Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1994
Abstract
In the December 1955 issue of this Law Review, Justice Felix Frankfurter published a tribute to his late friend and colleague, Owen J. Roberts.' The tribute centered on what Frankfurter claimed was the text of a memorandum that Roberts wrote in 1945 to explain his conduct in the critical minimum wage cases of 1936 and 1937, Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo2 and West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish.' Scholars have often challenged the adequacy of Roberts's account of why he cast decisive votes for the conservatives in Tipaldo and for the liberals in West Coast Hotel.4 Until recently, however, no scholar has doubted that what Frankfurter published was, in fact, Roberts's account. But now, in an article published by the Harvard Law Review, Professor Michael Ariens makes the remarkable suggestion that Frankfurter-'Felix the Cat," Ariens calls him-fabricated the document.5 The suggestion is demonstrably false. It should be put aside and forgotten.
Recommended Citation
Friedman, Richard D. "A Reaffirmation: The Authenticity of the Roberts Memorandum, or Felix the Non-Forger (Justices Felix Frankfurter and Owen J. Roberts)." U. Pa. L. Rev. 142, no. 6 (1994): 1985-95.