"Espionage Act of 1917" John Lord O'Brian Signed 5.5X3 Card For Sale

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"Espionage Act of 1917" John Lord O'Brian Signed 5.5X3 Card:
$349.99

Up for sale a RARE!  "Espionage Act of 1917" John Lord O'Brian Signed 5.5X3 Card. 

ES-7281E

John

Lord O'Brian (October 14, 1874

– April 11, 1973) was an American lawyer who held public offices in the

administrations of five U.S. presidents between 1909 and 1945. O'Brian has been

recognized by scholars for his commitment to civil liberties. At the time

of O'Brian's death at the age of 98, Chief Justice Warren Burger described him as the "dean" of

the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. John

Lord O'Brian was born in Buffalo, New York. He attended public schools there before

matriculating to Harvard College. After

receiving a bachelor of arts (A.B.) degree from Harvard in 1896, O'Brian

returned to his hometown and received a bachelor of laws (L.L.B.) degree from the University of Buffalo Law

School in 1898.

O'Brian's career in public office began at the age of 32, when he was

elected as a Republican candidate

to represent Buffalo in the New York State Assembly in

the election of November 1906. While in the State Assembly, O'Brian was

considered a consistent supporter of Governor Charles Evan Hughes Sr.

Hughes recommended O'Brian to President Theodore Roosevelt for

the position of United States Attorney for the Western District of New York; O'Brian left the State Assembly to take that

position in 1909. O'Brian served as the U.S. Attorney throughout the

subsequent administration of President William Howard Taft. O'Brian also continued in that office

into the administration of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, thus beginning a bipartisan path of serving as

an appointed office holder under both Republican and Democratic

administrations. In his role as the federal government's principal attorney in

western New York, O'Brian in 1913 filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the Eastman Kodak Company was

maintaining an unlawful monopoly on photographic films and

equipment. In

1915, O'Brian was a delegate to the New York Constitutional Convention. In 1917, O'Brian went to Washington,

D.C. to serve as a special assistant attorney general to Thomas Watt Gregory,

the U.S.

Attorney General under President Wilson. Gregory placed O'Brian

in charge of the Department

of Justice's newly-formed War Emergency Division, which was

responsible for enforcing the Espionage Act of 1917 and

later its amendments known as the Sedition Act of 1918.

Although responsible for enforcing these congressional acts, O'Brian

considered some of their provisions to be unconstitutional and declined to

defend those provisions in court. To control unfettered and inconsistent

enforcement of the statutes, O'Brian forbade local federal prosecutors from

filing charges of espionage, sedition, or treason without approval from his

Division in Washington.[12] Working with fellow Justice Department

attorney Alfred Bettman, O'Brian

shaped the Department's interpretation of the wartime statutes and the

prosecution strategy for enforcing them. In the words of historian Theodore

Kornweibel, O'Brian and Bettman "attempted to curb the most egregious

violations of civil liberties." To the extent that O'Brian considered

the statutes' provisions to be consistent with the U.S. Constitution, however, he played an active role in their

enforcement. For example, O'Brian personally argued on behalf of the United

States before the U.S. Supreme Court in the appeals brought by Charles Schenck (Schenck v. United States)

and Eugene Debs (Debs v. United States)

from their convictions for violating the Espionage Act of 1917. While

in charge of the War Emergency Division, O'Brian hired J. Edgar Hoover, who had just finished his legal education in

Washington. Impressed with Hoover's diligence, O'Brian promoted him to Special

Agent in charge of the Division's Alien Enemy Bureau. O'Brian later said

of hiring Hoover, "It is one of the sins for which I have to atone."   O'Brian

left the Justice Department in 1919 and returned to the practice of law in

Buffalo. Before the end of that year, he was mentioned as a potential Republican Party candidate

for Governor of New York. A

faction of Progressive Republicans in New York also tried to enlist

O'Brian to run in 1920 as challenger for the party's U.S. Senate nomination

against incumbent Republican Senator James Wadsworth Jr. Those

Progressives cited O'Brian's support for women's

suffrage as one of the reasons to prefer him to Wadsworth.[9] O'Brian, however, declined to seek that

nomination. With the election of President Herbert Hoover in 1928, O'Brian was considered for the

position of U.S.

Solicitor General, but was passed over in favor of Charles Evans Hughes Jr. Instead,

O'Brian served in the Hoover administration from 1929 to 1933 as the Assistant

Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. In

this role, O'Brian argued on behalf of the federal government (including

the Federal Trade Commission)

in more than 20 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Upon leaving

the Justice Department in 1933, O'Brian returned to private practice in

Buffalo. There his clients included Pierce-Arrow Motor Car

Company, which he counseled as the luxury car maker struggled to

remain in business during the Great Depression. In the later 1930s, the Tennessee Valley Authority hired

O'Brian as counsel to defend legal challenges to the constitutionality of the

federally-owned corporation. As lead counsel, O'Brian twice argued before the

U.S. Supreme Court in cases that upheld the TVA's legality. of 1938, O'Brian ran unsuccessfully as a Republican against

incumbent Democratic Senator Robert F. Wagner. At the 1940

Republican National Convention, O'Brian gave the nomination speech

for Thomas E. Dewey, saying

that Dewey could "be trusted to keep the country out of war." O'Brian

likewise said that Dewey was "a life-long" Republican, that is, not

like Wendell Willkie. 

"Espionage Act of 1917" John Lord O'Brian Signed 5.5X3 Card

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