ANTHONY LEWIS, a Harvard graduate, class of 1948, has been with the Washington Bureau of the New YorkTIMESsince 1955, covering the Supreme Court and the Justice Department, He has received two Pulitzer Prizes for his exceptional reporting, and his new book.GIDEON’S TRUMPET,gives, as David Brinkley says, “an exciting look at the true quality of American justice.”The following essay is taken fromPORTRAIT OF A DECADE: THE SECOND AMKRICAN REVOLUTION,a NewYork TIMESReport on Civil Rights, 1954 to 1964, to be published by Random House.

The Supreme Court, as FOWLER HARPER points out, has the right to decline to hear most of the cases it is asked to decide. But in times of tension it can he very troublesome, both to the litigant and to the people, when the Court refuses to review a critical case. Projessor of Law at Yale since 1947 and the author of many books on law, Mr. Harper was a reporter on the Restatement of Forts for the American Laic Institute, Solicitor of the Department of the Interior under Secretary Ickes, and Deputy Chairman of the War Manpower Commission in the early stages of World War II.