At the same time, Robert was about to take a giant step backward into the safety and familiarity of his pre-war life, in his old job at the family law firm. And he was going to uphold all the same traditions, while his father changed the future of the country from his seat on the Supreme Court. Somehow, Robert had the feeling that their roles should have been reversed. His father should have been upholding tradition and honoring the past, while he explored the future with fresh eyes. But that wasn’t who they were.
“That’s what this country is all about,” Bill reminded his family. “We have to fight the good fight, to help the underprivileged, protect the rights of those who can’t, and champion the underdog.” As he said it, he looked at his granddaughter, who was nodding as she listened to him, and he knew his words hadn’t fallen on deaf ears. However much her parents wanted to hold her to tradition, Justice of the Supreme Court William McKenzie had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen. Not with this child. There was a fire growing in her that one day nothing would stop. And he had every intention of fanning the flames.
Chapter Two
Coming back to New York was lonely for Meredith, and something of a shock. She had lost touch with her old school friends after she left. Alex was too young to know the difference, and adjusted to Adelaide quickly. She lavished affection on him, and he lapped it up. Janet had gone right back to her old life, with greater ease because Meredith was older and she didn’t need to spend as much time with her, and she hung out in the kitchen with Addie most of the time anyway. And Janet knew that Alex was in good hands. So she was free to play golf and tennis, and bridge with her friends two or three times a week. Although she’d been sad to leave their cozy family life in Germany, where Robert came home for lunch every day and so did the children, she was enjoying being back in New York.
And Robert was content being the senior partner of the law firm. At forty-four, he had a comfortable career and a life he loved. And it didn’t do him any harm to be the son of a Supreme Court justice. He was proud of his father, even if Bill wasn’t a Republican, predictably all his friends and partners teased him about it. He claimed that his father was the only Democrat he knew. His prestigious place at the Nuremberg war trials enhanced his career too. Robert was an extremely respected attorney, and his colleagues and clients were happy to see him back.
Shortly after their return from Germany, they all went to Washington to see Robert’s father sworn in as a Supreme Court justice. They left New York on the train, and the entire event fascinated and thrilled Meredith, who was so proud of her grandfather. Her mother and grandmother had new dresses for the occasion, and wore beautiful hats, and Meredith had a new dress too. Her grandfather had explained to her all about the Supreme Court, and had shared some of the building’s history with her, and given her a little book about it, which she had studied diligently. She informed her parents on the trip down from New York that the Supreme Court Building had taken three years to build, was completed in 1935, fourteen years before, and was designed by architects Cass Gilbert Sr., Cass Gilbert Jr., and John Rockart. But nothing she had read about it had prepared her for the beauty and grandeur of the impressive structure and surroundings the morning they arrived for her grandfather’s swearing-in.
The exterior was made of Vermont marble, and the finest natural materials of the country had been used. There were four inner courtyards of crystalline flaked white Georgia marble, each with a central fountain, and the walls and floors of all the corridors and entrance halls were of creamy Alabama marble. The wood used in the offices throughout the building was American quartered white oak. Meredith remembered all the names of the different kinds of marble from the book she had read, but seeing them in front of her was a stunning experience.
The main entrance to the building faced the Capitol Building. The Supreme Court Building was designed to harmonize with the important monuments around it. There was a 252-foot-wide oval plaza at the front of the building, and flanking the shallow steps that led to it were a pair of marble candelabra with carved panels depicting Justice holding a sword and scales, and the three Fates weaving the thread of life. Fountains, flagpoles, and benches lined both sides of the plaza. Janet had to urge Meredith to keep up with them, as she stopped to stare at the majesty of it all. And on either side of the main steps there were seated marble figures, and Merrie informed her parents that the statues were by James Earle Fraser, and that the female figure on the left was the Contemplation of Justice, and the male figure on the right was the Guardian or Authority of Law.
The pediment at the main west entrance was supported by sixteen marble columns. On the architrave above was carved “Equal Justice Under Law.” And capping the entrance was Robert Aitken’s sculpture group representing Liberty Enthroned, guarded by Order and Authority.
Double rows of monolithic marble columns flanked both sides of the main corridor inside—the Great Hall—rising to a coffered ceiling. Busts of all former chief justices were set alternately in niches and on marble pedestals along the side walls.
“Will they put a statue of Grampa there one day?” she asked her father, staring at them.
“I’m sure they will,” he said, smiling at her, touched by how avidly she had studied every detail about the art and architecture, and how reverent she was. She wanted to visit the old court chamber, the original one, in the Capitol too, but they didn’t have time that day. Her grandfather promised to take her on her next visit.
At the east end of the Great Hall, the doors opened into the court chamber. It was a huge room eighty-two feet wide and ninety-one feet long, with a forty-four-foot ceiling that soared above them. Its twenty-four columns were Old Convent Quarry Siena marble, from Italy. The walls and friezes were of Spanish ivory vein marble, and the marble floor borders were from Africa and Italy.
Meredith and the entire family stopped and stared with awe at the raised bench, behind which the nine justices normally sat. The bench and all the furniture in the courtroom was a rich mahogany. And the attorneys who argued cases occupied tables in front of the bench. They would then address the bench from a lectern in the center, which Robert pointed out to them. And there was a bronze railing to divide the public section from that of the Supreme Court bar. Press would be seated on red benches on one side of the courtroom, and identical red benches on the opposite side were for guests of the justices, and black chairs in front of the benches were for officers of the court and important guests.
The main floor of the building was divided between the justices’ chambers, conference rooms, and offices for law clerks and secretaries. The offices of the marshal and the solicitor general were on the main floor as well, along with a lawyers’ lounge, and the justices’ robing room.
Robert and his family stopped when they reached the justices’ conference room, where his father would take the first oath that morning. The chief justice, Fred Vinson, was going to administer the constitutional oath, and family members could attend. Bill had asked his son to hold the Bible for him, which was a tradition, and several associate justices would be in attendance. Meredith stood riveted as she watched the proceedings, and was silent and solemn as they moved to the west conference room with the small gathering of Bill’s family and friends, for the chief justice to administer the second oath, the judicial oath, which would conclude the official proceedings of the day. The formal investiture would happen several months later in the courtroom, at a special sitting of the court. After Chief Justice Vinson administered the second oath, Bill posed for photographs with his family and the other justices present.