USA > New York > Encyclopedia of biography of New York, a life record of men and women whose sterling character and energy and industry have made them pre?minent in their own and many other states. V.6 > Part 31
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His preliminary education was obtained
in the public schools of Salem. He was graduated from Harvard, in 1852, with Phi Beta Kappa rank, the fourth scholar of the class, in which his elder brother, William Gardner Choate, since a United States judge of the Southern District of New York stood first. He was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, in whose welfare he has ever retained a lively interest, frequently the orator at its reunions and presiding at its banquets. He was graduated Bachelor of Law from the Harvard Law School, in 1854, and after an additional year of study in the office of Leverett Saltonstall, in Boston, was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1855. In the same year he moved to New York City, whch has since been his home, was licensed in this State and be- gan the practice which has continued un- interruptedly to the present day. He first entered the office of Scudder & Carter, the latter an accomplished jurist for half a century, with whom he re- mained a very short time when, with a commendatory letter from Rufus Choate to William M. Evarts, he was introduced to the office of Butler, Evarts & South- mayd of which Mr. Evarts was the head, in which he remained until 1858, when he formed a partnership with General Wil- liam H. L. Barnes, subsequently a bril- liant lawyer in San Francisco, which was conducted successfully for a year, under the style of Choate & Barnes. He then returned to the Evarts office, as a mem- ber of the firm designated as Evarts, Southmayd & Choate. This association continued until 1884, when it was re- solved into that of Evarts, Choate & Beaman, its successor now known as Evarts, Choate & Sherman, of which the sons of Mr. Evarts and Mr. Choate are members.
Steadily rising in repute and augment- ing in practice, Mr. Choate became the
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recognized "head of the bar" of the me- Fire Association vs. New York, touch- tropolis, which is the head of the bar in the country, when the senior member, that illustrious lawyer and prince of wits, gave himself wholly to the public service as Secretary of State and Senator. Mr. Choate was equally prominent in trials at nisi prius and cases in banc. His deep analysis of human nature, his discern- ment of situations and skill in eliciting evidence rendered him an expert in the examination of witnesses, while his spark- ling wit, ready repartee and cogent appeals mastered juries. His knowledge of the law, his familiarity with principles and precedents, the precision and solidity of his address and the urbanity of his acumen were also singularly persuasive with the bench ; and this not alone in the Appellate Courts of the State, but in the highest tribunal of the land before which he has argued many celebrated cases. Among the cases in different jurisdictions that he has managed several may be men- tioned without, in all instances, specify- ing issues, to wit: Fuardent vs. di Ces- nola, in which he defended successfully the genuineness of the Cypriote antiqui- ties in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Stewart vs. Huntington, concerning the contracts and operations of the Central Pacific; Hunt vs. Stevens; Laidlaw vs. Sage; the Maynard New York election frauds of 1891-92; the validity of the Standard Oil and American Tobacco trusts; the Cruger, Vanderbilt, Tilden, Stewart, Hoyt, Drake and Hopkins will cases; and various others in the Admir- alty courts.
As he has been a maker of the organic law of the commonwealth, as will later be seen, he has also been the constant interpreter of the national constitution as witnessed in many issues before the national tribunal. Among these are the following: The case of the Philadelphia
ing the constitutionality of the so-called reciprocal and retaliatory taxation laws against foreign corporations enacted by many States; the Kansas prohibition law; the Chinese exclusion cases, with the pregnant question as to the right of the government to exclude or deport im- migrants of that race; the California irri- gation cases; the constitutionality of the Acts of many western States; the Massa- chusetts fisheries cases; the constitu- tional right of a State to protect fisheries in arms of the sea and within and beyond the three-mile limit ; the income tax cases, which involved the constitutionality of the Income Tax Law of 1894. Besides these, Mr. Choate has argued many other important cases before the high courts of his own and other States. With John C. Bullitt and Anson Maltbie he achieved a signal triumph in 1889 in the able de- fense of General Fitz-John Porter before the commission appointed by President Hayes to inquire into the justice of the sentence which in 1863 had deprived Gen- eral Porter of his military rank for alleged misconduct in battle, and for the reversal of which General Porter had made the most strenuous efforts for many years. Mr. Choate not only fully established Porter's innocence, but also procured the restoration of his rank. The lawyer's versatility was further displayed in his presentation of the case for the defendant before the naval court-martial appointed to try Captain McCalla for certain alleged breaches of the naval regulations; and a still further illustration of that quality of his mind is to be found in his diplo- matic conduct of the investigation under- taken by the New York Yacht Club of the Defender-Valkyrie controversy, upon charges made by Lord Dunraven as to the conduct of the international race be- tween those yachts.
Mr. Choate has been most honorably
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recognized by his brethren of the bar in the presidencies of the Harvard Law School Association, the New York City, New York State and American Bar asso- ciations. He has been made Doctor of Laws by many leading colleges and uni- versities both in the United States and Great Britain, to wit: Amherst (1887), Harvard (1888), Yale (1901), Williams (1905), Pennsylvania (1908), Union (1909), McGill (1913), Cambridge (1900), Edinburgh (1900), St. Andrews (1902), Glasgow (1904), and Toronto (1915), and in 1902 Oxford University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. He was elected, April 10, 1905, a bencher of the Middle Temple, that most select and honorable legal body, a distinction never bestowed upon any other Ameri- ican. He is also a foreign honorary fel- low of the Royal Society of Literature, a member of the American Philosophical Society, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of the American Mu- seum of Natural History since the foun- dation of each; vice-president of the American Society for the Judicial Settle- ment of International Disputes; Am- bassador and first United States delegate to the International Peace Congress at the Hague (1907); trustee of the Equita- ble Life Assurance Society ; governor of the New York Hospital, 1877; president of the New York State Charities Aid Association ; member of the Massachu- setts Colonial Society ; president of the New England Society of New York (1867-71); of the Harvard Club of New York (1874-78); of the Union League Club of New York (1873-77) and is now president of the Century Association. In addition to those already mentioned, he is also a member of the following clubs: University, Alpha Delta Phi, City, Met- ropolitan, Riding, New York Athletic, and Down Town.
These various associations-legal, let- tered, artistic, social and humane-which
have honored him and he has honored reveal at once the wide range of his activ- ities and the insistent call for their serv- ice. If he may be estimated by his tri- umphs at the bar; his constant thought and kindly consideration for its younger members; his identification with great enterprises ; his courage and honesty in municipal affairs ; his secret, as well as open, beneficences, for no good and needy cause ever appealed to him in vain; his catholic views and quick sympathies, coupled with independence in thought and action ; his culture in arts and letters ; his social graces, his genial bearing and fascinating address, he may be fairly dis- tinguished as the first citizen of the me- tropolis as well as the leader of the bar. Enchanting as a guest and peerless as the host at the banquet board, he is, like Macgregor, the head of the table wherever he sits. If a notable from abroad visits our shores, he is chosen to bid him welcome. If a philanthropic, educational or clearly political movement is to be advanced he is summoned for the energizing event. If an historic occa- sion is to be observed or respect paid to the memory of a departed worthy, his is the informing utterance or the fitting tribute. Among his most notable ora- torical efforts may be mentioned that at the Metropolitan Fair in New York City, in 1864, that at the unveiling of the Far- ragut statue in New York (1881) and of Rufus Choate in the Boston Court House (1898), a labor of love, as he has often declared that he owes to Rufus Choate more than to any other man or men, to his example and inspiration, to his sym- pathy and helping hand, whatever suc- cess has attended his own professional efforts ; on the "Trial by Jury" before the American Bar Association (1898) ; on Leverett Saltonstall (Boston, 1898); on Richard H. Dana, 1915, and the famous classic on Abraham Lincoln.
Politically Dr. Choate has always been
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a Republican, the attainment of his ma- jority and the birth of the party being nearly coeval. A champion of its prin- ciples, he has taken the stump in its be- half in many campaigns, but has not hesitated to criticize its policies, when they seemed to him unwise, or its local leadership when it failed in rectitude of conduct. In other words he is an inde- pendent Republican ; uniformly the ad- vocate of purity in government and the scourge of abuses and corruption by whomsoever perpetrated. Thus he was prominent in the committee of seventy which, in 1871, broke up the Tweed ring and punished its chief malefactors. He has steadily refused to stand for office, once only consenting, in 1897, to be an inde- pendent Republican candidate for United States senator, but was defeated by what is known as the "organization." He has, however, accepted two positions of ex- alted import, among many tendered him, the one as a reviser of the organic law of the commonwealth and the other as the representative of the Republic in the most important post in the diplomatic service.
The fourth constitutional convention, duly ordered by the people, a large major- ity of the delegates being Republicans, met in the Assembly Chamber at the Capitol in Albany, May 8, 1894, Dr. Choate, who had been a member of the Constitutional Commission of 1890, head- ing the list of the delegates at large. It was an able body of men, many of them having previously received honorable preferment, and was well equipped by learning and experience for the responsi- ble duty it was to fulfill. By practically uanimous acclaim Dr. Choate was select- ed as president. Although without previ- ous legislative experience, he at once re- vealed signal ability as a presiding officer -firm, dignified, impartial, resourceful-
and commanded the esteem of his asso- ciates throughout, at times taking the floor to discuss propositions of exigent concern. He enlightened the convention by his speech, enlivened it by his wit, and charmed it by his courtesy. It framed an instrument accordant with his address on assuming the chair, in which, after prefacing a cordial tribute to the then existing constitution, he said :
We are not commissioned, as I understand it, to treat it (the Constitution of '46) with any rude or sacrilegious hands. To its general features, the statutes, the judicial decisions, the habits of this great people have long been accustomed and adapted, and it seems to me, we should be false to our trust if we entered upon any attempt to tear asunder this structure which, for so many years, has satisfied, in the main, the wants of the people of the State of New York. And yet, he proceeded, there are certain great questions which we are here to consider, which stare us in the face at the very outset of the proceedings and will continue to employ our minds until the day of our final adjournment.
Among these, he specified the reappor- tionment of the legislative districts, the government of cities, the relief of the court of appeals, the suffrage, education, and the regulation of legislative and court procedure. His ideas concerning these all found expression in the Con- stitution, which was ratified at the polls by a majority of nearly 100,000 .*
*A striking specimen of his subtle wit is still fresh in the minds of surviving members of the convention. Toward the end of the session, with business pressing, the president was desirous of restricting discussion as much as possible. A resolution being before the convention, the pres- Ident stated that it was not likely to precipitate debate and directed the secretary to call the roll for a vote. That officer had not called more than two or three names when the courteous and dis- tinguished leader of the minority, the Hon. John M. Bowers, arose and said: "Mr. President, I would like to say something on the question." The president either unconsciously, or purposely, it would be difficult to say, pald no attention and still directed the secretary to proceed with the call; whereupon Mr. Bowers, with considerable excitement of manner and waving of hands ex- claimed. "No, Mr. President, I want to debate the resolution; we all want to debate It." "That is precisely the same thing," the president quickly replied, and the call proceeded amid the laughter of the convention, in which Mr. Bowers himself cheerfully joined.
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In January, 1899, President Mckinley nominated and the Senate promptly con- firmed him as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. Retained by President Roose- velt, his embassy included six years (1899-1905). In the long and brilliant line of scholars, orators and statesmen, who have honored the nation in this lofty station, none has been more acceptable to his own country or persona grata, more pleasing to that to which he was accredited than Joseph Hodges Choate. In the amicable relations between the two peoples, never more pronounced than during his tenure, there were some deli- cate and difficult issues to determine ; in- cluding especially the Alaska boundary, the Panama canal question, and the main- tenance of the Open Door in China. He performed the regular duties of his office with dignity, fidelity and dispatch, the embassy was the home of visiting Amer- icans and the rights and needs of his countrymen were attended to scrupu- lously. Entertaining elegantly, but not ostentatiously, he was a welcome guest in all circles of rank and refinement, but it was abroad, as at home, that his speech conquered. Invitations to speak were showered upon him for literary and civic occasions, and to these he responded cheerfully and freely, never forgetting that he was an American, but never offen- sively obtruding his nationality, as too many of our diplomats have been wont to do. The esteem in which he was held is clearly shown in the university degrees bestowed upon him and the exclusive associations to which he was invited. Both on the social and official sides his mission was eminently successful, link- ing more closely the ties that unite the great communities of the Anglo-Saxon race.
A fitting honor paid Mr. Choate was his appointment as head of the American
delegates selected by President Roose- velt in 1907 to represent the United States at the second Peace Conference to meet at the Hague, June 15, 1907. The delegates received their instructions from Secretary of State Elihu Root under date of May 31, 1907, in these instructions out- lining the wishes and desires of this gov- ernment. The service rendered by Mr. Choate as plenipotentiary ambassador, representing the United States, was weighty and exceedingly valuable; his addresses and arguments on compulsory arbitration, on an International Court of Appeal, and on the Immunity of Private Property at Sea, especially being worthy of preservation in government archives. Had the American project been adopted the history of the European conflict now raging would perhaps never need to be written.
Forty-six States were invited to partici- pate in the labors of the Hague Confer- ence and but two failed to send repre- sentatives, Costa Rica and Ethiopia. In the official instructions to the delegates the United States government said, "You will urge upon the Peace Conference the formulation of international rules of war at sea," adding, "No rules should be adopted for the purpose of mitigating the evils of war to belligerents which will tend strongly to destroy the rights of neutrals, and no rules should be adopted regarding the rights of neutrals which will tend strongly to bring about war." "Special consideration should be given an agreement upon what shall be deemed to constitute contraband of war." On the question of arbitration the United States delegates were instructed by Sec- retary Root to secure a general treaty along the lines of the treaties negotiated by John Hay when Secretary of State and "to secure such a treaty you should use your best and most earnest efforts."
The program for the work of the con-
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ference was so elaborate that a division of the conference into four commissions was advisable. Mr. Choate was desig- nated with Horace Porter honorary presi- dents of the second and third commis- sions. Mr. Choate, on June 28, 1907, ad- dressed the conference on the American proposition, "The Immunity from Cap- ture of Private Unoffending Property of the Enemy upon the High Seas."
In the language of the learned reporter, M. Henri Fromageot, Mr. Choate's argu- ment was "sustained with an eloquence and a dialectical force difficult to sur- pass." But the doctrine proved unaccept- able to the larger maritime nations. On July 18 he again addressed the confer- ence on the American proposition, inter- national arbitration, presenting most elo- quently and powerfully the proposition for a general agreement of arbitration among the nations. After ten weeks of discussion in the committee of Examina- tion A, the Anglo-American draft of a general treaty of arbitration was pre- sented to the first commission and was there debated with great warmth of feel- ing. On October 5 Mr. Choate again argued in favor of International Arbitra- tion and the adoption of the Anglo- American draft of a general treaty. On October 10 he argued at length against the Austro-Hungarian resolution which virtually meant postponement of the Anglo-American proposition of compul- sory arbitration which had secured a vote of thirty-two in its favor to nine against ; the opponents of the measure insisting upon the unanimity rule of international assemblies, and the opposition of Ger- many to a general treaty of arbitration finally proving fatal to the Anglo-Amer- ican project, the result of weeks of labor and discussion. Its partisans, however, secured the adoption of a resolution ad- mitting the principle of compulsory arbi-
tration and declaring in favor of so set- tling "certain disputes." Mr. Choate voted against the resolution which seemed a retreat from the advanced posi- tion the commission had taken in its votes and on October II, addressed the commission in a brief statement in be- half of the American delegation. At the closing session of the First Commission, October 11, 1907, Mr. Choate on behalf of the American delegation delivered an eloquent tribute to M. Bourgeois, presi- dent of the First Commission to which the question of arbitration had been as- signed. In closing he said: "During these four months, Mr. President, we have lived happily under your benign dominion, we have worked hard, and have earned the bread of the conference by the sweat of our brows, and there have been moments of trial and suffering, but in separating, we look back with satisfac- tion upon our labors, thanks greatly to your beneficent and harmonizing spirit."
Other addresses made by Mr. Choate at the conference were on the establishment of an International Court of Justice (July II) and on the American project for a Permanent Court of Arbitral Justice (Au- gust 1).
Those four months spent in delibera- tion with chosen minds of all nations constitute a record that is not only a source of satisfaction to Mr. Choate and the entire American delegation, but one in which the American nation takes great pride.
Dr. Choate's residence for nine months in the year is at No. 8 East Sixty-third street, New York. The other three months he sets apart for comparative re- laxation and repose at Stockbridge in the Berkshire hills, where he dispenses a gracious hospitality. He married, Oc- tober 16, 1861, Caroline Dutcher, daugh- ter of Frederick A. Sterling, of Cleve-
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land, Ohio, and sister of President Theo- dore Sterling, late president of Kenyon College. Mrs. Choate, and two sons, George and Joseph Hodges, Jr., and one daughter are living.
HAVEMEYER, John Craig, Man of Affairs, Philanthropist, Author.
This tribute of respect is dedicated to a man who has lived long and has lived well. The story of his life is full of les- sons, full of interest, full of inspiration. It covers a period when a great number of social, civic and religious reforms were effected with which he was identified. Now, an octogenarian, Mr. Havemeyer has stood through this long number of years for the highest ideals of citizenship, his voice has always been raised and his influence unswervingly cast on the side of right and righteous living, whether a business man, citizen, philanthropist or Christian, he has consistently sought to embody in his life the principle of Him who said: "I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister."
The Havemeyers came from the Ger- mań middle class, removed alike from noble and serf, which preserved through out the darkness of the Middle Ages the learning, energy and independence of character which made Northern and Cen- tral Germany receptive to Luther and the Reformation. Bueckeburg, in the prin- cipality of Schaumburg-Lippe, was the home city of the Havemeyers and there Hermann Hoevemeyer (as sometimes spelled) with nineteen others formed a Baker's Guild in 1644. Dietrich William Hoevemeyer, born 1725, was a master baker, a member of the Common Council of the City of Bueckeburg and served in the Seventy Years' War.
phaned at an early age, he had gone to England at fifteen, and in London learned sugar refining, eventually becom- ing superintendent of a refinery. He came to New York under contract with Edmund Seaman & Company to take charge of their sugar house in Pine street, bringing with him a bill of exchange for sixty pounds sterling, dated London, March 12, 1799, drawn on James J. Roose- velt, merchant, New York. He com- pleted the terms of his contract in 1807, then at once began business for himself, establishing one of the first sugar refin- eries in New York City, its location be- tween Hudson and Greenwich streets, on Vandam street. He became a naturalized citizen in 1807 and at his death, August 13, 1851, aged eighty-one years, he left a comfortable estate to his four children : Anna, Amelia, Albert and William Fred- erick.
William Frederick Havemeyer, father of John Craig Havemeyer, was born at No. 31 Pine street, New York City, Feb- ruary 12, 1804, died during his third term as mayor of New York, while in per- formance of his official duties at the City Hall, November 30, 1874. After prepara- tion in private schools he entered Colum- bia College, whence he was graduated, class of 1823, having particularly distin- guished himself in mathematics. He ob- tained a thorough business training as clerk in his father's sugar refinery, and in 1823 formed a partnership with his cousin, Frederick Christian Havemeyer, under the firm name of W. F. & F. C. Havemeyer, sugar refiners. In 1842, after fourteen years in successful business, he sold his interests in the firm to his brother, Albert Havemeyer, and retired with a competency honorably earned.
His prominent connection with public affairs began in 1844 and continued until his death thirty years later. He was a
The first of the family to come to America was William Havemeyer, grand- father of John Craig Havemeyer. Or- Democrat, and an enthusiastic supporter
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of Andrew Jackson during the years "Old Hickory" was so potent a power in the land. In 1844 he was chosen to repre- sent his ward in the Tammany Hall Con- vention. At the succeeding State Demo- cratic Convention held at Syracuse, Sep- tember 4, 1844, he was nominated presi- dential elector, and in the Electoral Col- lege cast the vote of New York State for James K. Polk, of Tennessee, for Presi- dent and George M. Dallas, of Pennsyl- vania, for Vice-President.
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