Learned Hand. However, the President was uncomfortable appointing the seventy-one-year-old Hand due to his age, as Roosevelt feared the appearance of hypocrisy due to the fact that he had cited the advanced age of Supreme Court justices to justify his plan to expand the Court Francis Biddle, the attorney general, who disclaimed any interest in serving on the court himself, was asked by Roosevelt to search for a suitable nominee. A number of candidates were considered, including federal judge John J. Parker, Solicitor General Charles Fahy, U.S. Senator Alben W. Barkley, and Dean Acheson. But the journalist Drew Pearson soon named another possibility, whom he identified as "the candidate of Chief Justice Stone" in his columns and radio broadcasts: Wiley Rutledge. Rutledge had no desire to be nominated to the Supreme Court, but his friends nonetheless wrote to Roosevelt and Biddle on his behalf. 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! I am uncomfortable enough as it is." Still, Rutledge's supporters, most notably the well-regarded journalist Irving Brant, continued to lobby the White House to nominate him, and he stated in private that he would not decline the nomination if Roosevelt offered it to him. Biddle directed his assistant Herbert Wechsler to review Rutledge's record; Wechsler's report convinced Biddle that Rutledge's judicial opinions were "a bit pedestrian" but nonetheless "sound". 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. After meeting with Rutledge at the White House and being convinced by Biddle that the judge's judicial philosophy was fully aligned with his own, Roosevelt agreed. 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". Additionally, the fact that Rutledge was a Westerner weighed in his favor. The President told his nominee: "Wiley, we had a number of candidates for the Court who were highly qualified, but they didn't have geography—you have that". Roosevelt formally nominated Rutledge, who was then forty-eight years old, to the Supreme Court on January 11, 1943. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on February 1 to approve Rutledge's nomination; the vote was