DOJ New Website Banner: Janet Reno Eric Holder Both Fond of New Quote

Old Glory has been removed from the Department of Justice (DOJ) website banner and replaced with a black background and white print. A new motto now resides on the webpage - a quote of which its origins are not completely certain, but were greatly admired by former Attorney General Janet Reno in January 2001, something she and Eric Holder apparently have in common. The quote is usually attributed to C. Wilfred Jenks, a Director-General of the U.N.'s International Labor Organization which busies itself with "the promotion of social justice."

Old DOJ Banner

New DOJ Banner

The common law is the will of Mankind issuing from the Life of the People

C. Wilfred Jenks, a Brit and a former Director-General of the International Labour Organization from 1970 to 1973, died in 1973. Anonymous DOJ "career lawyers" have differing opinions of the quotations author. C. Wilfred Jenks is known by conservatives for facilitating "a greater role for socialists and communists at the U.N.," and the global "workers rights movement, but no one is completely confident of the author. Some suggest the quote may have been placed on the building under the authority of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Some believe it was adapted from the writings of Sir William Blackstone. The American Spectator has the story:

Most telling: Jenks, as director of the ILO is credited with putting in place the first Soviet senior member of the UN organization, and also with creating an environment that allowed the ILO to give "observer status" to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and to issue anti-Israeli statements, which precipitated efforts by the U.S. Congress to withdraw U.S. membership from the ILO. The U.S. actually did withdraw in the mid-1970s due to the organization's leftist leanings.

"It was Jenks's efforts that helped make the ILO a tool of the socialist and communist movement," says one of the DOJ lawyers. "We used to joke about how fitting it was that this was Janet Reno's favorite quote to use in speeches, and now the Obama folks think it encapsulates out department's mission."

The quote that now resides on the website is etched into the wall "of the 9th Street gate," of the DOJ, according to Janet Reno:

There is, on the wall of the 9th Street gate, a saying that I have come to rely on again and again. It says, "The common law derives from the will of mankind, issuing from the life of the people, framed by mutual confidence, and sanctioned by the light of reason."

Unless the law issues from all of the people, some of the people will feel left out. They will come to feel alienated. They will be angry. And this will not be a cohesive democracy. If you don't care about that, they will feel left out, alienated, and they will not have the opportunities that others have to skills, to jobs, to opportunity. That will only hurt America.

About Jenks from the International Labour Organization:

He held honorary degrees from many universities throughout the world. He lectured at the British Academy and the Universities of Georgia and Yale and was five times visiting professor at the Hague Academy of International Law. He was one of the international advisers to the American Law Institute on the drafting of its Statement of Essential Human Rights, one of the texts which served as a basis for drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

C. Wilfred Jenks was the author of numerous books with titles that champion globalism. Here are a few:

Law, Freedom and Welfare

International Law in a Changing Word, Orthodoxy and Innovation in the Law of Nations

The World beyond the Charter in Historical Perspective: A Tentative Synthesis of Four States of World Organization

A New World of Law: A Study of the Creative Imagination in International Law

I mentioned that Janet Reno is fond of the quotation, and it happens that Eric Holder introduced Reno on January 15, 2001 - the day she made the comment about the quote on the 9th Street Wall of the DOJ. Additional Source.

Thank you Larwyn! for the email and the link.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook