After a Close Call with a Reckless Driver, Supreme Court Justice Harlan Predicts 'Pedestrian Rage', 1911

“Justice Harlan’s Prophecy” in the Watauga Democrat, Boone, N.C., February 2, 1911.

The story comes from Washington that Chief Justice White and the venerable Justice Harlan of the United States supreme court narrowly escaped being run into the other day by a recklessly driven automobile which dashed into Pennsylvania avenue from a side street as they were starting to cross. It was a particularly close squeeze for Justice Harlan, and he was not slow in expressing his feelings.

“Some day a real man from the west, from the plains—from that section of the country where men do not permit other men to trifle with their feelings, some day such a man will come to Washington. He will walk down Pennsylvania avenue just as you and I were walking. As he starts across the street an automobile will come bowling along at break neck speed, and come within an inch of taking off a leg. It will be an old story with the driver, but a new one with the man from the west. That particular man from the west will pull his shooting iron form his picket and fill the reckless driver full of holes, and, judge though I am, I believe the man from the west will go scot free.”