James M. Landis

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James McCauley Landis (September 25, 1899 – July 30, 1964) was an American academic, government official and legal adviser.

[edit] Biography

Landis was born in Tokyo, Japan, where his parents were teachers at a missionary school. He graduated from Princeton University and received a law degree and a doctorate in juridical science from the Harvard Law School, where he was a student of Felix Frankfurter. In 1925, Landis was a law clerk to Justice Louis Brandeis of the U.S. Supreme Court. He then became a professor at the Harvard Law School, until called into government service during the New Deal.

Landis served as a member of the Federal Trade Commission (1933-1934), as a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission (1934-1937), and as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (1935-1937). While dean of the Harvard Law School from 1938 to 1946, Landis served as regional director of the U.S. Office of Civilian Defense (1941-1942) and then as its national director (1942-1943). President Franklin D. Roosevelt then sent him to Egypt as director of American Director of Economic Operations in the Middle East (1943-1945). In 1946, Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman, later appointed him chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board, a position he served until the next year. A friend of the Kennedy family for years, he served as a legal advisor to Joseph P. Kennedy and as Special Counsel to President John F. Kennedy. In 1960 he drafted the Landis Report to President-elect Kennedy, reexamining the federal regulatory commissions and recommending such reforms as strengthening the commissions' chairmen and streamlining their procedures, which the Kennedy administration adopted.

Landis failed to pay his income taxes from 1955 to 1960. After this came to light, he plead guilty and was sentenced to one month in jail.

[edit] Sources

• Thomas McCraw, Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, and Alfred Kahn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).

• Donald A. Ritchie, James M. Landis: Dean of the Regulators (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980)

[edit] Quotes

• "A statute rarely stands alone. Back of Minerva was the brain of Jove, and behind Venus the spume of the ocean," in "A Note on 'Statutory Interpretation,' " 43 Harvard Law Review 886, 891 (1930).
• "If anybody ever flied to the moon, the very next day Trippe will ask the Civil Aeronautics Board to authorize regular service."

[edit] Works

• 'The Business of the Supreme Court', by James M. Landis and Felix Frankfurter, (New York, 1928).
• 'The Administrative Process', by James M. Landis, (New Haven, 1938).

[edit] External links

• A Register of His White House Files at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
• James Landis '18 — An Irregular Regulator
• The Rise and Fall of SEC Pioneer James Landis (audio story from NPR)

v • d • e Chairmen of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission Kennedy • Landis • Douglas • Frank • Eicher • Purcell • Caffrey • Hanrahan • McDonald • D Cook • Demmler • Armstrong • Gadsby Cary • Cohen • Budge • Casey • B Cook • Garrett • Hills • Williams • Shad • Ruder • Breeden • Levitt • Pitt • Donaldson • Cox • Schapiro