Summer of SCOTUS 2: Gravesites and Tombstones

Announcer: Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor N. Rodgers: Hey Aughie. J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you? N. Rodgers: I'm good. How are you? J. Aughenbaugh: I am good in part because once again, we're doing another episode where we look behind the curtain of the United States Supreme Court. N. Rodgers: In this case, the final court. J. Aughenbaugh: The final court. N. Rodgers: Because we are talking about where our justices are buried. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Some of what's on some of their tombstones. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Which I want to ask now, okay, I should stop and say to the readers, to the listeners, sorry, you're not reading, you're listening, to the listeners of this podcast. I am one of those weird Southern people who knows where my family is buried and who regularly takes flowers to put on the grave sites. Because I am from a poor Southern family, we take plastic flowers because fresh flowers are expensive. J. Aughenbaugh: Expensive. That's right. N. Rodgers: But we have or we take flags or we take something else because we have lots of veterans in my family. Flags go out on the 4th of July, Memorial Day and Veterans Day to recognize those people. But that's a thing in the South and I don't know if it's true other parts of the country because I'm not from other parts of the country. J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, no. N. Rodgers: Where you're buried is a big deal because your family needs to come and put stuff on your grave. They need to put flowers, they need to put whatever it is. J. Aughenbaugh: I don't think it's just a Southern thing. It may be a rural. N. Rodgers: Rural versus the city thing. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Because I know, for instance, one of the upcoming holidays as we're recording this podcast is Memorial Day and my mother and my grandmother will be going to the cemetery where most of my mom's family is buried and quite a few of them served in the military. They will be doing as you just mentioned. They will be going to their tombstones. If the cemetery has not done a good job with upkeep, they will actually go and clean the stone and they will pull the weeds from around the tombstone. If they can afford it, they will plant fresh flowers. If they can't, they will do as you just suggested they will put really pretty fake flowers. Because it's Memorial Day, if the cemetery has not went ahead and stuck small miniature flags beside the tombstones of those who served in the military, my mom and grandmother will not only do it for our family members, but also friends of theirs who served in the military. Again, I grew up in rural North Central Pennsylvania. Cemeteries will be quite busy for the upcoming holiday. N. Rodgers: Yeah. My folks will go on Sunday after church. They will go and they will do all the stuff for all the family and then Monday they'll have a cook out. Then on the 4th of July, they will switch out what was done on Memorial Day for 4th of July, stuff. That will stay like there's holidays where you go and you do that. It brings me to the question of where the Supreme Court justices are buried. Because I have to assume that at least in many cases, they are buried near family. They are buried where family could do what we're talking about, could do this sort of upkeep and floral arranging that comes with, as we say, here in the South, taking care of your dead. There's not a cemetery for Supreme Court Justices. J. Aughenbaugh: Supreme Court Justices. That's right. Occasionally I get asked this question, Nia, are all the justices buried in the same place. I'm like, no. The burial places of the justices over 25 States and the District of Columbia, the state with the most supreme Court Justice burial sites is Virginia, which has 20, which is roughly about 1/5 of all the Supreme Court Justices. Fourteen of them are located at Arlington National Cemetery. Now Nia, you've done a little bit of research on this. Who can be buried at Arlington National Cemetery? N. Rodgers: Veterans, prisoners of war, and veteran's spouses. J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. N. Rodgers: If you served honorably, if you served at least one day in actual combat and you were honorably discharged, that's your military obligation or if you served in the reserves. Again, served honorably, because honorable is one of the keys here. Prisoners of war who served honorably, while as a prisoner of war served honorably in the military before 1993. I'm not sure why those are separated out. But yeah, it's basically veterans. You need to have been a veteran and you need to been an active duty veteran. You can't just have been always in the military, but I was pushing paper in Omaha. Not that there's anything wrong with Omaha. But you have to have been an active duty military person or their spouse. I was wondering where Ruth Bader Ginsburg was buried. In the Jewish tradition, I think you don't get your tombstone until a year. J. Aughenbaugh: Afterwards. N. Rodgers: Because then your family gathers to celebrate your life and they put up the tombstone and there's some religious ceremonies that take place. She's in Arlington Cemetery because her husband served in the military. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Because for her generation, very few women could actually serve in the military. By the way, in regards to Arlington, according to my research, the earliest justice to be buried there was Chief Justice William Howard Taft. He died in 1930. N. Rodgers: That's not the same Taft that was president? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Oh, okay. J. Aughenbaugh: He actually served in the Spanish American War. He's got one of the earliest, if you will, he is the early Supreme Court Justice. Also, remember this too readers, Arlington National Cemetery has not been around forever. N. Rodgers: No. J. Aughenbaugh: It was created by an act of Congress when? N. Rodgers: 1864? J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Okay. N. Rodgers: Also, would win right after the Civil War. J. Aughenbaugh: Right after the Civil War. N. Rodgers: Wait, was Arlington one of the General's properties? J. Aughenbaugh: General's, yes. N. Rodgers: Yeah, and founded by Edward Stanton who I think was the? J. Aughenbaugh: He was the Secretary of War in the Lincoln Administration. N. Rodgers: Oh, okay. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, Secretary of War. What you see, Nia, in regards to the burial sites, Supreme Court justices. Fourteen of the 20 that are buried in Virginia are at Arlington, there's also a number of them who were actually buried in or around Richmond. N. Rodgers: Yes. I was surprised to realize that there is somebody buried in Hollywood Cemetery. For people who are not from Richmond. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Hollywood Cemetery is a large cemetery that overlooks the James River. It's quite beautiful. It's got a lot of statuary. It has a giant pyramid which is for the Confederate soldiers. It commemorates the Confederate soldiers. There's a Confederate side of that cemetery and then there's a more modern side of that cemetery. If you're a person who doesn't creeped out by cemeteries, I am not, it's a lovely place to walk, and it's an interesting place to read the stones because a lot of stones have actual messages on them. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. But Justice Lewis Powell, who served on the Supreme Court in the 1970s through the mid-1980s, is actually buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. N. Rodgers: Well, and Peter Daniel- J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, Peter Daniel. N. Rodgers: is buried there as well. Then Chief Justice John Marshall is buried in Shockoe Hill Cemetery? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: If you look at several folk in Richmond, there's also several people buried, I think in DC? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Either the Rock Creek Cemetery, the Oak Hill Cemetery. For instance, the first Justice Harlan is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery. N. Rodgers: I'm pretty impressed with Louis Brandeis being buried at his school of law. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, that is at the University of Louisville. Okay, that is so. N. Rodgers: Now it should be noted for the record that most of these cemeteries back in the day were segregated? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I don't know how to word this particularly nicely, so I'm just going to say it. Black cemeteries were not as supported in terms of being cared for and being made and maintained. J. Aughenbaugh: They weren't maintained. The records for them are very shoddy. N. Rodgers: We've gotten better about that as a country, but for a long time, we were not. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, we were terrible. The other thing to note is many of our early Supreme Court justices were buried at either church cemeteries or cemeteries associated with churches. N. Rodgers: Right. Well, because that's really how cemetery started, I think in the United States was generally it was next to a church. People who went to that church got buried there. J. Aughenbaugh: I imagine you're probably going to get to this, so if I'm stealing your thunder, I apologize. I didn't recognize how many of these burial sites I had actually been to. N. Rodgers: How many have you visited? J. Aughenbaugh: Over 40. N. Rodgers: Oh my God. Is your bucket list to visit all of them? Okay, listeners, you're about to hear me ask Aughie a question, with a bit of side eye and a little bit of shade. Aughie, have you been to Justice Byron White's Cemetery? J. Aughenbaugh: I'm not entirely sure how I'm supposed to answer that. N. Rodgers: Isn't he your dissertation? J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, he's the subject of my dissertation. N. Rodgers: You didn't even make a pilgrimage to Denver? J. Aughenbaugh: No, because the last time I've been to Denver, Colorado, was in the early 1990s. N. Rodgers: He was still living? J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, he was still living in fact. N. Rodgers: Well, I'm going to say your list doesn't count until you've been out to see your- J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, because he didn't die until 2002. N. Rodgers: The focus of your inquiry. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. But a lot of my visits have been because geographically they've either been around where I lived or very close so that I could go ahead and visit. N. Rodgers: Pennsylvania and New York. J. Aughenbaugh: Pennsylvania and New York. N. Rodgers: Arlington. J. Aughenbaugh: Arlington, Maryland. In Nia, you and I are both fascinated by the fact that on some of these tombstones, some of the justices don't have any reference whatsoever that they served on the United States Supreme Court. N. Rodgers: Before we get there, I want to make a note. Nobody knows where Abe Fortas is buried. J. Aughenbaugh: That is correct. N. Rodgers: Justice who died in 1982. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Not like a billion years ago, but 1982. After he died, Justice Scalia, who is buried in Fairfax Memorial Park, the court did not tell anybody where he was buried and his family didn't tell them? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: It was the Internet that outed Justice Scalia, and told people where he was buried. I have to assume that part of that was that the family might have been worried that his grave site would have been desecrated. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: By people who are grumpy about Justice Scalia, who was a very divisive figure on the court sometimes, I'm going to state for the record right now, if you desecrate a grave, there is no excuse for you as a human being. Obviously pedophiles are worst and there are other people who are. But still don't mess with people's graves. That is so unacceptable. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, you get no quarter from either you or I for desecrating of a person's grave site. N. Rodgers: What monster are you? The grave site is for the living. This person's family had nothing to do with your grumpiness about their judicial rulings. Their family didn't do anything. J. Aughenbaugh: I don't know if I've ever told you this, and listeners, you're probably unaware. But for two summers of when I was in high school, one of my part-time jobs was to work mornings at a cemetery. I mowed yard. N. Rodgers: I was going to say were you a groundskeeper? J. Aughenbaugh: I was a groundskeeper. I mowed the yard, I used the weed beater around the tombstones, I weeded the flower beds, I cleaned up the beer bottles and the other paraphernalia from when kids would use the cemetery for, shall we say non-memorial purposes. N. Rodgers: Don't do that either. Don't be a jerk. Come on. J. Aughenbaugh: I think my appreciation for cemeteries and for grave sites originated from that work experience. When I would see family members come to pay honor to their dead family members, loved ones. How devastated they were if a tombstone was knocked over, or a flower bed was torn up, or there was an empty beer bottles of cigarettes or drug paraphernalia. N. Rodgers: Or tagged stones. People would actually spray painted stones. J. Aughenbaugh: I saw the devastation it had on these family members. I was just like, of all the ways to go ahead and register your objection to who a person might have been, do you really have to go ahead and bring in their family members and loved ones? N. Rodgers: Right. Because guess what? Dead person doesn't care. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: You're not hurting the dead person, you're just hurting the living. Anyway, separate issue. I'm assuming [inaudible] people outed his resting place, but it does look like it has been pretty much not damaged, which is a good thing. J. Aughenbaugh: The thing I was able to find in my research in regards to Abe Fortas' burial site, is that Abe Fortas was so hurt and crushed by what the series of events that led him to resign from the Supreme Court, that he really retreated from public life. For those listeners who don't know much about Justice Fortas. Abe Fortas was in many ways a classic American success story. His very Jewish family encouraged him to go on to law school. He became an attorney, he became a very well-known corporate attorney. But he was also involved in civil rights and civil liberties. He became a very well-known government attorney and had a very close relationship with President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who nominated him for the Supreme Court. But when Fortas was nominated to be Chief Justice, to replace Earl Warren, Southern Democrats and Republicans did not want him to become Chief Justice. His confirmation hearing is the confirmation hearing that many scholars, including yours truly believe, is when we saw the confirmation process become hyper politicized. N. Rodgers: Okay. J. Aughenbaugh: Because by almost every account, he had all of the qualifications. Heck, he'd already been confirmed to serve on the Supreme Court. He already had the qualifications to be a justice. They just didn't want him to become Chief Justice. They dug up some dirt. N. Rodgers: Something about speaking engagement, like taking money for speaking? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. For speaking engagements, which by the way, was not clearly unethical behavior at that time. But then it also came out that while he was a justice on the court, he was still providing informal advice to President Johnson. He probably shouldn't have done that. But again, at that time, there was no explicit or implicit norm that said that that was wrong. N. Rodgers: They just wanted to hurt Johnson. They used this to do it. J. Aughenbaugh: You still had a whole bunch of senators, conservative Democrats and Republicans, who were upset with the Warren Court. They didn't want one of the leading figures on the Warren Court of the 1960s to be promoted to Chief Justice. They got their payback. Knowing that they get payback in terms of him not being promoted to Chief Justice, then they drug up the allegations that he took money for speaking engagements of a person who wanted help with a securities and exchange investigation. At that point he was forced to resign. N. Rodgers: His cremated remains are buried in an unmarked common grave. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Which is an extraordinarily unfortunate end for a person who really didn't do anything to deserve what happened? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: If there had been questions about the money, then okay, we could talk about that. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. That is truly unfortunate. N. Rodgers: But you're right. Sorry to shift gears a little bit. You're right, that the justices now, I wonder and I want to ask your opinion, of the justices that are buried at the Arlington tent, so they're all military service. Or in the case of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the spouse of military service. They have their military service not at the top of their stone, but the first thing that you see when talking about really their accomplishments, what most of us would have on our stone is sister, mother, father, brother, whatever, like beloved, they have their Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy. Now in the case of John Paul Stevens, that's it. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: There is no mention whatsoever of having been on the Supreme Court, which I'm like, didn't you leave off something important? But even so, they have that before they have Supreme Court. Although most people would consider being on the Supreme Court, your pinnacle achievement. Do you think that's because it's in Arlington that the military service leads, or do you think it's because the justices felt it was the most important? J. Aughenbaugh: Arlington National Cemetery has quite a few, shall we say, rules. N. Rodgers: Are these custom rules like they're not rules written down, but they're the things that you just do? J. Aughenbaugh: No, these are actually stated rules. Written rules. N. Rodgers: Okay. J. Aughenbaugh: There are things that you can and cannot put on a tombstone for Arlington, and you have limited space. I don't know why Stevens did not include his service of the Supreme Court. But in regards to what profession, career, or work that you did, the first thing that can be listed is the military service. N. Rodgers: Okay. J. Aughenbaugh: It can be that you were the assistant secretary of state, even though you might have thought that that was more important in regards to your government service than being a sergeant in the army. N. Rodgers: You put sergeant in the army first. J. Aughenbaugh: Then any other. But it's limited in terms of how much space. With John Paul Stevens, I don't know why he didn't list that he was an associate justice on the Supreme Court for over 35 years. I just don't know. Because the other justices who are at Arlington have their service on the Supreme Court listed second. N. Rodgers: Now, Ruth Bader Ginsburg on her tombstone, first of all, there's Hebrew on their tombstone because it's two of them together. Apparently at Arlington, it's perfectly acceptable for you to have the emblem of your faith on your stone because they have a Star of David. Then he has an inscription. His inscription says, "May his soul be bound in the bundle of life." J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: But it has his service first. it has his name and then his inscription and his service. But she has Associate Justice and then her dates and then the United States Supreme Court. She does not have a memorial statement the way he does. J. Aughenbaugh: He does yeah. N. Rodgers: Which I think is interesting because that would have been her choice. He died first. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: There is some autonomy about what you can put. Like she was able to put a memorial statement for him on their stone. But what's interesting is above his name is the Star of David. I know that on Arlington stones you can have the service crest. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: The Navy, the Army. She has the Supreme Court crest on hers and it's really quite a beautiful stone. It's a Black stone which is also unusual at Arlington. Most stones at Arlington are gray or white gray. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: That's fascinating. But on Scalia's stone, I know, it's just those two happen to be so different in so many ways. His stone says, Scalia. It says Supreme Court Justice, does it? No, it doesn't. J. Aughenbaugh: It does not. N. Rodgers: It has his name and then it has Maureen's name. His wife with her hyphen and no finish date because Maureen is still alive and then it just has Scalia. There's no Supreme Court mentioned. I find that fascinating that somebody could spend that long on the Supreme Court and be like, hey, I don't belong on the stone. Maybe his accomplishment in life was being Maureen's husband and so their names together on the stone was sufficient. J. Aughenbaugh: The interviews that I have watched or listened to, whereas his family and his relationship with his wife have come up. He made it very clear that as far as within their nuclear family, she was the leader and it allowed him to basically go ahead and become Justice Scalia. But by his own accounts he attempted to attend as many of their nine children's school functions, etc. But he couldn't always make it. But she always did. N. Rodgers: The next passed justice, which is Supreme Court Chief Justice, William Rehnquist. He's done it super simple, but it is interesting to me, you're right. It says Sergeant US Army. Then it says Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Actually it says Chief Justice of the United States. He doesn't say Supreme Court, he says Chief Justice of the United States. J. Aughenbaugh: Again, I remember reading somewhere about Arlington National Cemetery is regulations. You only get so many letters or spaces. They have precise rules about this stuff. I find it pretty hilarious. But I also didn't know until I actually went to their burial sites at Arlington. You all listeners, you've probably have heard of the greatest generation. The sheer number of Supreme Court Justices from the World War II generation who served in the military and then went on to have extensive legal careers, etc., who are buried at Arlington. It is a huge number. N. Rodgers: I'm going to go with you. Not super surprising that people of that generation served because it was just the expectation. J. Aughenbaugh: Where they were, they ended up getting drafted. But interestingly enough, Byron White served in the military, in the Navy during World War II. He could have been buried at Arlington, but he's actually buried at his family church in Denver. N. Rodgers: Justice Powell, who you mentioned earlier, who's buried here in Hollywood Cemetery, does not have Justice of the Supreme Court on his stump. J. Aughenbaugh: No, he doesn't. N. Rodgers: It's fascinating to me what people. J. Aughenbaugh: What they put on their stones. N. Rodgers: What they thought was important for people to know about them in death. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: He just has his name and his wife's name. They don't, and obviously their dates. J. Aughenbaugh: But it but it doesn't shock me that Lewis Powell is that way because he was always understated in life. N. Rodgers: Oh, really? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. He was always very understated in life. N. Rodgers: Thurgood Marshall served in the military in World War II? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, he did. N. Rodgers: I did not know that. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, he did. N. Rodgers: It must have been infuriating to him to serve in the military and then come home and have the injustices? J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, sure it did. Thurgood Marshall, to me is fascinating for a number of reasons. He was a cut up in school. He frequently got in trouble. When I read that in biography is I'm like, I'm right there with you dude. Well done. But then he get serious and he did just absolutely phenomenal work. But he served in the military. When at times, race relations in the military were hardly any better than what they were in civilian life in the United States. I'm defending freedom, freedom of what? But, in some of these, and again I've been to a number of them some of these, like for instance, Robert Jackson's tombstone, it's a little cemetery up in Frewsburg, New York, that's upstate New York. You would hardly know that it was Justice Jackson's tombstone, because there's just a bunch of Jackson's from that community. N. Rodgers: I think what is interesting in death is that aside from the folks who are in Arlington, the ones who are in family cemeteries are one of a whole bunch of people from that family who were all in that cemetery together. It brings home their humanity as individuals, they are still part of a family. Someone's still going and cleaning off the grave and putting out the flowers and doing the things we were talking about. That's a very human aspect of them. But I think sometimes we forget they have because especially in the modern era, justices are seen in this larger-than-life way. Well, except that when they die, they just want to be with their people like everybody else. They just want to be in their hometown. Again, not the ones in Arlington, but everybody else. I just want to be in my church cemetery or I just want to be near my parents or near my spouse or whatever. That makes them, I think in some ways more endearing because they are so as a body secretive and closed off and other. J. Aughenbaugh: Without getting too biblical here. N. Rodgers: In death all men are equal. J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, yeah. Ashes to dust. N. Rodgers: You go back to. J. Aughenbaugh: Hopefully you did some good while you were alive. But death is the great equalizer. N. Rodgers: Yeah. Listeners, we're going to suggest to you that if you want to see a pocket of Supreme Court Justices, you could go to Arlington. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: They're not all buried together. There's not a section for justices. J. Aughenbaugh: There's not a federal judge wing, and there is not a president wing. N. Rodgers: They're mixed around the fewer near each other just by luck and happenstance, but we put all the justices over here. Arlington has an excellent guide where you can find the plot number and then go to the end. It's very laid out on a nice grid system, so it's easy to find. If you are going to go find people who are in church graveyards, keep in mind that, that is many times wildly disorganized, and for the very old records, there are no records. Finding that is going to mean a long walk around whatever cemetery that is in order to find that person's stone. J. Aughenbaugh: In some cases, they may not know. N. Rodgers: They may not know exactly where the person is, or like we said in the case of Abe Fortas, his is unmarked. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. I remember Justice Baldwin's burial site is in a cemetery in a little town in Pennsylvania called Meadville, which is not all that far from where I grew up. When I was getting interested in the Supreme Court, I went to the cemetery, it was Greendale Cemetery, and the superintendent of the cemetery was just like, "Son, we got five different sets of Baldwin's located here." N. Rodgers: You go had to just start walking. J. Aughenbaugh: I pretty much spend an afternoon going around checking out Baldwin's. But I wanted to go ahead and see and by the way, there was absolutely no marker that he was a Supreme Court Justice. N. Rodgers: Interesting too, also probably part of that may be if the family puts up the marker, it may not be what's most important to them about the person. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: It's more important to put father, brother. J. Aughenbaugh: Brother, whatever else they may have done. N. Rodgers: Yeah. It's interesting to think about when you die, what goes on your tombstone? J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: Some people are like, yeah, I don't bother with that Supreme Court thing. No, if I make the Supreme Court, I want that to be beyond across the top of my star. Supreme Court, I want it to blink. I want perhaps it to make music. I want that to be a known thing. I think that's also interesting too, when people are like, yeah, that's not really my jam. Don't put that on. J. Aughenbaugh: It's fascinating. My daughter, who's 10, went ahead and asked me, I think last year because I think we had just gone to visit her grandfather's grave site in Arlington. She asked me, "What would be on my tombstone?" I told her that I wasn't planning on having a funeral or having a tombstone or anything like that. I said I'll probably end up being [inaudible] . She was just aghast by this. But she goes, "What if you had a tombstone too, what would be on it?" I said, "Probably Mac's Daddy." She just looked at me. She goes, "That's the most important thing?" I said, "Well, probably by the end of it." But she goes, "What about being a college professor?" I said, "I don't know if anybody would really care that I was a college professor." N. Rodgers: What your lasting contribution to the world, maybe Mac. J. Aughenbaugh: That's right or something else. But it is fascinating because, again, for most of the tombstones, father of or beloved, whatever the case may be. But then sometimes you will just see these odd things. I remember one grave site and I can't remember for which of the justices, but somebody had been a secretary of agriculture for a state, and they put it on their tombstone. I was just like, "Well, I guess that must have been pretty important to either them or to their family." N. Rodgers: I'm going to stick with Chief Justice of the United States. Not of the United States Supreme Court, of the United States. I like it. I think that's great. I see on my tombstone it's going to say President of everything. J. Aughenbaugh: Secretary, Space Force. N. Rodgers: It's right. It's going to say Supreme Court Justice across the top in neon letters. Then it'll have my name. Then below that it will say Space Force. J. Aughenbaugh: Czar. N. Rodgers: Czar. Then underneath that it'll have President of everything. J. Aughenbaugh: Maybe Rehnquist was being a textualist, because Article II of the Constitution, it says the Supreme Court of the United States, which most scholars have concluded it was the framers way of distinguishing between the Supreme Court of the federal government with the Supreme Court's of the various states. Maybe Rehnquist was just being an Article III textualist. N. Rodgers: No, I think that was Marshall. J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, was a Marshall? N. Rodgers: I think it was Marshall that had the Chief Justice of the United States. I think it's a great thing, but anyway, thank you for talking to me about this. I am fascinated by what people have on their stone and what it says about them or their family or what was important to them. But if there is a listener in Denver, Colorado who wants to go take a picture of Byron White's stone, we will put it up on the research guide. J. Aughenbaugh: We'll put it up on the research guide. By the way, again, any listener in Denver, Colorado, he is buried at St. John's Cathedral in Denver. Yes. N. Rodgers: Wouldn't it be awesome if there was one of those big stone effigies and felt like with a sword and a whole thing that with the sword of justice. J. Aughenbaugh: A family crest on one side. N. Rodgers: Exactly. Big giant crypt thing, or a giant sarcophagus thing. J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, yeah. N. Rodgers: That would be cool. J. Aughenbaugh: That would be holy shocking to me if it was because of the more modern Supreme Court justices. If there was one who was very, shall we say, well, what's the word I'm looking for? Who didn't like to draw attention to themselves? N. Rodgers: It would have been Byron White. J. Aughenbaugh: It would have been Byron White. N. Rodgers: Hang on. We can find out. Look, I'm using the Internet. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, she's looking it up as we record the episode. N. Rodgers: Was his nickname Whizzer? J. Aughenbaugh: Whizzer White. Yes. You don't know the origin of that? N. Rodgers: I do not. Would you like to tell it to me, briefly? J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. When he was in college at the University of Colorado, he was a very well-known, accomplished football player, he was a halfback. They said he ran so fast. It was like he whizzed on by. That's how he got the nickname of Whizzer. He hated it. Once he got a Rhodes Scholarship to study law over in Great Britain, and you've got admitted into Yale, he absolutely hated being called Whizzer when he became a professional attorney. He was just like, "I'm just Attorney White. I am just Judge White." He hated the nickname. Yes, Whizzer White. N. Rodgers: Well, there's no picture on the Internet. J. Aughenbaugh: It doesn't shock me. Yes. N. Rodgers: Leap out to us if you can. There's anybody out there. He is in the All Souls Walk at St. John's Cathedral. J. Aughenbaugh: John's Cathedral. Yeah. N. Rodgers: Awesome. Thank you, Aughie. J. Aughenbaugh: Thank you, Nia. N. Rodgers: All right. We'll talk again. J. Aughenbaugh: Of course. Announcer: You've been listening to civil discourse brought to you by VCU Libraries. Opinions expressed are solely the speaker's own and do not reflect the views or opinions of VCU or VCU Libraries. Special thanks to the Workshop for technical assistance. Music by Isaak Hopson. Find more information at guides.library.vcu.edu/discourse. As always, no documents were harmed in the making of this podcast.