Yet the four septuagenarians made their way through it on January 20, 1937, wading across soggy red carpet to wet seats. Pierce Butler, Willis Van Devanter, George Sutherland, and James McReynolds joined two others and listened as their colleague, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, administered the oath of office. But the justices were waiting for the two thousand words or so that would come next—the inaugural speech. The temperature hovered above freezing, and those in the crowds who had not brought umbrellas hid under blankets. Sutherland shivered visibly. John Knox, the clerk to McReynolds, later recalled his shock at seeing the old men up there. He was surprised to see Van Devanter, especially “since Van Devanter had told me once that he had been afraid even to take his hat off at Justice Holmes’s funeral for fear of catching cold. And Cardozo was too frail a man to risk sitting out long in such weather.” Perhaps adrenaline protected the judges—or sheer resolve. They were bent on proving themselves as hardy as Roosevelt, who was braving the storm despite his own infirmity.
