USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume II > Part 7
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Mr. Peck's married life covered a harmonious and happy period of thirty years. His wife, to whom he was united in 1866, was for- merly Miss Arabella Burdick, his marriage occurring during the commencement of his legal career in Janesville, Wisconsin. Four children were born to them-Mary E., Isabelle, Charles B. and Ethel. Mrs. Peck's death occurred March 5, 1896.
Alexander Hamilton Revell is a typical Chicago man, born here on the 6th of January, 1858, prominent in business as a young man.
ALEXANDER H. and of more recent years a leader in movements
REVELL. beneficial to the material and moral uplifting of the community. As far as his education is concerned, he is also a product of the public schools. Starting his business chiefly as a furniture store quite removed from the retail district of ยท the city, by untiring energy and remarkable initiative he developed a trade which enabled him to erect a magnificent structure on Wabash avenue in which he installed a complete line of house furnishings. and placed himself with the foremost merchants of the northwest.
Alexander H. Revell & Company was incorporated, and since that time Mr. Revell has remained its president. At the time of the inception and progress of the World's Columbian Exposition his ex- ecutive ability, sound counsel and persuasive powers were greatly relied on-first, to locate the fair in Chicago, and, secondly, to assist in pushing the great movement along to its triumphant conclusion. He has also served for years as director in the National Business League, Manufacturers' Bank and Central Trust Company of Illinois. The scope of his activities and variety of his mental traits is indi- cated. furthermore, in his identification as director with the LaFay- ette Memorial Commission and Chicago Musical College, and as trustee with the Northwestern University and the Mckinley National Monument Association. In the many social and political clubs in which he has membership he has played a leading part, having served as president of the Union League and Marquette clubs and the Chi-
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cago Athletic Association, and as vice president of the Merchants' and Hamilton clubs. Both as to substantial support and brains, Mr. Revell is one of the mainstays of the Republican party of Illinois and the northwest, and has always warmly accorded to Chicago the same stanch support which its people have given him as an honorable and successful merchant and an eminently useful citizen.
One of the most forceful citizens of Chicago, John Maynard Har- lan, has always used his fine legal talents in the furtherance of what
JOHN M. he has conceived to be for the best interests of the
HARLAN. city, merging the two characters of citizen and law-
yer into a high personal combination which, de- spite differences of intellectual opinion, has been generally recognized as an example well worthy of emulation. In whatever movement Mr. Harlan has participated he has stimulated discussion and often bit- ter opposition, which, besides being a proof of his forceful personal- ity has, like the raging of an electric storm, resulted in the clarifica- tion of the atmosphere and redounded to the general good.
Mr. Harlan is a native of Frankfort, Kentucky, son of John Mar- shall and Malvina F. (Shankline) Harlan, and was born on the 21st of December, 1864. For years his father has stood as one of the most eminent attorneys and jurists of the country, having been an associate justice of the United States supreme court since 1877. Jus- tice Harlan was born in Boyle county, Kentucky, June 1, 1833 ; grad- uated from the law department of the Transylvania University in 1853, and ably served as attorney-general of Kentucky from 1863 to 1867. This period covered the most troublous times of the Civil war, during which critical period in Unionism the elder Harlan proved his stanch loyalty to the Federal cause.
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John Maynard Harlan obtained his early education in the public schools of Louisville, Kentucky, later attending various private estab- lishments of that city, and, after his father ascended the supreme bench completing his ante-collegiate training in Washington, District of Columbia. In 1880 he entered Princeton University, from which he graduated four years later with the degree of A. B. Returning to Washington he pursued a thorough professional course in the Column- bian University Law School, obtaining his LL. B. with the class of 1888.
Immediately after graduating in law Mr. Harlan located in Chi-
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cago and entered the office of Smith and Pence, forming a partner- ship with the senior member (G. W. Smith) in 1890. This connec- tion continued for two years, and from 1892 to 1898 he practiced alone. The five years from 1898 to 1903 were spent in active and prominent practice in association with Henry M. Bates, as senior member of the firm of Harlan and Bates, the partnership being then dissolved by the election of Mr. Bates to a chair in the law school of the University of Michigan. In 1904 Mr. Harlan joined his brother, James S. Harlan, in the formation of the firm of Harlan and Harlan, a partnership which has since been dissolved.
During Mr. Harlan's active and honorable professional career of nearly twenty years, politics and public affairs have occupied a large share of his attention, although his official service has been confined to 1896-98, when he was alderman from the old Twenty-second ward. He was the Republican candidate for mayor in 1897 and 1905, but was too outspoken in his words and too independent in his actions to secure the necessary majorities. In fact, his friends and admirers have always insisted that he is too much of a man to make a success- ful politician.
At Yonkers, New York, on the 21st of October, 1890, Mr. Har- lan was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth P. Flagg, and the chil- dren born to them have been as follows: Elizabeth P., John Mar- shall and Janet. In religious views Mr. Harlan is a Presbyterian. He is sociable and popular, being identified with the University, Chi- cago, Chicago Athletic, Marquette, Hamilton, Saddle and Cycle and Chicago Golf clubs.
Hon. Solomon Hicks Bethea, judge of the United States district court, and widely known in public affairs, both of a legal and civic
SOLOMON H. nature, is a native of Lee county, Illinois. He is BETHEA. a son of William T. and Emily (Green) Bethca, and obtained his early education at Dixon, Illinois, to which place his parents removed in his childhood. After passing through the public schools of that city, he entered the high school at Ann Arbor, Michigan, preparatory to pursuing a literary course in the University of Michigan.
After being a student in the literary department of the Michigan state university for some time, Judge Bethea commenced his legal studies in the office of Eustace, Barge and Dixon, at Dixon, Illinois,
Vol. II-5
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and after his admission to the Illinois bar, became a partner of Hon. John V. Eustace, the senior member of the firm with whom he re- ceived his tutelage. Subsequently he attained high rank as a conserv- ative Republican leader, was elected mayor of Dixon for one term and creditably served as a member of the Illinois legislature in 1882- 83. Progressing with equal certitude in the field of his profession, in 1899 he was appointed United States district attorney for the northern district of Illinois, and held the office with the ability pre- saged from his past record for a period of six years. In March, 1905, he was honored by his elevation to the bench of the district which he had served so well as attorney.
Hon. Edward F. Dunne, former judge of the circuit court of Cook county and mayor of the city of Chicago, one of the most prom-
inent Democrats in the state, is a native of Water-
EDWARD F. DUNNE. ville, Connecticut, born on the 12th of October, 1853. He is a son of P. W. and Delia M. (Law- ler) Dunne, being of Irish parentage and, after graduating from the Peoria (Illinois) high school in 1870, pursued a three-years' course in Trinity College, Dublin University. Because of his father's fail- ure in business, he was obliged to leave college before graduation, and, coming to Chicago, eventually entered the Union College of Law, from which he obtained his professional degree in 1877, with a later honorary degree of LL. D. from St. Ignatius College.
Upon his admission to the bar in 1877 he engaged in practice in Chicago and successfully covered the general field of professional work until he was elevated to the bench of the Circuit court in De- cember, 1892. He was twice re-elected, and made such a record for substantial and conservative ability, as well as for executive force, that the Democrats nominated him for mayor in the spring cam- paign of 1905. - He was elected by a decisive majority over John M. Harlan, the Republican candidate, resigning his judicial office to ac- cept the mayoralty. He had previously (1900) been honored by se- lection as a presidential elector on his party ticket, had been twice president of the Iroquois, the leading Democratic club in Chicago, and was in every way esteemed a strong factor in the best standing and progress of Democracy. His administration of municipal affairs met with expected criticism from political opponents, but he left the office with a character strengthened in the estimation of the general
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public because of the obvious honesty of his intentions and the patient wisdom with which he met many trying situations.
On August 16, 1881, Mr. Dunne married Miss Elizabeth J. Kelly, and their children are as follows: Edward P. (deceased). Gerald (deceased), Charles S. (deceased), and Edward F., Jr., Richard, Eileen, Mona, Maurice, Dorothy, Jerome, Geraldine, Jeannette and Eugene. The pleasant family residence is at 3127 Beacon street, and the domestic life which centers in the home is ideal. As a public char- acter he is necessarily somewhat identified with general social life, having been twice president of the Monticello Club, as well as of the Iroquois; is a member of the Iroquois, Jefferson, Illinois Athletic, Westward Ho Golf and Ravenswood clubs. Even before his eleva- tion to the mayoralty, he was considered a leading authority on mu- nicipal matters, having served for some time as vice president of the National Civic Federation.
The professional intimates of the late William C. Goudy unhesi- tatingly place him among the most able general practitioners who
WILLIAM C. ever graced the Chicago bar, as he was perfectly at
GOUDY. home in every department, whether civil or crimi-
nal, common law or chancery, real estate or cor- poration law. Because of this breadth of eminence he earned a firm place as one of the great lawyers of the state, who, in many respects, had no superior. Throughout his life he was an associate of great lawyers and great statesmen, and barely missed the distinction of be- ing classed with the latter. He was one of the ideal gentlemen in public life-a man of remarkable strength, and of unassuming courtesy and tenderness.
Mr. Goudy was of composite British stock, having English, Scotch and Irish blood in his physical and mental constitution. He was born in Indiana on the 15th of May, 1824, his mother, Jane Ainsworth, be- ing. a Pennsylvanian of English descent. His father, who sprang from old hardy Scotch-Irish ancestry, was born in Ireland. Others of the family resided in Scotland, where they were known as Goudies. Mr. Goudy's father was bred to the trade of a carpenter, but aspiring to something more intellectual engaged in the printing and book- binding business, and in 1833 removed to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he began the publication of Goudy's Farmers' Almanac, the first magazine of the kind to be published in the northwest. It was founded
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on the plan of Greeley's famous almanac, and achieved similar popu- larity among the western farmers. In 1834, in company with Samuel S. Brooks, he undertook the publication of a Democratic paper at Jacksonville, their journal having the honor of bringing before the public the genius of Stephen A. Douglas.
Endowed with an active and strong mentality, and brought up amid such surroundings, it would have seemed natural for William C. Goudy to have adopted journalism as a profession; but, despite the undoubted allurements of such a career, the uncertainties were too great to be ignored and he therefore commenced his preparation for the more exact, sharply defined and altogether more promising profession of the law. Upon his graduation from Illinois College, at Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1845, he received the regular degree of Bachelor of Arts, that institution subsequently conferring upon him the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Arts. He then taught school at Decatur, Illinois, at the same time commencing his studies in the law, his more advanced studies being pursued in the office of Judge Stephen T. Logan, for many years a partner of Abraham Lin- coln. Having removed to Lewiston, Mr. Goudy was admitted to the bar in 1847, and in partnership with Hon. Hezekiah M. Wead at once entered into lucrative practice and professional prominence. He also became a leader in the Democratic party, and in 1853 was elected state's attorney of the Tenth judicial circuit. This position he re- signed in two years, and in 1856 was elected state senator for the district comprising Fulton and McDonough counties, during the lat- ter period of his public service occurring the memorable debates be- tween Lincoln and Douglas. The young legislator was himself a stirring and leading participant in that historic campaign, as well as in all the political contests of the years which preceded the final rup- ture between the north and the south, being associated with such patriots as Judge Gillespie, Norman B. Judd, Samuel W. Fuller and Governor Palmer. Still, amid the fierce contentions of politics which absorbed the strongest and best men of the country, Mr. Goudy faith- fully performed the arduous duties of his regular profession, press- ing his varied suits with ardor, ability and success in many of the county courts and the supreme court of the state.
Mr. Goudy removed to Chicago in 1859, at first giving special attention to real estate law, in which he was recognized as one of the
-
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highest authorities in the country. There were few fields, however, in which he did not establish a high reputation. In the early nineties he became prominent in the litigation which grew out of the enforce- ment of the various prohibition laws of the state of Iowa. He also argued the famous Munn case, by which was established the power of the states to fix the maximum rates to be charged by warehouses, railways, persons or corporations engaged in any pursuit which effects the public interests. Another instance in which Mr. Goudy did effec- tive service was in the railroad cases of Minnesota, which resulted in the annulment of the Minnesota statute authorizing the fixing of rail- road rates by the state commission. It is impossible to go further into details as to special cases; but some idea of the magnitude of the work accomplished by Mr. Goudy may be obtained by a cursory ex- amination of the reports of the supreme court of Illinois, in every volume of which for the thirty-five years preceding his death appear cases argued by him. He continually appeared in the higher courts of nearly every state throughout the west, and in the supreme court of the United States was the leading counsel in many important cases. During the last years of his life he was general counsel for the Chi- cago & North-Western Railway Company, and their legal affairs were never conducted with greater judicial wisdom or more practical success than when entrusted to him.
Commencing with the casting of his first vote for Lewis Cass in 1848. Mr. Goudy was a firm supporter of Democracy throughout his life. A striking evidence of the honor which his services and charac- ter had inspired was furnished at the death of his great friend and co-worker, Stephen A. Douglas, as a large and influential portion of the Democracy of Illinois supported him then for the United States senatorship. Although the honor was finally awarded to another, the fact is illustrative of the height of his standing as a public man. Married to Miss Helen Judd, in 1849, Mr. Goudy led with her an extremely happy life, their family of a daughter and a son adding to their long domestic felicity. They survived him at his death in 1893. and, while taking an alleviating pride in his great strength and use- fulness as an eminent professional and public character, could not but feel a poignant grief for so thoughtful and tender a husband and father
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On the 10th of June, 1906, after a brief illness, Judge George W. Brown, former judge of the circuit court of Du Page county, Illinois,
GEORGE W. departed an eminently useful and warm-hearted life BROWN. at the Briggs House, his temporary residence in the city of Chicago. At the time of his death he had been for two years a member of the law firm of Knight and Brown, of that city, and his long residence at Wheaton, with his not infre- quent judicial sittings in Chicago, had already brought him so close to the bench and bar of the metropolis that the fraternity had consid- ered him one of their valued and beloved members for many years. The news of his death, therefore, in the very prime of his fiftieth. year, and in the mature stalwartness of his vigorous mind and great heart, came to them as a most sudden and deep shock, and, from the human standpoint, a deplorable act of providence.
George W. Brown was born in Du Page county, Illinois, on the 17th of May, 1857, the precise locality of his birth being known as Big Woods. He was the son of James and Rosanna Brown, and at the age of four years his parents removed to Wheaton, his native county, which remained his home until the time of his death. He there received a good common school education, but not satisfied with this entered Wheaton College and subsequently Northwestern Col- lege at Naperville, Illinois. After leaving college he taught school for a while, but however ennobling that profession he was too eager to find a career which brought him among men and their activities to be long content as a teacher. He found that vocation in the law, and commenced his studies in the office of Hoyne, Horton and Hoyne, Chicago, completing them, prior to entering practice, at the Union College of Law, from which he graduated in 1883. Speaking to the letter, Judge Brown's law studies were never completed, for even as a member of the bench he was still a student.
Immediately upon graduation from Union College of Law Judge Brown entered practice at Wheaton, and commenced his career under very favorable auspices, since the bar of that city then numbered some of the keenest and most able lawyers to be found in the state. The Du Page county bar was at that time an exceptionally strong one, with Elbert H. Gary as its acknowledged leader. "It was this stern school of experience," says the memorial committee in its address to the Du Page circuit bench, "that the young advocate won his spurs,
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and in the keen thrust and parry of master minds acquired that skill and adroitness which so strongly marked him in later life. Judge Brown never forgot that it was to Du Page county he owed his large opportunity to rise in the profession, and his loyalty and appreciation never ceased to go out to the home of his youth and manhood.
Among the profession he was perhaps best known as a great trial lawyer. His hard-headed common sense, his keen insight into human nature and his personal charm and magnetism seemed to bring him into immediate and close touch with a jury, so that every man in the panel felt that here was a man without mysticism or obscurity, who was trying to work out with them the problem in hand and who wanted to put its technical and abstruse phrases into terms which the ordinary man could understand and decide upon intelligently. His unfailing fund of humor and his ready wit were of the utmost value to him in this aspect of his work. He could put a terrified witness, or an awkward and embarrassed juror, at his ease immediately, and relieve a strained situation by creating a gale of laughter, which would sweep away suspicion and prejudice from the minds of judge and jury and unconsciously predispose them toward giving him a fair and kindly hearing. He was absolutely at home in the court room and familiar with its every detail. He had at his fingers' tips every intricacy of practice and was never at a loss what to do. While open and above board himself, he knew how to meet trickery, and his faculty of anticipating and forestalling a move of his opponent was little short of marvelous. He was a master of cross-examination, holding his case well in hand at all times and driving his points home with telling force."
After seven years of active and lucrative practice, which earned him a firm position among the leaders of the Du Page county bar, Judge Brown's ability was recognized in another field. In 1890 he was elected county judge and re-elected to the position in 1894. His incumbency covered the hard times and the business and financial panics of 1893-4, and he was called upon to assist the Cook county judiciary in the handling of the abnormal amount of insolvency busi- ness which poured into its courts. During this period of uncertainty and confusion Judge Brown held his court in Chicago, and his mas- terful, straightforward and yet considerate adjudication of the im- portant and delicate business matters which came before him stamped
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him as one of the foremost and most popular judges in the state. It also introduced him in a most favorable light to the bar of Chicago. In 1897 he was advanced to the bench of the sixteenth circuit, in which capacity he held court regularly in Du Page, Kane, De Kalb and Kendall counties-which comprised his jurisdiction-frequently in Cook county, and occasionally in other circuits of the state. In 1901 he was assigned to the appellate court for the second district, sitting at Ottawa for four terms and going thence, in April, 1903, to the third district appellate court at Springfield. He served as presid- ing justice of both courts, and at his resignation in February, 1904, and his re-entrance into private practice, had obtained a unique and prominent reputation for broad common sense, and profound but un- affected knowledge and application of the law. While on the appellate bench he wrote ninety-three opinions, covering practically the whole field of the court's jurisdiction, which opinions bear unmistakable evidence that they were prepared by a careful, studious and thought- ful mind. His habitual and intense love of the practical and unpre- tentious, and his hatred of all hypocrisy and striving after effect, are strongly exemplified in these opinions. They are clear-cut, direct and to the point, and free from all useless verbiage and pedantic show of learning. He had no desire to attempt to show forth the volumi- nous extent of his reading and learning upon the case in hand. It was sufficient for him to state the law as he conceived it to be, in simple rugged English, referring to such, authorities as seemed neces- sary to support his position, and having done that to go no further.
The distinctive character of the deceased both as judge and man, his broad, rugged, warmly human traits, and the secret of the unfail- ing and strong attachment which he inspired in all those who came within his influence, are so clearly set forth in the address previously noted that we again quote: "It would perhaps be thought that one who was such a success as a trial lawyer would not possess in such marked degree the qualities of mental and moral steadiness and stamina which go to make a good judge. But such was not the case. His success on the bench was no less marked than his success at the bar. He seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of the common law and was one of its most intense admirers. He admired it because it was practical, the embodiment of centuries of experience of hard- headed Englishmen and not some fine spun theory from a philoso-
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pher's brain. The quality perhaps most dominant in him recognized the same quality which pervades the common law and drew him to it, the royal quality of common sense. When to this rare gift is added an ever ready humor and a kindly consideration for litigants, lawyers, jurors and court officials, the reason for his success on the bench is not difficult to see. Because of his bluff and off-hand manner of speaking the opinion was somewhat current that Judge Brown was not a deep and careful student. No opinion was ever further from the truth. Beneath this somewhat off-hand and careless exterior was the alert, careful and even plodding mind of the student. He was a hard worker and it was an invariable habit of his to go to the bottom of whatever he turned his mind to. He had the most profound re- spect for learning of all kinds and was intensely interested in the methods and results used and attained in our modern system of col- legiate and professional training.
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