He also believed that Rutledge possessed the strong interpersonal skills, legal talent, and tenacity needed to persuade the Court's more moderate and conservative justices in decisions.

While Frankfurter had been seen as the front-runner to fill the vacancy, Roosevelt had considered Rutledge and others before settling on him due to pressure to nominate an individual from the "western" United States (west of the Mississippi River).

[4] Some, including Justices Felix Frankfurter and Harlan F. Stone, encouraged Roosevelt to appoint the distinguished jurist Learned Hand.

[1]: 292  A number of candidates were considered, including federal judge John J. Parker, Solicitor General Charles Fahy, U.S.

[4] But the journalist Drew Pearson soon brought up another possibility, who he identified as "the candidate of Chief Justice Stone" in his columns and radio broadcasts: Wiley Rutledge.

[6] Rutledge was considered about the workload of the position,[2] and had no desire to be nominated to the Supreme Court, but his friends nonetheless wrote to Roosevelt and Biddle on his behalf.

[5] He wrote to Biddle disclaiming all interest in the position, and he admonished his friends with the words: "For God's sake, don't do anything about stirring up the matter!

[5][4] When Attorney General Biddle inquired with Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black, and William O. Douglas, and Harlan Stone about who they advised be appointed, each named Rutledge as the best among the candidates.

[2][5] Biddle, joined by Roosevelt loyalists such as Douglas, Senator George W. Norris, and Justice Frank Murphy, thus recommended to the president that Rutledge be appointed.

[4]: 186  Despite having appointed him years earlier to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Roosevelt had never before met Rutledge.

[6] According to the scholar Fred L. Israel, Roosevelt found Rutledge to be "a liberal New Dealer who combined the president's respect for the academic community with four years of service on a leading federal appellate court".

[7]: 1318  Roosevelt also remarked to Wiley, who had lived in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Tennessee at different points in his life, "You have a lot of geography.

[10] Those four senators—North Dakota's William Langer, West Virginia's Chapman Revercomb, Montana's Burton K. Wheeler, and Michigan's Homer S. Ferguson—abstained due to uneasiness about Rutledge's support for Roosevelt's 1937 court-expansion plan.

[5] Ferguson later spoke with Rutledge and indicated that his concerns had been resolved, but Wheeler, who had strongly opposed Roosevelt's efforts to enlarge the Court, said that he would vote against the nomination when it came before the full Senate.