkable – often unpredicted – opinions.
Faith, freedom, family, hard work, always reaching higher defined him, not ideology, just what he thought morally right.
He thought schools should be desegregated; the prejudice stopped. He opposed judges inventing laws, pretending “substantive due process” allowed activism.
He dissented in Miranda and again in Roe v. Wade. He counted States’ rights real, sought to prevent too much federal power, yet recognized necessary powers. Some say he disappointed Kennedy, but he was profoundly independent.
What makes “Whizzer White” so remarkable, in the modern context, is his personal code and relative disinterest in politics; he seldom talked about it.
He cared more about hard work, not judging others. He smoked all his life, a habit picked up in his teens harvesting crops, shoveling coal, and working construction.
A paradox of sorts, he was a lifetime athlete and scholar. Later observed that his life philosophy was “do your work and don’t be late for dinner,” a nod to his mother.
Again, not popular today – except among the Supreme Court majority – he did not like activism, did not want sweeping pronouncements, but limits. If he saw federal powers as justified, he vigorously opposed any court “imposing its own philosophical predilections” on the task of impartially interpreting the law.
An irritant to Democrats, he wrote the strongest dissent to Roe, denouncing it as “an exercise in raw judicial power…interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life.” He opposed Planned Parenthood’s culture of abortion promotion and would celebrate Dobbs as a return to constitutionalism.
In another case, he was a sharp critic of judicial activists; he would be so today. He wrote “The Judiciary, including this Court, is the most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or even the design of the Constitution.”
Much can be said about this great American’s commitment to original, independent, and scholarly thought, his view that judges have a limited role, no runaway opinions – that overstretched jurisdiction becomes pure fiction.
He died 23 years ago, but his words resonate. In closing, more should be said about his scholarship, hard work, and living the American Dream – doing what we can with what God gave us, not making excuses, wasting time, or giving up.
Many years on, toward the end of his life, he was spotted – in his 80s – sitting and reading in a public library. So the story goes, he was recognized by a young admirer, who found it hard to believe a Supreme Court Justice was reading a book in the public library.
“Aren’t you Justice White?” he was asked. “Yes, I am,” he replied. “But Justice, but why are you here, in a public library, reading a book?” Whizzer did not miss a beat, consistent with his life’s commitment to excellence. “I am trying to improve my mind.” If only we could teach that simple idea, live it ourselves more often.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
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