USA > Missouri > The history of the bench and bar of Missouri : With reminiscences of the prominent lawyers of the past, and a record of the law's leaders of the present > Part 57
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Thomas Reynolds. The first Judge appointed in Howard Country after Judge Todd was deposed by Constitutional amendment, was Thomas Reynolds, who was of eminent ability as a Judge, but without great capacity as a speaker. He was a politician of great prominence in this part of the State, and was afterwards elected Governor of the State of Missouri. While occupying this position he committed suicide. It is said that domestic troubles caused him to thus end his life.
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John D. Leland. There was at this period no Democratic lawyer in this circuit con- sidered sufficiently competent to occupy the high position of Judge, and so it was that Jolin D. Leland, who lived on a farin in Saline County and had been only recently admit- ted to the bar in that circuit, was appointed Judge. It was he who granted mne license to practice law. I remember him as a genial, kind man, of great literary acquireinents, patient as a Judge and disposed to listen attentively to the arguments of counsel because he was unfamiliar with Missouri practice before lis elevation to office. The effort to impeach him for want of competency failed, Mr. Leonard being one of his warinest supporters. He died while in office.
William A. Hall. While Judge Leland was in office, there came to Howard County a young man from Virginia, who soon took rank as a leading Democratic politician and lawyer. This young man was William A. Hall, who stands pre-eminently as one of the best Circuit Judges in the history of Central Missouri. He first became prominent as editor of a Democratic paper and as bank attorney. On the death of Judge Leland, Hall was appointed Judge, which position he held with eminent ability until the beginning of the Civil War. He was a bold and daring defender of the Union, and was elected with Gen. Sterling Price and myself to the Convention of 1861. He resigned his position as Judge and was elected to Congress, and when the war was over was equally courageous in urg- ing the restoration to citizenship of those who had engaged in the Rebellion.
George H. Burckhardt. After Judge Hall's resignation there was a man appointed to the office of Judge to whoin Missouri is indebted above all others for maintaining, during the war, at least, a semblance of lawful authority within liis district, and thus saving the country from a state of anarchy. This man was George H. Burckhardt, of Randolph County, who held the office by successive election until his death. This kind and genial Judge has left the impress of character for justice and uprightness as a Judge upon all the citizens of this district.
I must mention an incident in his life which deeply impressed itself upon me as I listened and heard him describe the incident. He was known to be opposed to mob law in all its forms. In a county adjoining the county in which he resided, a poor inan left liis invalid wife at home in a sick bed, while he went to plow in his field. A devil in human form assaulted the helpless woman, fled and was arrested and confined in Huntsville Jail. The County Attorney learned that an effort would be inade to lynch the brute, and had liim conveyed to Kansas City. When the disappointed inob came to Huntsville the Judge remonstrated with them and asked them to let the law take its course. The Judge said to me that an old gray-headed man of his acquaintance came to him and begged permission to interrupt him in order to ask him one question. "Now, Judge, he said impressively, "what if it had been your wife!" The Judge said he was so startled that he turned suddenly and walked away. The old inan had stated the fundamental proposition on which mob law rests. When some demon of hell breaks loose and commits some horrible crime against womankind, a man instantly inquires of himself: What if it had been my wife, daughter, mother or sister? He knows he could do but one thing- kill the creature - and he cannot consistently blame others for what he would only too quickly do. This particular brute was afterwards shot down by the husband in the court house while being tried and no indictment was ever found against him.
Now, while all good citizens must deplorc this tendency to resort to mob violence, I must be permitted to suggest that the remedy docs not lie in a simple condemnation of
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this spirit of mob law, but that all good citizens should unite in the moral and Christian elevation of this vicious class of people, and this should be done first by compulsory education of the young and the universal establishment of reformatory schools for the young criminals, and cease to prate about banishment of the Bible from our public schools. It is gratifying to know that our State is becoming aroused to thus taking care of young criminals by the establishment of reform schools, and it is the more gratifying that one of the most prominent young lawyers in Central Missouri is devoting much of his time from a large practice to this philanthropic work. William M. Williams, of Boonville, is entitled to the gratitude of the citizens of Missouri for his earnest interest in this work by which at least seventy per cent. of the boys are reformed .*
John A. Hockaday. After the death of Judge Burckhardt, John A. Hockaday was appointed Judge and he still holds the office by consecutive elections, with the alinost universal approbation of the people of his district.
James A. Clark. After the population of Missouri increased, what was once a judicial circuit extending over a vast territory, was divided into several circuits and Chariton County was attached to a circuit extending to the north of the State. Judge James A. Clark was appointed to this position and held it until he refused to take the test oath prescribed by the Drake Constitution. He was the brother of Gen. John B. Clark and is the Judge alluded to in the notice of General Clark.
Other Occupants of the Bench. Judge R. A. Debolt succeeded him, and then Judge Burgess, now a Judge of the Supreme Court. Judge Rucker, the present incumbent, suc- ceeded Judge Burgess and is filling the office with the general approbation of the people. Of the Judges on the south side of the river, before whoni I seldom practiced, I remember Judge Miller, Judge Rice, Judge Edwards and the present incumbent, D. W. Shackleford. Many lawyers commenced practice in Central Missouri, who like B. F. Stringfellow and Peter T. Able, of Chariton County, removed and became distinguished in other fields.
It has been my purpose to notice in this article prominent lawyers and Judges of my acquaintance who have passed away, but I feel constrained to refer to some with whom I have been brought in immediate contact, who with me still linger on the shores of time. Oh, how few there are! Andrew J. Herndon, of Fayette; Casper W. Bell, John C. Crenby and Charles Hammond, t of Chariton; Odin Guitar, of Boone, and George G. Vest, now United States Senator; John E. Ryland, now Criminal Judge of Lexington Circuit; John W. Henry, formerly Judge of Supreme Court, now Circuit Judge of Jackson County ; Henry Wallace, of Lafayette; Thomas J. Yerby, William H. Letcher, t of Saline, and Harry Lander, of Linn; Thomas B. Reed, W. A. Austin and Thomas Kimbrough, of Randolph, and Emmet R. Hayden, of Cooper, are of those who remain.
It is with sadness I make this record of the bench and bar in Central Missouri, because of tlie remembrances it raises, but it is also not without pride, for I feel that the bar in Central Missouri has made an indelible impress upon the legislative and judicial policy of my native State, "Grand Old Missouri."
The Good Old Days. These early pioneers could not do otherwise than impress their personality upon every community they visited. Let the imagination go back to the time
* Mr. Williams has recently been appointed to the Supreme Bench to fill ont the nnexpired term of Judge Shepard Barclay, re- signed. The prestige of this position will undoubtedly increase the sphere of his usefulness in all directions .- The Editor.
Since the above was written, both Charles Hammond, of Chariton, and William H. Letcher, of Saline, have " pushed ont on the dark waters" and away from the "shores of time," and the venerable anthor's former contemporaries are thus lessened by two. A biog- raphy of Mr. Hammond will be found elsewhere in this work .- The Editor.
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THE HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR OF MISSOURI.
when 110 railroad ran through any county seat, see these genial mnen mounting their horses with their saddle bags to go forth accompanied by the Judge of the circuit, travel- ing from county to county. Cases were studied on horseback-studied from principle, not alone from authority. Then at night at the farm houses and country taverns, they would ineet and visit, repartee and genial good fellowship pervaded the group. Without being able to carry books, the citation of authority was taken for granted as true without a doubt. Abstruse philosophical questions were discussed freely. The fact that there was a continual communion with nature and a continued contact with the people strengthened and vivified the bench and bar and made its members absolute leaders in all questions of law and politics.
In looking over the old books in my grandfather's library I find a book published in 1802 by Hugh Blair of the University of Edinburg; I find this description of a successful advocate : "At the bar conviction is the great object. Then it is not the speaker's busi- ness to persuade the Judges to what is good or useful, but to show them what is just and true." Such seems to have been the predominant idea in those men who moulded and shaped the judicial thought of our State, all honor to their memory.
Glasgow, Mo., December, 1897.
THE KANSAS CITY SCHOOL OF LAW.
BY WILLIAM P. BORLAND.
IN the early part of 1895 the idea arose among the members of the Kansas City bar of founding a law school on this western border of the commonwealth of Missouri, which should offer to students throughout the great Southwestern Territory, tributary to Kansas City, a thorough, practical and carefully chosen course in the elementary branches of the law; and thus contribute, in its way, to raising the standard of the bar and increasing the facil- ities for education in the West. Among those who became interested in the plan in its inception were Judge Francis N. Black, Hon. O. H. Dean, Judge Edward L. Scarritt, Hon. R. J. Ingraham, Mr. John W. Snyder, Mr. James H. Harkless, Mr. William P. Bor- land, Mr. Edward D. Ellison and Mr. E. N. Powell.
In September of the same year the school was formally opened in the hall of the Kansas City Real Estate and Stock Exchange, and a class of fifty-two students was enrolled. Most of these students were from Kansas City or its immediate vicinity. Since that time the school has had three prosperous years of growth, until now its enrollment exceeds one hundred students. Its influence and sphere of usefulness has also broadened, so that the students in attendance are from all over Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Ten- nessee, Texas and more distant States.
At the beginning of the present school year the growth of the school compelled it to fit up quarters of its own in the new Ridge Building, which it occupies at present.
The members of the faculty have applied themselves earnestly to their task under the firm conviction that by thorough and careful work in instruction they are laying broad and deep the foundations of a permanent institution of our State, feeling that the individual progress of the students is the surest guarantee of the continued growth and success of the school; they have not been ambitious for large numbers of students or for a long list of graduates, but rather for a high standard of scholarship. The examinations are rigid, and the result has been a weeding out and narrowing of the classes, so that the number of graduates is small compared with original enrollment of the class. The percentage of those who fail or drop out is becoming less, however, as the rules of the school become better understood. The faculty has felt mnuch aided by the cordial support and encouragement it has received from the local bar and the bar of the State.
There is nothing original or experimental in the methods of instruction, and especially is this true in the curriculum. The course is bottomed on Blackstone and Kent and the time-tried and standard legal texts. Each lecture is followed by an oral examination or "quiz " by the instructor, reviewing the matter previously lectured on, and at the close of the course occurs a written examination upon the entire subject.
Following the method now almost universally adopted by all law schools situated in large cities, all of the lectures and recitations occur in the evening, after the close of busi-
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ness hours. During the day time the students are encouraged to devote themselves to study in the library, or to connect themselves with the offices of practicing attorneys, where they may have access to private libraries, or to attend upon the courts. In many cases the stu- dents are able to earn part or all of their support while attending the school. In any case they are able to get the practical part of their legal education in law offices and in the courts, while they are getting the broader and more theoretical part in the school.
It has been the criticism often expressed (and not without some justice) by the older generation of lawyers, that law schools do not fulfill their aim because students in attend- ance upon them are completely isolated from the practical part of their profession. It has now been demonstrated that this is not necessarily true, but the need has become appa- rent of bringing law schools in closer touch with the profession, as is done by the methods now in vogue. While in the past, more than seventy per cent. of American lawyers were not graduates of law schools, it is safe to say that in coming generations of lawyers, that proportion will be reversed. Law schools are better and more accessible now than ever before, and more young men, determined to enter the ranks of the profession, are encour- aged to avail themselves of the advantages of law schools, with a consequent elevation of the general standard of the profession.
The present method also enables busy lawyers and Judges, eminent in their profession, to devote their time and talents to the instruction of students to an extent not possible under other systems. In fact, the experience of this school has been that many practicing lawyers have been drawn by the opportunities thus afforded to enroll themselves as students, either for the purpose of increasing their acquaintance with certain branches of the law, or to review the entire course. The central idea is that law should be taught by those in the active pursuit of their profession, either on the bench or at the bar.
In the Kansas City School of Law every member of the faculty is in active professional work. The faculty is limited and compact, not on account of poverty of material, but for the greater thoroughness and certainty of the work. Each instructor has entire charge of the branches taught by him, both as to recitations and examinations, and his concurrence is necessary to the granting of a diploma.
Since the foundation of the school the faculty has been enlarged by the addition of the Hon. Charles O. Tichenor, Sanford B. Ladd, Esq., and Judge Edward P. Gates, so that the faculty now stands as follows:
Judge Francis M. Black, Equity Jurisprudence.
Hon. O. H. Dean, The Law of Corporations.
Judge Edward L. Scarritt, Bills, Notes, Commercial Paper and Banking.
Judge Edward P. Gates, Common Law and Equity Pleading.
Sanford B. Ladd, Esq., The Law of Real Property.
Hon. Charles O. Tichcnor, Constitutional Law.
James H. Harkless, Esq., Code Pleading and Practice.
Hon. R. J. Ingraham, Torts and Crimes.
John W. Snyder, Esq., Agency, Partnership, Evidence and Kent's Commentarics.
William P. Borland, Esq., Contracts, Domestic Relations, Wills and Blackstone's Commentaries.
The officers of thic corporation arc, Judge Francis M. Black, President; Hon. O. H. Dean and Judge Edward L. Scarritt, Vice-Presidents; William P. Borland, Dcan; E. N. Powell, Secretary, and Edward D. Ellison, Treasurer.
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THE KANSAS CITY SCHOOL OF LAW.
At the session of 1897 the General Assembly of the State of Missouri so amended the law relating to the admission of attorneys to practice as to provide that the diploma of the Kansas City School of Law, in common with those of the other two law schools of the State, should entitle its graduates to admission to the bar of this State without further examination. The course of instruction now einbraces two years of nine months each, but it is the earnest desire of the faculty, with the co-operation of the State Uni- versities and other law schools in the West and with the possible aid of legislation, to extend the course to three years. This has been done by law in some of the Eastern States, and the question inust soon receive consideration in our own State.
Kansas City, Mo., January, 1898.
WILLARD P. HALL --- HIS CAREER AND CHARACTER.
BY JOHN C. GAGE.
W ILLARD PREBLE HALL was born at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, May 9, 1820. He was of Puritan descent, his ancestors having emigrated to Massachusetts from England in 1634. In his ancestral lines, both paternal and inaternal, were many of the eminent lawyers, Judges and divines of New England. His father was a man of remark- able mechanical and scientific attainments, and a celebrated inventor. His preliminary education was had at Baltimore, Maryland, and he graduated from Yale College in the class of 1839-the same class in which were Williamn M. Evarts and several other eminent ine11.
In 1840 he came to Missouri and studied law with his brother, Judge William A. Hall, of Randolph County. In 1841 he removed to Platte County, and settled at Sparta, then the county seat. A glimpse of him as he was then is given by an old citizen of Platte City, with whom he stopped over night on his trip from Randolph County to Sparta. He described him as a pale, delicate youth, dressed in blue jeans, mounted on a pony, with a pair of leather saddle bags containing his wardrobe and library. In 1843 he removed to St. Joseph, which was his home during the remainder of his life.
He stepped into immediate prominence in his profession and in politics. In 1843 lie was appointed Circuit Attorney, succeeding a very capable officer. General Doniphan, speaking of him at this period, says: "He succeeded at once. System and order and logical arrangement were natural with him. He had the criminal law, and especially the statutes of the State, at his fingers' ends, and could readily refer. to them in a moment's time.
"Plain and simple in his manners as a child, naturally frank and easy with everyone, lie soon became a favorite, and from his youthful appearance, even a pet, with his older friends. He was a very efficient and a very conscientious officer. He prevented grand juries from presenting anything that could not be sustained, and prosecuted with great energy those lie believed guilty."
In 1844, he was one of the candidates on the Democratic electoral ticket, and canvassed western Missouri, north of the Missouri River, on behalf of Polk and Dallas, and thc annexation of Texas. Doniphan was the Whig candidate for tlic samme office, and was always his antagonist in this canvass. To those who know what Northwest Missouri was in those old days, and what Doniphan was in his prime, it would be unnecessary; to those who did not know tlich, it would be impossible, to explain what it meant for this stripling of twenty-four years to micct that matchiless orator before a people who loved and lionored him as Doniphan was loved and honored in Northwest Missouri.
How well hc maintained himself in the contest is best shown by thic fact that lie won the unqualified praise and admiration of Doniphan, and as the result, was made the 110111- inec of his party for Congress in 1846, over the licads of many able veterans of his party.
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WILLARD P. HALL-HIS CAREER AND CHARACTER.
I have an account, contained in the St. Joseph Gazette of the time, of a eulogy delivered by him July 19, 1845, upon the life and services of General Jackson. It is as follows: "We will not do Mr. Hall the injustice to attempt to give a sketch of his speech. We will only say, the matter of the address was entirely appropriate; his style was concise and perspicuous, sometimes ornamented by beautiful figures, and the composition lost nothing by the manner of delivery, for Mr. Hall is an agreeable speaker. The only objec- tion we have heard to the address was that it was too short."
The great issue in the canvass of 1844, was the question of the annexation of Texas. In his canvass for Congress in the spring of 1846, Mr. Hall was taunted with the fact that the policy of annexation which he liad advocated, had plunged the country into war with Mexico. Possibly, in the heat of debate, he had made some pledges; but, at any rate, he made proof of his good faith in his principles by volunteering as a private for service in the war. His company formed a part of Doniphan's command in his great expedition across the Plains and through New Mexico, conquering the country as he went, until he joined the army of General Scott in old Mexico; a military feat which stands in history comparable alone with the retreat of the 10,000 Greeks recorded by Xenophon in the Anabasis.
While the command was rendezvousing at Fort Leavenworth, preparing for its march, people from all parts of Hall's district came to the fort, bringing horses and mules and cattle, and other supplies for the army, and there they saw their young candidate clad in the garb and performning the menial services of a private soldier, unloading the stores from the boats and placing them in wagons. When they returned to their homes the story of his conduct was told all over the district, and the hearts of the people were touched to such an extent that, although he appeared no more in the canvass, when the election came on in August, he was chosen to Congress by a majority of more than 3,000 out of less than 10,000 votes.
After the conquest of New Mexico it became necessary to establish a government over that territory, and for that purpose to frame a code of laws adapted to its condition. Gen- eral Kearney, the commander, detailed Private Hall from the ranks to do this work, in connection with Doniphan. Together they prepared the code which Gencral Kearney afterwards proclaimed as the established military law of the territory, and which was after- wards again adopted as the Territorial code, and remained for forty-five years the funda- mental law of the Territory.
No one who knew Hall and Doniphan, and the capacity of the former and the disin- clination of the latter for this kind of work, will doubt that much the greater part of the labor was done by Hall. And Doniphan often said that the work was mainly Hall's. It was certainly a most remarkable duty to which this private soldier was detailed, to write the laws that were to govern the conquered country.
The printed statutes do not cover great space. On its 115 scanty pages is printed, in both the English and Spanish languages, this entire body of laws, and I venture to say that it would be impossible to find anywhere so complete and perfect a system of laws in many times the space covered here. Here we have, for example, a bill of rights announc- ing the great principles of civil and religious liberty which are repeated over in all our constitutions, and have passed through the hands of the greatest statesmen of England and America-but here we find them, amended and strengthened in expression, more com- plete and more beautiful than anywhere else.
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Space does not permit me to make the comparison, but if any of you feel interested to know what kind of a lawyer Governor Hall was, I advise you to examine this book and mark the evidence it contains of ripened and matured scholarship and statesmanship, and then -remembering that it was prepared in a few days' time, amid the turmoil of the camp, by a youth of barely twenty-six years, whose short, active life had been passed on this far Western border, much of it in the saddle, in the midst of legal and political con- flicts-to thus determine with what equipment of native ability, of acquired scholarship and experience, this young man set out on his career.
Colonel Hughes, in his history of the Doniphan Expedition, tells us that one day as they were engaged in preparing this code in Santa Fe, General Doniphan entered the room and announced to Hall the fact of his election to Congress. This was in August, 1846. He was immediately relieved from further duty as a soldier, but voluntarily accom- panied Col. Philip St. George Cook to California, returned to Missouri the next spring, and took his seat in Congress the following winter.
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