Louisville Again

Louisville Again

The pretext for this trip to Louisville was the completing of a portrait of Justice Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice from 1916 to 1939. I had been encouraged to paint him by Laura Rothstein, dean of the Louis D. Brandeis Law School at University of Louisville. After reading lots of biographical material about him, I agreed that he was a perfect choice. Early in his career as a Boston lawyer ( he was born in Louisville) he had made a reputation as a fighter for the interests of the common man.
He talked about and opposed what he called the Curse of Bigness. What he meant was that any large accumulation of wealth acted to preserve and enlarge itself. The “Big” used its power and influence to maintain its power and influence. It made sure its friends were elected and laws were written to benefit its interests. It became the enemy of democracy.
For the first half of his career on the Supreme Court Brandeis was usually in the minority. But his dissents in important cases often became law later, but during the Depression the Court often supported FDR’s attempts to protect the rights and welfare of poor people, and Brandeis found himself in the majority.
Brandeis became famous for what came to be called the Brandeis Brief --- long sociological investigations of the way laws played out in the real world. He stressed that laws were not abstract, that they affected real people in real ways and those effects had to be taken into consideration.
The portrait of Justice Brandeis was unveiled at the Law School on May 26th, and I was given the opportunity to speak about him to an audience of law professors and some of the Brandeis family. First I talked about the portrait series in general and what kind of company I was putting him in. Then I spoke about how some of Brandeis’s ideas would play out today --- particularly the quote that I chose to put on the portrait that came from one of Brandeis’ most famous dissents in the Olmstead v. US case ( 1928):

“Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means-to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal-would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.”

If one believes that statement to be true, --- as I do --- then one is compelled to insist that the crimes of our previous administration ( Bush) be investigated.

Earlier in the day I had the opportunity to speak to about 120 students in the Magnet Career Academy of Central High School, Muhammad Ali’s alma mater. This program is run by Joe Gutmann, former Louisville prosecuting attorney, who, after 9-11, decided that he would rather teach history and law in a poor high school than put kids in jail. Laura Rothstein from the Brandeis Law School comes in to help teach in Gutmann’s program. The Central High students had written essays about some of the people in my portraits & the girl who won the essay contest with her essay about Mark Twain introduced me. Great program & exciting students. It raises the level of expectation for the students and grooms them for careers in law.

On May 29th, back in Maine, I returned to Reeds Brook middle school in Hampden for the closing event. The students in the gifted & talented program had finished reports about 14 portraits & done art work in response to them. Their parents & the community was invited. Some of the art responses were --- a cardboard bus made in response to William Sloane Coffin who had been one of the first Freedom Riders in the south to end bus segregation. Many famous civil rights leaders were looking out of the bus windows.
Three students had made two papier-mâché mountains for Erik Reece’s portrait, an activist against mountaintop removal. One mountain was intact, the other was missing its top and blood ( red paint) was running down its sides.
Some other students made a clay fist & painted it pink in honor of Medea Benjamin.
She’s a co-founder of Code Pink, women against war.
And two boys had made a marvelous pixilated version of the portrait of Pete Seeger so that if you looked closely each little square had another picture in it of Pete singing or of peace marches or peace signs.
Great work!