Talk:Sherman Minton

FA concerns

It was suggested here that this FA could use a check for source-text integrity, so I'm going to do that below.

Caption text

Footnote no.	Article's claim	Cited source	Comments from EW	Checks out?
2	"Minton was born on October 20, 1890, to John Evan and Emma Livers Minton, in their Georgetown, Indiana, home."	Radcliff p. 7	Fine, although the fact that he was born at home is on p. 8	Y
11	"Minton's father married Sarah Montague on December 3, 1901"	Radcliff p. 10	Fine	Y
16	"Minton began dating Gertrude Gurtz in his senior year, and the two remained in regular correspondence after he left for college."	Gugin p. 47	This page says "Minton soon began a relationship with another classmate, Gertrude Gertz, that would last a lifetime", but there's nothing about senior year, leaving for college, etc.	N
30	"Taft said that Minton's post-graduate thesis was among the best he had ever read."	Gugin p. 52	The source says Taft reportedly said this, so I wouldn't be comfortable stating it as fact.	N
42/43	"The following year, Minton became a local commander of the American Legion. The group had a large and active membership in the state at the time, and he used his position to encourage support of the Democratic Party agenda. Paul McNutt was the national commander, and the two men became political allies."	Gugin p. 62 and Radcliff p. 33	The sources don't seem to say that he became a local commander "the following year" (i.e. 1931), nor am I seeing "he used his position to encourage support of the Democratic Party agenda"—only that it helped him connect with other Democratic political figures.	N
51	"Minton stopped using the slogan and explained his position again using new terms, but his opponents continued to dog him over the issue. The Republicans also faulted popular governor McNutt and his reorganization of the government, and McNutt became more personally involved in the election. With the state party's more direct involvement, Minton won the election with 52 percent of the vote."	Gugin p. 85	This page only supports "Minton won the election with 52 percent of the vote".	N
58	"When Renolds asked his manager, Dr. Glen Frank, to help him answer the questions, Minton and fellow Democratic senators began to shout Dr. Frank down. As he was saying that the money from the corporations was for advertising in the magazine, Minton beat his gavel and yelled, 'This committee doesn't intend to permit you to use this as a forum to air your Republican views.'"	Gugin p. 101	Minton did not say the "Republican views" line: the source says it was Lewis B. Schwellenbach (and nothing about a gavel). As an aside, "Maurive V. Renolds" and "Glen Frank" should be Maurice V. Reynolds and Glenn Frank, respectively.	N
70	"Minton delivered six radio addresses on behalf of his party in support of the bill, but public opinion could not be swayed in the Democrats' favor."	Gugin p. 109	I only see one radio address mentioned here, not six	N
79	"He advocated and supported expanding the American military and believed that American entry into the war was inevitable, but should be delayed as long as possible. He voted in favor of the Smith Act, which made it a crime to advocate the overthrow of the government, a law specifically targeted at communists and fascists in the United States."	Gugin p. 121	Some of this checks out, but I'm not seeing "believed that American entry into the war was inevitable" or "a law specifically targeted...".	N
91	"On May 7, 1941, Roosevelt announced Minton's nomination to the Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit"	Gugin p. 156	Checks out	Y
98	"Minton was described by William Radcliff as a 'faithful disciple of judicial restraint,' an unexpected development when compared to his overtly partisan political career."	Gugin p. 179	The "faithful disciple" quote is from Gugin & St. Clair, not Radcliff. I'm not seeing "unexpected development when compared to his overtly partisan political career" on this page, and "overtly" is probably a neutrality issue.	N
112	"Many liberals condemned the court at the time of the decision. The ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court in a 1946 appeal."	Radcliff p. 115	"upheld by the Supreme Court" checks out, but not "many liberals condemned the court at the time of the decision".	N
119	"After returning to work, he was forced to rest regularly due to gradually worsening anemia, and he sought to lessen his workload. To further complicate his health, on August 5, 1949, Minton tripped over a stone in his yard and broke his leg. The injury forced him to walk with a cane for the remainder of his life."	Radcliff p. 129	This page only supports "on August 5, 1949, Minton tripped over a stone in his yard and broke his leg."	N
128	"Minton responded to questions over his past support for the 1937 court packing scheme in the letter, declaring that as the Senate leader at the time of his scheme he had a right and duty to support the scheme, but as a federal judge his role had now changed to that of a referee rather than a player."	Glass (Politico)	Checks out	Y
139	"Minton's central judicial philosophy was to ascertain and uphold the original intent of legislation."	Gugin p. 161	This page says he was an "advocate of judicial restraint", but that's not the same as original intent	N
146/147	"According to William Radcliff, the majority opinion authored by Minton in the 1953 case Barrows v. Jackson was his most skillfully written opinion."	Radcliff p. 155 and the text of the decision	The source says it's "considered by some legal scholars to be one of the most skillful opinions Minton wrote"—I don't think it's fair to attribute that to Radcliff.	N
155/156	"Minton's position gradually shifted to allowing the loyalty tests to take place, and in Adler v. Board of Ed. of City of New York he wrote the majority opinion allowing the tests and upholding New York's Feinberg Law."	Radcliff p. 147 and the text of the decision	Not seeing "Minton's position gradually shifted to allowing the loyalty tests to take place" on this page.	N
168	"Although he did not tell the president, Minton informed the members of the Court that his duties were too taxing on his health. His anemia had steadily worsened, slowing him physically and mentally."	Radcliff p. 174	Not seeing anything about anemia here, nor is there any reference to informing members of the Court (only talking to reporters).	N
173	"In England, [Minton] received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1956."	Radcliff p. 183	Nope: the source says Truman received an honorary doctorate from Oxford	N
181	"A bronze bust of Minton was created and put on display in the Indiana Statehouse."	Gugin p. 287	Checks out	Y

Will finish the rest of this later. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:21, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Okay. I've finished the table, which uses a more-or-less random sample of about 10% of the references. (If anyone wants to check my work, Gugin and Radcliff are both available for free via the Internet Archive.) Now, it's possible that the ones I looked at were outliers, but it does seem that there are some pretty big source-text integrity issues here, including really serious problems like misattributed quotes and factual mistakes. As it stands, I don't think I'd be comfortable keeping this as an FA unless a) all the above issues were fixed and b) someone was willing to check every single reference for similar problems. I'm going to list the article at WP:FARGIVEN; it may be taken to featured article review if there's no improvement in the next few weeks. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:47, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

.. Please do a better job. [1] You guys are not even being honest in your review of the sources on these articles... —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:40, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

That link says "'This committee doesn't intend to permit you to use this as a forum to air your Republican views,' Schwellenbach of Washington said", which contradicts the claim that "Minton beat his gavel and yelled, 'This committee...'". Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:51, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

This review is totally mistaken.. Are you sure you actually have the source book? —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:50, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

This makes me sad.. :( I guess go ahead and FAR it. I don't have time to update this article or go through all these citation. But I will say I strongly object and cannot believe the article nearly this deviated from the sources. Clearly the FA review process must have been seriously broken to have promoted these articles I wrote... I hope you will take steps to hold the reviewers accountable... I trust you will either clean it up or demote it as appropriate... —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:54, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, to be fair, lots of the things I marked above probably are in the source somewhere—they just aren't on the particular page that was cited. I don't really fault you or the reviewers for that: a lot of it has more to do with changing expectations for FAs than anything else, I think. And I certainly don't want to give the impression that I don't appreciate all the work you did on this article: as someone who's written a couple of Supreme Court FAs myself, I definitely know how much work goes into them, and I'm grateful for all the improvements you were able to make. It's just that citation requirements have become a lot stricter in the past decade or so, and unfortunately that means that articles like this one need some work to bring back up to standard. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:13, 10 October 2022 (UTC)