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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 20:54, 22 September 2017 [1].

Henry W. Sawyer

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Nominator(s): Coemgenus (talk) 14:32, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Henry W. Sawyer, III. Primarily known for his work as a civil rights attorney, Sawyer successfully argued two landmark religious establishment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also involved in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and served four years on Philadelphia's City Council. After recently passing a GA review, I think this article, while brief, is in good shape. Hope you enjoy reading it. --Coemgenus (talk) 14:32, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wehwalt

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Interesting. I admit I haven't heard of the guy. Just a few comments.

  • " that would be the basis for all modern Establishment Clause jurisprudence." I might say "that became the basis for modern Establishment Clause jurisprudence". Simpler.
  • Yes, fixed.
  • "Sawyer's father died before he was born in the 1918 flu pandemic" A difficult sentence, I admit. I might suggest "Henry Sawyer II died in the 1918 flue pandemic x months before his son was born".
  • Done.
  • Added the link. I'll look into the major.
  • "With the outbreak of World War II, Sawyer joined the United States Navy.[6] He served in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, but later said he saw very little active combat.[5]" I assume he was an officer, so I would say "was commissioned in" for "joined". I'd also add a "theatres" after "Pacific" and cut "active".
  • Made those changes, and added details about his service that I just discovered.
  • "Sawyer was called back into the Navy in 1950 during the Korean War and served as a foreign service officer in Europe after that, returning to Philadelphia in 1953.[12]" This is a bit unclear, focusing on "after that", which could be taken to refer to the war, but the war "ended' in 1953.
  • Should be clearer now.
  • "but their convictions were overturned after the United States Supreme Court overturned the Smith Act in Yates v. United States in 1957.[16]" some slight ambiguity as to whether the 1957 refers to the convictions being quashed or the SCOTUS ruling. I'd consider moving "in 1957" to after the first overturned. Also, I'd change one of the "overturned" to a synonym.
  • Done.
  • "claiming that his "moral scruples"" since we have no reason to doubt him, I'd change "claiming" to "asserting".
  • Done.
  • "and the charge was upheld in federal district court.[19] The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction," upheld/upheld
  • Done.
  • "Sawyer and his wife were both Republicans in the 1940s.[42] After witnessing political corruption and voter fraud in their own ward and around the city, they soon became disillusioned with the party organization in the city" I might cut "soon".
  • Done.

Image review

Comments from Dank

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Support on prose Comments by Finetooth

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This reads well, and I'm leaning toward support. I have just a few questions and suggestions.
General
  • Alt text for the images would be nice.
  • The article quotes one of Sawyer's sons, Jonathan. Would it be good to mention his two other children, Hal and Rebecca. They are mentioned in the obit by Rusty Pray.
Early life
Local politics
  • ¶2 "...and voters could only vote for five..." – Maybe "and voters could only choose five" to avoid repetition of "voters...vote"?
  • ¶2 "...with the result being that the majority party could only take five of the seven seats, leaving two for the minority party." – It would be smoother to eliminate the "with plus -ing" construction here and create a separate sentence; i.e., "The result was that the majority party could take only five of the seven seats, leaving two for the minority party."
  • ¶3 "Some of the amendments were struck down by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,..." – Flip to active voice as in "The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down some of the amendments,..."?
  • ¶3 "Sawyer headed up a group of Democrats..." – Replace "headed up" with "led"?
Later life
  • ¶1 "his alma mater, Penn." – For those who don't know what Penn refers to, perhaps add "Penn" as an abbreviation, University of Pennsylvania (Penn), after its first use in the article
@Finetooth:, thanks for the review. I've made those changes here, plus adding a detail about his grandfather. --Coemgenus (talk) 14:12, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
All looks good. Happy to support. Finetooth (talk) 15:45, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review

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Shouldn't the JSTOR articles carry a (subscription required) tag, to alert readers to the fact that thewse sources are behind a paywall? Otherwise, sources are fine in all respects. Brianboulton (talk) 18:16, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The cite journal page says "Links inserted by identifiers such as |doi= are not expected to offer a free full text by default" and that list includes JSTOR. I did add that subscription tag to the newspapers.com sources, which don't appear on that list. --Coemgenus (talk) 18:54, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
OK Brianboulton (talk) 19:28, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review! --Coemgenus (talk) 19:48, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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