Clinton Eulogizes Brennan as a Force for Justice

L.A. Times Archives

July 30, 1997 12 AM PT

<i> From Associated Press</i>

WASHINGTON — President Clinton eulogized former Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. on Tuesday, saying, “The life he breathed into our most cherished ideals will never die.”

And Justice David H. Souter, who succeeded Brennan in 1990, concluded a poignantly personal eulogy by quoting his dear friend: “So long, pal.”

Brennan died last week at 91. Legal scholars say his 34-year tenure as the leading liberal of the nation’s highest court made him the most influential American judge of the 20th century.

“Throughout our history,” Clinton told the funeral gathering, “a few powerful ideals have transformed the lives of our people. And throughout our history, there have been a few individuals so devoted to those ideals they could hammer them on the anvil of history to reshape the land and our future.

“Justice Brennan . . . time again . . . stepped into the breach to hammer them on the anvil of history, saving us from our darker impulses,” Clinton said.

Brennan was a consistent supporter of expanding the rights of individuals often forgotten by society--among them welfare recipients, the mentally handicapped and prison inmates. He opposed all capital punishment and supported abortion rights.

His views on abortion spurred a few antiabortion pickets to protest outside his funeral. They said Brennan had no right to a Catholic service because of the church’s opposition to legalized abortion.

Brennan also was a champion of free-speech rights.

About 1,000 people, many of them among the capital city’s power elite, filled St. Matthew’s Cathedral.

Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer attended, as did retired Justices Harry A. Blackmun and Byron R. White. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, federal judges and members of Congress also were there.

“We recall him as a legal giant,” Clinton said, “the balance wheel who molded the Supreme Court into an instrument of liberty and equality during tumultuous times.”

Souter, perhaps Brennan’s closest friend among the court’s current justices, said: “I felt great every time I was with him, and I bet you did too. We all remember, and that’s why it’s so hard to say goodbye.

“He made us members of a large family by adoption, and when we were with him we all felt like the favorite child,” Souter said.

To say goodbye, Souter appropriated the gregarious Brennan’s most-often used farewell after meetings in the retired justice’s office at the Supreme Court building.

“He’d say, ‘So long, pal,’ ” Souter said. “I’d give him a wave and say, ‘So long, Bill.’ ”

William J. Brennan III, a New Jersey lawyer, told those present that “Dad did not love humankind only in the abstract.”