We the People: Justice Douglas went east, but appointed to Court as a westerner

President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to nominate William O. Douglas to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Louis Brandeis in 1939, but there was a problem: a geographical problem.

Douglas, a resident of Connecticut since his days as a Yale Law Professor, and four current justices – Hughes, Stone, Frankfurter and Roberts – were easterners. While no formal...