More than a Fraction: The Life and Work of Justice Pierce Butler

There ought to be a biography of Pierce Butler. Perhaps it should be called \u27The Last Product of the Log Cabin: Mr. Justice Butler.\u27 Those thoughts were among the hundreds of cards, letters, and telegrams of condolence the Justice\u27s family received after his death in late 1939. Scholarship necessarily must be cautious when viewing the past through the eyes of admirers. Pierce Butler the man, attorney, and Justice had many admirers: lawyers, judges, civic leaders in St. Paul, fellow Minnesotans. But the wider record shows Pierce Butler had many detractors, and, of course, their voices and feelings about the man are not recorded among the expressions of sympathy..