Thurman Wesley Arnold (June 2, 1891 – November 7, 1969) was an American lawyer best known for his trust-busting campaign as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Department of Justice from 1938 to 1943. He later served as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Before coming to Washington in 1938, Arnold was the mayor of Laramie, Wyoming, and then a professor at Yale Law School, where he took part in the legal realism movement, and published two books: The Symbols of Government (1935) and The Folklore of Capitalism (1937). A few years later, he published The Bottlenecks of Business (1940). Early life and education Thurman was born in the frontier ranch town of Laramie, Wyoming, which grew to be a small city and location of the University of Wyoming. He was the son of Annie (Brockway) and Constantine Peter Arnold. He began his university studies at Wabash College, but transferred to Princeton University, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1911. He earned his Bachelor of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1914. Career Arnold served in World War I, rising to the rank of lieutenant in the United States Army (Field Artillery) and worked briefly in Chicago, Illinois before returning to Laramie, where he was a member of the Wyoming House of Representatives in 1921 and then mayor from 1923 to 1924. He developed a reputation as a maverick lawyer. He was a Lecturer at the University of Wyoming from 1921 to 1926. He was Dean of the West Virginia University College of Law from 1927 to 1930. He was a visiting professor at Yale University from 1930 to 1931, and then professor of law at the same institution from 1931 to 1938. He was a special assistant to the general counsel of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in 1933. He was an Assistant Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice from 1938 to 1943. As chief competition lawyer for the United States Government, Arnold launched numerous studies to support the antitrust efforts in the late 1930s. He targeted the American Medical Association in their anti-competitive efforts against health plans. The Roosevelt administration later de-emphasized antitrust enforcement, for the stated purpose of allowing corporations to concentrate on contributing to victory in World War II. Federal judicial service Arnold was nominated by President