Victories of Great Lawyers
71
system, and president of some of the
ever created, besides having had a hand
individual lines. A minister’s son, James B.
in several hundred others. When he gave up his practice to sit on the bench
Dill,
dropped into New York in the year of
he actually resigned from the directorate
1878 from his home in Spencerport, by way of the Yale Law School, and
of nearly a hundred corporations.
then crossed the ferry and set up shop in Jersey City. In 1905 he became
Judge of the Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey, at position into which he dropped, as it were, for a rest,and which he had resigned before his death.
It was he who said, “The lawyer has
He
had amassed a fortune as a “legal partner.” Almost at random one may put down his finger on the list of the big lawyers
of the country and the name which is touched will be that of a man who has won by worth and work. The world today may look enviously upon him
single-handed had drafted the charters
and accuse him of having been born with a golden spoon in his mouth, but his real story is different. He merely
of thirty-five of the largest corporations
grasped the unusual opportunity.
become a legal partner of trade."
And he should have known, for he
Victories of Great Lawyers-Andrew Hamilton BY ARTHUR WAKELING
"
RE there not younger men in New
York? I—l am an old man." Andrew Hamilton smiled as he looked into the face of his visitor, Mrs. Alex ander, the society leader of New York.
"But I have made this journey from New York to Philadelphia—and oh, it's a terribly long one!—just to ask you to defend Zenger. The integrity of the government, the freedom of speech and the liberty of the individual all depend upon Zenger’s acquittal—and
Mrs. Alexander well knew what that decision meant to the people of New York.
In a low voice she began to outline the case to the lawyer. Zenger was the publisher of The New York Weekly Journal, a paper in which the evil practices of Governor Cosby, one of the worst men who ever preyed
Zenger!”
upon the colonial government of New York, were energetically and skilfully denounced. Cosby was the governor who said to Chief Justice Lewis Morris, upon the presentation of a gift of seven hundred and fifty pounds voted by the Assembly: "Zounds, why did they not count the shillings and the pence!” Lewis Morris, Alexander and Smith were the principal opponents of the Governor and also the writers of the articles printed by Zenger.
There was a tense, thrilling pause in the gray, dusty twilight of the office.
“These articles must stop—at any cost!" Cosby asserted.
upon you.
Whether the year 1735 is
to be a byword and a reproach forever in New York—”
"I had not thought it so serious. If there be aught I can do"—the old lawyer’s voice thrilled with
the en
thusiasm of youth—"in the cause of peace or justice or liberty, depend upon me to do my best. I'll defend this man
