USA > Wisconsin > History of the bench and bar of Wisconsin, Vol. II > Part 36
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markable for their learning: But he discussed no subject, in or out of court, on which his great intelligence did not throw much light. In this respect he strongly resembled Mr. Webster; oftener leading men by persuasion than overcoming them by conviction. This went towards making him what he was-a very effective, popular speaker, a very successful jury lawyer; more so than dry, logical argument would prob- ably have made him. And even in court this tended to aid correct conclusions, though not always in his favor. I can say for myself that I never heard an argument of Mr. Smith without receiving a clearer com- prehension of the questions discussed, whether I shared his views or not. He was essentially an orator; always self-possessed, always self-reliant. His mental resources were great, and were always at command. His faith in his own views was generally undoubting, and was a power of no mean order. Altogether, he was an admirable advocate, with not many equals, with few superiors amongst the great advocates of our profession.
+ "Mr. Smith was a man of singularly genial disposition. His ability had little of the passionate type, easily ruffled and prone to severity. He was essentially sympathetic. And this quality entered into his elo- quence, and added largely to its influence. But it was in private that his genial, sympathetic nature was most apparent. It was impossible to know him without recognizing his warm and generous heart. This was the crowning glory of his character. It was so striking that it drew all hearts toward him. We may have among us abler men, perhaps better men, but it would be difficult to find a man so universally beloved as George B. Smith. In the controversies of life he was always earnest, often enthusiastic; but his zeal was so tempered by his kindly nature that it left no abiding rancor behind it. When most men die we are apt to lay forgiveness, as a wreath, upon their coffins. This was not so with Mr. Smith; his kindly nature had left no surviving sting in any heart to be forgiven.
"Mr. Smith died in the full vigor of life; cut off from many years of usefulness and distinction. He has left vacant an honorable and useful place in his profession, from which his contemporaries will always miss him. He has left a void in many hearts which will last till their turn
The Dewis Pub OG Chili.go.
HKM G. Ifwener
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comes to join him in a better world. He has bequeathed to us all a memory not to be forgotten to the end. And we pay this feeble tribute to his memory, feeling how inadequate words are to express our sense of a useful and beautiful life."
JOHN C. SPOONER .*
John Coit Spooner comes of stock which from the earliest colonial times has produced soldiers and statesmen. The Spooner patronymic was prominent in the vicinity of the ancient Roman town of Colchester, England, five centuries ago; originally it came, it is thought, from Friesland, where it was spelled Spuhner, and the family was, of course, an inveterate enemy of the Romans. The name is not recorded in Domesday Book, but is found in the college of Heraldry as emanating from Warwickshire in the sixteenth century, and also from Worcester- shire.
In 1637 Spooners arrived from England and settled in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, spreading to New Bedford. Plymouth, and elsewhere along the coast. The maiden name of the mother of John C. was Coit; she also was descended from the earliest New England settlers-a Welsh family noted for brains, independence and courage.
The Spooners were prominent in early colonial affairs; took part in the French and Indian wars, and Philip, John C.'s great-grandfather, was, with his brother Michael, a minute man at Lexington, and rose to distinction in the war of the revolution. Samuel Coit, the maternal
*This sketch is taken from the Columbian Biographical Dictionary, Wisconsin volume, published in 1895. It was written for that work by Frank A. Flower. The paragraph concerning Mr. Spooner's re-election to the senate has been substituted for one concerning a political address made by lim, and two other paragraphs which are less applicable now than when written, because of events which have re- cently occurred, are omitted. It has not been thought advisable to enter into a con- sideration of Mr. Spooner's career since his re-election to the senate; he has main- tained and advanced his reputation as a member of that body and as an orator. As a lawyer, too, he has added to his reputation since 1895, particularly in connec- tion with the reorganization and settlement of the affairs of the Northern Pacific Railroad. His employment by the receivers of that road and the conduct of the business intrusted to him taxed his strength for a considerable period. He met the responsibilities thus cast upon him in such a way as to advance his reputation as a lawyer of great ability, industry and skill.
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great-grandfather, was also an officer in the revolution, a colonel, a man of powerful physique, and a fearless and terrific fighter.
Spooners and Coits swarmed into service during the war of 1812, and several were prominent in the Mexican war. But Philip Loring Spooner, father of John C., was a man of added qualities, though dif- ferent in make-up from the general run of Spooners-unambitious, ex- cept as a lawyer, retiring, an enemy of contention, and a promoter of peace. His brother Benjamin, on the other hand, full of the military spirit, was a brilliant soldier in the Mexican war, and recruited the first regiment that was mustered into service from the state of Indiana for the war of the rebellion, in April, 1861. He was one of the gallant and intrepid soldiers of that unparalleled contest; lost an arm at Kenesaw Mountain, and was made United States marshal of the district of In- diana at a time when the duty of ferreting out and suppressing the Knights of the Golden Circle and other secret and destructive enemies of the country was more trying and perilous than leading the charges of actual war. His final commission was the last state paper signed by Lincoln before going to Ford's theatre on the night of the assassina- tion.
John C. was born January 6, 1843, at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, then the prosperous home of a choice circle of citizens, politicians, attorneys and business men, among whom his father, a native of New Bedford, was an honored and respected leader.
The frequency of destructive floods in the Ohio river, ill health and the lack of educational facilities forced the senior Spooner to seek another home for his young family-three sons and one daughter. He had heard of the great natural beauty and healthful climate of Madison, the new capital of Wisconsin, and there, in June, 1859, he established his permanent home and entered upon the practice of his profession, the law. In all the list of nature's noblemen-modest, thoughtful, patriotic, high-minded, generous, pure and true-the character of no man in the northwest shone with a more calm and benign effulgence, or exercised a more elevating and wholesome influence, than that of Philip L. Spooner. He died in 1887, at the age of seventy-seven, known and honored far beyond the usual lot of men who neither seek nor accept
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383 the favors, the offices or the plaudits of the public; he was acknowl- edged by the courts and the bar as pre-eminently a great jurist-a man of unlimited capacity.
John C. attended, for a time, the city schools of Madison, being a rapid and comprehensive student. One of his tutors relates that no amount of persuasion or prospect of fun ever induced him to go nutting or upon a frolic before he had fully mastered his lessons; but this mas- tery could be accomplished in an incredibly short space of time.
He entered the university of Wisconsin in 1860, at the age of seven- teen, having decided to prepare to join his father in the legal profession. His career in that institution was brilliant; in the departments of ora- tory and debate, civil government, international and constitutional law, history and literature he was an acknowledged leader of his class.
On April 22, 1864, the governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin tendered eighty-five thousand troops for one hundred days, to be paid and equipped by the government the same as other volunteers, but to be charged to no draft and to receive no bounties. This brave offer, made in the face of the fact that the states had just completed their quotas under the call for seven hundred thousand vol- unteers, was to be filled in twenty days from acceptance. The offer was accepted and young Spooner, in order to assist in making Wisconsin's tender good within the brief time allotted, secured a recruiting com- mission. and borrowing three hundred dollars from a local banker, Mr. Hill, raised a company. Then, although entitled to a commissioned office, he proposed that his entire class enlist as privatcs, himself in- cluded, and choose the officers. He demanded. however, that the class should be graduated the same as though all had remained to the end of the term.
To this, of course, as a reward of patriotism, the authorities as- sented, and on May 13. 1864, he enlisted as a private in company D. fortieth regiment. This regiment was largely composed of professors and students from Wisconsin colleges and seminaries- the flower of the state. Soon after the end of the one-hundred-day term he re-enlisted for "three years or the war." as captain of company A, fiftieth regiment. and was detailed first to Fort Leavenworth, and then to the northwest
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to watch for and quell Indian outbreaks-the most disagreeable and trying service a soldier could be called on to perform. For some months he was stationed with his regiment at Fort Rice, Dakota ter- ritory, in the midst of the Sioux Indians. He was brevetted major March 13, 1865, and mustered out June 12, 1866.
On returning from the war, Mr. Spooner began studying law with his father, and was soon after (January, 1867) appointed private and military secretary to Governor Lucius Fairchild, with the rank of colo- nel, and a salary of two thousand dollars per annum. He was admitted to the bar of Dane county by Circuit Judge H. S. Orton in 1868, though still serving as private secretary.
In 1868 he was appointed quartermaster general of the state, serving two years, with the rank of brigadier general. In 1869-70 he was as- sistant attorney general under Charles R. Gill and Stephen S. Barlow.
May 30, 1868, was memorable in the city of Madison, and also in the career of Mr. Spooner, as marking the first formal decoration day services in the city, and, it is claimed, in the entire state. From sunrise to sunset cannon boomed in the capital park: General J. M. Rusk was marshal of the day; a large number of veterans from the surrounding country (carrying forty of the tattered colors brought back from the war) and a long line of children from the soldiers' orphans' home marched in the big procession.
The official program announced an oration by "General" John C. Spooner, that being the title of his military office. It was his first appearance as a public speaker on an important occasion, and practi- cally the entire city came out to hear and see him. The address, though brief, was patriotic and inspiring, and eloquently delivered. The news- papers praised it, and accorded the unusual compliment of a place in full in their columns.
If Mr. Spooner had not later achieved so much greater fame that address of 1868, when he was but a boy of twenty-five, would be con- sidered, as, in fact, it is, a remarkable effort. The opening sentence was: "In this land of ours, God has crowded the glories of a century into the achievements of a decade."
In the several responsible and honorable positions so swiftly
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crowded upon him Mr. Spooner acquitted himself with conspicuous energy and ability. But his father, one of the seers and prophets of the profession, feared that the peculiar influence of public service might draw his son away from the law and into politics, and advised him at once to cut loose from office and devote himself exclusively to his pro- fession.
Therefore, in 1870, at the age of twenty-seven, he removed to Hud- son, Wisconsin, and entered into partnership with H. C. Baker. There he sprang quickly into prominence as a citizen and lawyer, enjoying from the first a large and desirable general practice, in which for eleven years he argued and tried a great number of causes in the courts of many counties of that region and in the supreme court.
To Mr. Spooner the legal business of the West Wisconsin Railway company was intrusted; also that of the North Wisconsin. His energy and decisiveness, together with great natural legal ability and aptitude for railroad litigation, very soon led to his appointment as general counsel for those roads, which position he held until the lines were merged into the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, of which he was elected and continued general counsel until May 5, 1884, on which day he resigned because the Vanderbilts, having secured control of the road, required him to bring what he told them was an unjust and unfounded suit for $1,200,000 against Messrs. Flower, Dows and Por- ter, stockholders in the corporation, and his clients and friends.
The new directorate, in session in New York at the time, used every means to induce him to remain as general counsel, offering him power to fix his own salary and the privilege of remaining out of the case which he was refusing to bring. He not only would not entertain their propositions, but told the directors that he should defend Porter, Dows and Flower. His resignation was, therefore, accepted and the suit, in his hands for the defense, was entirely defeated.
This action was new proof of the high notions Mr. Spooner enter- tained of professional honor and personal friendship, for he left the "Omaha" with feelings of keenest regret. He had helped to create and build up the great corporation; he knew its history, workings and em- ployes; he liked that branch of his profession; his associates were con- Vol. II .- 25
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genial and he could have had any salary he might have asked. Never- theless, he did not hesitate a moment between these considerations and what he considered professional honor and personal friendship. And thus, and not to become a candidate for the United States senate, as has been alleged, he left the "Omaha."
From 1881 to May 5, 1884, Mr. Spooner devoted himself entirely to the business of the railroad company which, by consolidation, had come to control about eighteen hundred miles of road, extending through Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, into Nebraska and Dakota. He had sole charge of all their legal business, which was extensive and important.
An old citizen of Hudson said during Mr. Spooner's campaign for the governorship: "I never knew a harder student and worker than John was, from 1872 to 1884. It was a usual thing to see the light burning in his office until way into the night. His activity and energy in the preparation and trial of causes were phenomenal and he was a quick worker then, as he is now. He seemed to have no ambition but in the law."
Immediately after settling at Hudson, Mr. Spooner became con- nected with a case in which he made a national reputation among the railroad managers, judges and attorneys. It may be found in 21 Wal- lace as Schulenberg vs. Harriman. General Harriman, as state timber agent, had seized Schulenberg's logs, cut on lands granted by Con- gress in trust to Wisconsin for what is now the Chicago, St. Paul, Min- neapolis & Omaha railway. The entire line of road was not built with- in the limit of time fixed by the grant, and Schulenberg's attorneys claimed that the grant had therefore been forfeited and that neither the land nor the logs cut therefrom belonged to or were under the con- trol of the state.
Mr. Spooner contended in the United States circuit court, before Justice Miller and Judge Dillon, that the failure of the grantee to con- struct the road within the time fixed by the grant could have no effect on the grant itself, but that forfeiture or reversion could only work through judicial proceedings had for that purpose or by means of an
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act of Congress forfeiting it in exact terms, or making other appropria- tion of it.
The lower courts held with Mr. Spooner. The case, however, was appealed to the United States supreme court, where he participated in the oral argument and filed a brief, and where, Justice Field delivering the unanimous decision of the bench, the judgment of circuit judges was fully sustained, thus establishing for the first time in this country the principle or theory that the failure of any railway corporation to comply with the conditions subsequent of a land grant which it may be attempting to earn, does not operate as a reversion or forfeiture of the grant; but that such forfeiture can come only through a specific act of the authority first making the concession, viz., Congress.
To the great empire of the northwest this suit was most important in its results. But few land grant railways were or could be completed within the periods named in the grants. What are now trunk lines had been partially built but were dead, or in doubt or uncertainty, and their promoters discouraged and frequently bankrupt because the generally- accepted theory, and the rule of the departments then was that a line not completed within the time named in the act making the grant had for- feited the grant itself-or, at least, the unpatented portion of it.
This decision, therefore, put new life and progress into the great northwest. Projected lines were resumed and completed; magnificent new territory was opened to settlement and industrial development; new cities and towns sprang into life and activity-in short, the wilder- ness was made to blossom as the rose; civilization was carried forward in giant strides and the entire nation was strengthened and enriched.
He was not thirty years of age when he made the defense in this famous cause; and the victory was all the greater because, shortly be- fore, Attorney General Williams had written an official opinion hold- ing that non-performance of the terms of a land grant operated as a reversion of the grant, and the departments and the railroads were act- ing on that theory. He was employed by Governor Washburn to ap- pear before the supreme court in the cause, to receive one thousand dollars if he won, but, if he failed, nothing-so little faith had leading attorneys and officials in the success of his theory.
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In the fall of 1871, after having resided at Hudson only a little more than a year, Mr. Spooner was nominated for the legislature and, of course, elected, taking his seat the following January. He asked to be placed on two committees only-education and railroads. He took a very prominent part in legislation, especially in passing laws to straighten out muddles in taxation, court records and land titles. But his most conspicuous service was in behalf of the state university, draft- ing, presenting and urging to final passage a bill to levy a general state tax to be added annually forever to the university fund income. This established the precedent, since followed, of a direct tax in support of the university, and was the foundation and beginning of the splendid career of prosperity, growth and strength of that great institution, fol- lowing upon a period of weakness and inanition.
As a partial recognition of this everlasting service Mr. Spooner was made a regent of the university in 1882, serving until February, 1884, enthusiastically and effectively. In this connection it is proper to re- cord, also, that in 1869 the degrees of Ph. D. and A. M., and in 1894 the degree of LL. D., were conferred upon him by his alma mater.
This single term in the legislature ended Mr. Spooner's connection with politics-except to take the stump when called upon (which gen- erally was in every campaign), and to attend conventions when any of his friends were candidates for office-until his election to the senate in January, 1885. He devoted himself with ceaseless intensity to his pro- fession, carrying on a very large general practice in addition to his la- bors as general counsel for the railway company, winning many im- portant victories, and accumulating a comfortable competence and building an ample and attractive home.
The Blaine-Cleveland contest, following his resignation from all connection with the "Omaha," is memorable as one of heat and ability. Mr. Spooner, opening the campaign in Milwaukee, canvassed the en- tire state, adding many laurels to his already well-established reputation for brilliant and effective oratory. His speech at the Logan reception, at Madison, was particularly admired, and made of the great Illinois soldier a warm and substantial friend. His tour was a perpetual ova- tion, but the speech of all speeches, and the ovation of all ovations, was
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in the Robbins circus tent at Janesville, making of the old, wealthy and populous counties of Rock and Walworth the most devoted and ag- gressive friends and followers and the corner-stone of his future political successes.
But in November Blaine was defeated, and the republican party generally was thrown into more or less discouragement. A republican majority in the Wisconsin legislature had been elected, however, and a successor to Angus Cameron in the United States senate was to be chosen. There had been several distinguished candidates before the people; among them William T. Price and General Lucius Fairchild. They were men of high standing and conspicuous services, but they were old in the public eye and their candidacy, it was alleged, could arouse no new element of strength. The more progressive members felt that the waning fortunes of the party demanded a return to the ag- gressive methods and militant spirit of 1854, with younger, fresher lead- ers, who must also be men of the highest character and ability.
It was urged that John C. Spooner admirably met the required qualifications. After considerable consultation, brushing away his own objections that he was "too young for a 'grave and reverend senator,' " he consented to be a candidate. Then, before any public announcement had been made, a complete plan of campaign was perfected by his friends. From all co-workers he exacted a promise that there should be no unkind or disrespectful word in speech or newspaper article ut- tered against General Fairchild or the other candidates. The claim put forth was merely that the ablest and bravest of the younger generation must unite in an heroic effort, or the republican party would lose power that could not be regained perhaps for generations, and that their choice was John C. Spooner.
Newspapers throughout the state declared enthusiastically for him on the ground that the state should be represented in the senate by an aggressive, able, eloquent and resourceful debater who could cope with the democratic leaders and successfully defend on the floor of the senate the principles of the republican party.
The man and the argument so well fitted the occasion and took so well with the people that the favoring tide set in full and strong, and,
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especially after the defeat of Blaine in November, continued to increase in force until January 28, 1885, when Mr. Spooner was elected, receiv- ing seventy-six republican votes to forty-eight democratic votes for General E. S. Bragg. He had forty-nine votes on the first ballot in the republican caucus, which insured his election. His speech, on being brought before the caucus, was more than anything else a tribute to the worth and services of his opponents, and especially of General Fair- child, and made the support of those opponents thereafter hearty and practically unanimous. In closing, he declared: "If elected, I shall devote all the strength and vigor which God has given me to the people of Wisconsin and our common country." And thus he was chosen although he had spent but eighteen hours with the legislature in Madi- son during the senatorial campaign-to make an address of thanks to the caucus for the nomination, and personally to greet the members, many of whom he there met for the first time. His election left abso- lutely no sores in his party.
The senate, of which he now became a member, was one not only of ability, but appreciative of ability. His reputation as an orator and jurist of wide attainments had preceded him, and the older senators were prepared at once to accord to him the place usually attained, if ever, only after several years of hard work and honorable service.
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