SOURCE: "Cardozo and the Upper-Court Myth," in Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 13, No. 2, Spring, 1948, pp. 369-90.

Frank was an American jurist who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1941 until 1957. In the following excerpt from a review of Selected Writings of Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Frank faults Cardozo's description of the judicial process because it ignores the operations of trial courts.

The practical is disagreeable, a mean and stony soil, but from that all valuable theory comes.

[Oliver Wendell Holmes, Holmes: His Book Notices and Uncollected Letters and Papers]

[The] first step toward improvement is to look the facts in the face.

[Holmes, Rational Basis of Legal Institutions]

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There has recently been published a volume, Selected Writings of Benjamin N. Cardozo, which every thoughtful lawyer and judge will want ready at hand. It will repay constant re-reading. It includes nearly all Cardozo's...