2023 YEAR-END REPORT ON THE FEDERAL JUDICIARY

Written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.

Sometimes, the arrival of new technology can dramatically change work and life for the better. Just one century ago, for example, fewer than half of American homes had electricity. During the New Deal, the federal government set out to "bring the light" to homes across rural America. Representatives recruited farmers to join electricity co-operatives for $5 each. Then came teams of men to clear the brush, sink the poles, and wire homes to the still inert grid.

As Robert Caro relates in The Path to Power, in some places the project took so long that many forgot about it, or were certain they had been duped. But eventually there were stories like Evelyn Smith’s to be told:

"[O]ne evening in November, 1939, the Smiths were returning from Johnson City, where they had been attending a declamation contest, and as they neared their farmhouse, something was different. ‘Oh my God,’ Evelyn’s mother said. ‘The house is on fire!’ But as they got closer, they saw the light wasn’t fire. ‘No, Mama,’ Evelyn said. ‘The lights are on.’" (Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power 528 (1982); see id. at 52-53, 516-529.)