The Green Bag Volume XXII
April, 1910
Number 4
Chief Justice Baldwin’s Retirement HE personnel of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut has under gone important changes. Chief Justice Simeon E. Baldwin was retired in accord ance with the constitutional provision
or that he be sent to Congress.
The
newspapers have thought that he would make a splendid Democratic candidate for Governor. But doubts are expressed
that no judge shall hold oflice after arriv
whether his election could be hoped for in a state overwhelmingly Republican.
ing at the age of seventy. He was succeeded Feb. 7 by Chief Justice
He has said that he is not a candidate for any political ofiice:——
Frederic B. Hall of Bridgeport.
The
Vacancy occasioned by Judge Baldwin’s retirement was filled by the elevation to the Supreme bench of Judge Silas A. Robinson of the Superior Court. Justice Robinson, after six months of service,
will also have to retire on account of the age limit. Judge Baldwin's retirement has been marked as is not often the case when the leader of a state judiciary leaves the bench by general recognition, from all
"The next campaign is a long way ahead. I follow Sydney Smith’s philosophy and take short views of life. I don't cross bridges until I come to them. My present view ahead is to write a book, and not to hurry myself in doing it."
Ex-Chief Justice Baldwin was the chief guest of honor at a banquet of the Connecticut State Bar Association in New Haven on Feb. 7, the date of
Chief Justice Hall's entrance upon his new duties. The object of the dinner
parts of the state, of the loss the Com monwealth has thus sustained and of his many virtues of character and per sonality. He evidently has the aflec
was also to recognize in a suitable manner the promotion of the other two
tion of the people not less than of the bar. As he is in the full vigor of an
ovation. He said that he had spent the best years of his life on the bench,
indomitable energy and an admirable
for while he had not gone on the Supreme
Justices. Judge Baldwin was given a hearty
mental endowment, there has been a
Court bench until he was fifty-two years
general disposition to complain of the operation of the constitutional age limit
old, a man in the legal profession, in his
under circumstances which it was never designed to meet.
Now that Judge
Baldwin is in private life, he is deemed
eligible for all sorts of honors.
opinion, did not do his best work until he was over fifty. Some one here drew forth a rousing cheer by saying, “Not until seventy.”
It has
“I lose power,” he continued, “but I
been proposed that he be made Governor,
gain freedom and leisure, not leisure
