Joseph McKenna: the Supreme Court justice who gave a shit
The best thing about being on the Supreme Court, I’m sure, is the invulnerability. You get to keep the job until you die or retire. It’s the ultimate job if you don’t give a shit about how people think of you and want to laze off and do your own thing, like Clarence Thomas.
So I was surprised when I read this part of the Wikipedia page for Joseph McKenna, the single Supreme Court justice appointed by William McKinley:
In 1897 he was appointed the 42nd Attorney General of the United States by President William McKinley, and served in that capacity until 1898.[4] He was then appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Justice Stephen J. Field. McKenna was named by President McKinley on January 28, 1898 and took his seat the next day. Conscious of his limited credentials, McKenna took courses at Columbia Law School for several months to improve his legal education before taking his seat on the Court.
To be clear, McKenna went to college, spent four terms in the House of Representatives, and five years on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, probably the second-most-important federal court in the country. Then he spent a year as Attorney General under McKinley. Congress didn’t have a problem approving him for the Supreme Court. But he still gave a shit, even though, by all rights, no one gives a shit once they make it to the Supreme Court.
