Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. – 1841-1935

In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Holmes to the U.S. Supreme Court after a distinguished career as a jurist, a professor of law, and a legal philosopher. He sat on the court until he retired in 1932, when he was nearly 91 years old. Although he never served as chief justice, Holmes was the most famous jurist ever to sit on the high court. His opinions were brilliantly reasoned and eloquently written—many of them expressing the view of the dissenting minority. Holmes was a steadfast exponent of judicial restraint, who believed that law making was the business of legislators, not the courts. He was also a vigorous advocate of free speech, arguing that it could be restrained only in the event of “clear and present danger”: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”