That’s the title of my new Confirmation Tales post. I enjoyed wading through various letters to and from Teddy Roosevelt to try to sort out what actually happened. If you have any interest in judicial nominations, I think that you’ll enjoy the post.

The little-known episode also illustrates how a president and a senator can have very different conceptions of what proper consultation over a Supreme Court pick consists of. Some excerpts:

On July 25—according to G. Edward White’s biography of Holmes—Roosevelt had a “secret meeting” with Holmes at Roosevelt’s summer home on Long Island. Roosevelt offered the Supreme Court seat to Holmes, and “Holmes accepted the offer.”
That same day, Roosevelt then wrote to Senator Hoar that “Judge Gray has resigned” and that he has “decided to offer the place” to Holmes, “but I do not wish to announce anything until I hear from you.”
In a letter dated July 28, Hoar responded with exasperation over the poor quality of Roosevelt’s consultation with him:
“If the matter be decided, I do not understand what it is that you expect or desire to hear from me. As a Massachusetts lawyer, as the senior senator from the New England Circuit, and as Chairman of the Law Committee of the Senate, I naturally feel great interest in the appointment of a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States from my own Circuit and my own state.”
***
Senator Hoar ended up acquiescing in Holmes’s selection. As one colorful account that might well offer continuing insight into Senate prerogatives explains, Senator Lodge
came to realize that … what [Hoar] most seriously resented was the fact that rightful deference had not been made to the Senior Senator from Massachusetts himself. “I feel about it,” [Hoar] had written candidly to Lodge on August seventh, “somewhat as the [fellow] did when he heard that a neighbor was going to shoot his dog. He said with great indignation, ‘If he gives me notice and then shoots my dog, I don’t care, but if he shoots my dog without giving me notice, I shall be mad.’”

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