Nice Content Letter From Charles
Evan Hughes About His Legal Activities As Supreme Court Special Master Deciding
a Major Environmental Case in 1927
This is a nice content letter from Charles
Evan Hughes explaining why he cannot give the Commencement Address at the
University of Vermont in 1927. Hughes was probably in high demand for suc
affair given that his most recent job was Secretary of State under Presidents
Calvin Coolidge and Harding and had previously served on the United States
Supreme Court and run for President of the United States in 1916. The most
interesting part of the letter is the explanation of his busy schedule which
prohibited him from giving the UVM commencement address.:
"This year has been an exceptionally hard
year for me because of the hearings in the suit between the States
relating to the Great Lakes and the Chicago diversion. At the request of
the United States Supreme Court I am acting as Special Master in this
suit and have just finished the taking of the testimony which has run up
to ten thousand pages. The final argument is to be made before me
at the end of May and at the beginning of June; then I must take up the
case for decision. In addition, I have an important argument in Richmond
just before the date of your Commencement and it would be physically
impossible for me to attempt this year to make such an address as you
desire.
The important lawsuit that Hughes was handling
for the Supreme Court involved the diversion of the waters of Lake Michigan to
whisk away the sewage the City of Chicago. Many states sued Chicago for the
diversion and states who benefited from the diversion joined on Chicago's side
to defend the suit. A December 1927 Time Magazine article explains the
background and result.
Monday, Dec. 05, 1927
Illinois Upheld
Under a permit dated March 3, 1925, Illinois and its
Chicago sanitary district have been drawing some 8,500 cubic
feet of water per second from Lake Michigan, to flush away
Chicago's sewage through a drainage canal emptying into the
Des Plaines River which enters the Illinois River, which
enters the Mississippi. Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan,
Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, complaining that Great
Lakes levels were injuriously lowered by this leak at
Chicago, sued to restrain Illinois in the U. S. Supreme
Court. To Illinois' aid came Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee,
Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. These co-defendants
maintained that Mississippi Valley navigation had been
benefited by the extra flow from Lake Michigan more than
Great Lakes navigation had been hurt by it.
The U. S. Supreme Court appointed its onetime member,
Lawyer Charles Evans Hughes, to be Special Master in this
suit, of which the ramifications affect Canada and U. S.
foreign relations. Last week Special Master Hughes reported.
Let the suit be dismissed, he said, for Illinois had done
nothing illegal. The water diversion permit, which expires
at the end of 1929, was properly issued by the Secretary of
War who had been properly empowered by Congress, with which
lies ultimate authority over national domain and waterways.
Should Illinois overstep her legal permit, let the Great
Lakes States then sue again. Before the permit expires and
necessitates a fight in Congress, let Chicago perfect its
water-purification so that diversion can be dispensed with;
or let weirs be built in the Niagara and St. Glair Rivers to
compensate the lake levels for such diversion as is
continued.
The letter comes with a nice provenance, a copy of
a letter from the addressee of Hughes' letter two days later to the President of
the University of Vermont transmitting the news that Hughes was unable to give
the University's Commencement address.
After our letter,
Hughes would again be appointed to the Supreme Court by Herbert Hoover in 1930
to be Chief
Justice and served for 11 years in that capacity. The letter shows the active legal life of Charles Evans Hughes between
stints on the Supreme Court and provides a glimpse of legal and
environmental history.
