The Bobbitt Family In America

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"He told his colleagues on the court, shortly after becoming chief justice, November 17, 1969: "While the chair of the chief justice is in the center, all are on the same level. Here the doctrine of one man-one vote prevails." And that's the only way he'll have it.

"Bill Bobbitt came down a long, of times exhaustive road before he began sitting in that center chair. Born in Raleigh in 1900, he was to be in Charlotte or on the road as a special superior court judge for most of his life.

"Bobbitt's exceptional record as a high-school student brought scholarship offers from Trinity College (now prestigious Duke University), Washington and Lee, and Chapel Hill. He chose the latter and to this day points to a sentence in the university's 1917 catalog that played a memorable part in his decision: "We know of no other place that offers greater opportunities to a meritorious student of slender means."

"I had that qualification, all right," Bobbitt tosses out with a burst of laughter. He also had a determined academic spirit that put him through school in three years, a feat that allowed law studies as a senior.

"During the Chapel Hill years, Bobbitt met John J. Parker a Charlotte attorney and future law partner whose destiny almost included the U. S. Supreme Court except for a recalcitrant Senate during Herbert Hoover's administration. Into his circle of friends, too, came Thomas Wolfe, Jonathan Daniels and dramatist Paul Green.

"Tapped by the Golden Fleece and Phi Beta Kappa, the dapper young man who was renown for "making a speech on the slightest provocation" was on an intellectual plane with Tom Wolfe. He enjoyed the novelist immensely, describing him as "a great big fella, with a tremendous body and a comparatively small head.

"Bobbitt has become much more intertwined with the court since the death of his wife, Sarah, in 1965, and his only son, William H. Bobbitt Jr., three years ago. The lights in his third floor office in the Justice Building frequently burn late into the night."

One of the very valuable and exciting moments of my life was when Chief Justice, William H. Bobbitt received me in his office for a personal and private interview. After the interview, he invited