“We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.”

Louis Brandeis says it all. Or did he?

by Steve Roth

Originally posted at Wealth Economics

I do so love diligent lifelong scholars (“experts,” in today’s deprecatory usage) sharing with us their excruciatingly detailed research into areas in which I have a deeply curious interest, but where I lack the wherewithal or energy to properly “do my own research” (twirl finger in cheek). Footnoting everything with followable citations, dotting all the Ts and crossing all the Is . . . This is a great example.

The quotation in the headline here is supposedly from U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis. Did he actually say it, or write it?

Here’s a paper on that by Peter Scott Campbell, a long-time Brandeis scholar who is a “Technical Services Librarian” with B.A. and M.L.S. degrees, at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, where many Brandeis archives are stored. Published in the University of Louisville School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 2014-11.

Here’s what “doing your own research” (properly) looks like:

“I began to believe at this point that the quote was apocryphal, and to prove it I set out to read every word Brandeis wrote.”

Condensed for your amusement. All emphasis is mine, for your reading pleasure.

The exact quotation does not appear in any of Brandeis’ writings or published interviews, anywhere in the archives. There are passages that are close (Campbell quotes a couple), but none so pithy.

Ralph Nader used (and attributed) the line as we know it in his 2020 nomination acceptance speech for the Green Party candidacy, and repeatedly throughout his campaign. Where did he get it? (N.B. Brandeis was born 1856 and was on SCOTUS 1916–1939. Died 1941.) Campbell:

The only place where this quote appears during Brandeis’ lifetime is in three unsigned editorials in a weekly newspaper for railroad workers’ unions called Labor… edited by a former Rocky Mountain News editor and Colorado congressman [1913–1919] named Edward Keating [b. 1875].​… in the early twentieth century he was a big name in Progressive circles.
​…
​Brandeis makes numerous references to having Keating over for dinner in his letters and once even describes Keating as a ​“good friend” in a letter to his brother Alfred, an appellation that is almost effusive by Brandeis’ standards.
​…
The first time…was in a May 30, 1933 editorial titled “Stop the Concentration of Wealth”:

Justice Brandeis declared some years ago that America, before long, must make a choice. We can have democracy, or we can have a horde of multi-millionaires. We cannot have both.​

I​’ll let you check out the other two quotes from editorials, in Campbell. Then:

There is one more notable instance of this quote in Labor. Keating would occasionally write a column for the editorial page under the pseudonym Raymond Lonergan. In the October 14, 1941 issue – just a few days after the death of Brandeis – “Lonergan” penned a eulogy for Brandeis in a column titled “A Steadfast Friend of Labor”:

“We must make our choice,” he once said to a younger friend, who appreciated the opportunity to sit at the feet of this modern Gamaliel. “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

Here, finally, is the quote in the form as it is known today.

In 1933 when he said “some years ago,” Keating was 56 and Brennan was 77. “Some years ago” they were perhaps 52 and 73.

​So this we can say: we’ve got an eyewitness (earwitness) “oral-history” account of Brandeis saying this or something close, from a close friend. And Brandeis both spoke and wrote similar things over preceding and ensuing years. Do with that what you will.

In any case, my gentle readers will know that the quotation encapsulates a pretty core belief of mine: that concentrated wealth (and hence concentrated power — economic, political, and other) is The Great Satan.