RARE “Roosevelt\'s Trust-Buster\" Thurman Arnold Cut Signature For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Roosevelt's Trust-Buster" Thurman Arnold Clipped Signature. 

November 7, 1969) was best known for General in charge of the Antitrust Division in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Department

of Justice from 1938 to 1943. He later served as an Associate Justice of

the United States Court of Appeals for

the District of Columbia. Before coming to Washington in 1938,

Arnold was the mayor of Laramie, Wyoming, and then a professor at Yale Law School, where he took part in the legal realism movement, and published two books: The

Symbols of Government (1935) and The Folklore of Capitalism (1937).

A few years later, he published The Bottlenecks of Business (1940).

Thurman was born in the frontier ranch town of Laramie, Wyoming, which grew to be a small

city and location of the University of Wyoming. He

was the son of Annie (Brockway) and Constantine Peter Arnold. He began his

university studies at Wabash College, but transferred to Princeton University,

earning his Bachelor of Arts degree

in 1911. He earned his Bachelor of Laws from Harvard Law School in

1914. Arnold served in World War I, rising to the

rank of lieutenant in the United States Army (Field

Artillery) and worked briefly in Chicago, Illinois before returning to Laramie,

where he was a member of the Wyoming House of

Representatives in 1921 and then mayor from 1923 to 1924. He developed a reputation as a maverick lawyer. He was a Lecturer at the University of Wyoming from

1921 to 1926. He was Dean of the at West

Virginia University College of Law from 1927 to 1930. He was a

visiting professor at Yale University from 1930 to 1931, and then professor of

law at the same institution from 1931 to 1938. He was a special assistant to

the general counsel of the Agricultural

Adjustment Administration in 1933. He was an Assistant Attorney

General of the United

States Department of Justice from 1938 to 1943. As chief

competition lawyer for the United States Government,

Arnold launched numerous studies to support the antitrust efforts in the late 1930s. He targeted

the American Medical

Association in their anti-competitive efforts against health plans. The Roosevelt administration later de-emphasized

antitrust enforcement, for the stated purpose of allowing corporations to

concentrate on contributing to victory in World War II. Arnold was nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on

February 11, 1943, to an Associate Justice seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (now

the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit)

vacated by Associate Justice Wiley Blount Rutledge. He

was "kicked upstairs" by President Roosevelt to the Court of Appeals

in order to get him out of the Antitrust Division. He was confirmed by

the United States Senate on

March 9, 1943, and received his commission on March 11, 1943. His service terminated on July 9, 1945, due to

his resignation. Although the District of Columbia Court of Appeals had some

responsibility for review of decisions by federal administrative agencies,

during Arnold's tenure the court's primary role was reviewing decisions of

local trial courts involving routine civil and criminal matters arising in Washington, D.C. Arnold was never happy during his time

on the court, resigning after only two years on the bench.[

As an explanation of his decision, he told observers he "would rather be

speaking to damn fools than listening to damn fools."[