Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Columbia Law Review
Publication Date
1993
Abstract
Wechsler: I was not only apolitical, but rather anti-political in college. My interest was in the arts, not in politics. I took the usual view of politicians, holding them in low esteem. I thought the least government the best. I didn't want to be interfered with in my choices. This was symbolized for my generation by things like the Prohibition Amendment, which we defied with total abandon. It never entered my mind that there might be any obligation to obey the temperance law. I considered it entirely a matter of trying to avoid wood alcohol poisoning.
Not until law school did I begin to take seriously at all the subject of government. And even though I became greatly interested in law and government during my law school days, and therefore, by necessity, in politics, I was not very much of a political partisan. I was interested in the problems and ideas about government, but I never participated in organized politics of any kind, at that stage, and I rather tended to view with disdain people who did
Recommended Citation
Norman I. Silber and Geoffrey Miller,
Toward "Neutral Principles" in the Law: Selections from the Oral History of Herbert Wechsler, 93 Colum. L. Rev. 854
(1993)
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/faculty_scholarship/535