In 1940, Davies and a fellow Grand Forks attorney, Charles F. Peterson, formed a private law practice.
He was a comparatively new jurist and was full of energy, ready to tackle the large docket of cases that had accumulated during the many months when no judge was sitting at Little Rock.
I spent long hours briefing Judge Davies about the crowded docket because the government was a party to about 30 percent of the cases on it.
The integration fight was boiling in the local media, but no motion or pleading relating to it was on file in the district court when Judge Davies began his duties in Little Rock.
Murray Reed, the chancellor of Pulaski County Chancery Court, granted the injunction on August 27, 1956, "on the grounds that integration could lead to violence."
[6] Despite the federal court's ruling, Governor Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to the school under the pretense of maintaining civil order.
President Eisenhower called Governor Faubus to his vacation home in Newport, Rhode Island on September 14, 1957, and warned him not to interfere with the Supreme Court's ruling.
[6][7] Attorneys from the United States Department of Justice requested an injunction against the governor's deployment of the National Guard, which Judge Davies granted on September 20, 1957.
[8] The next day, the Mayor of Little Rock, Woodrow Wilson Mann, requested federal troops to enforce integration at Central High.
Osro Cobb recalls that "a deluge of vile and threatening cards and letters" addressed to Judge Davies arrived at the post office in Little Rock.
No information was released on the trip, and it was planned with a minimum of exposure in Chicago....[There were] rumors about alleged astonishing increases in sales of firearms, knives, ammunition, and dynamite, and of threats of violence against key school personnel.