Washington Letter.
405
WASHINGTON LETTER. S-M-Y-R-N-A, to the majority of us, spells "rugs." To Mr. Justice David Josiah Brewer it spells "birthplace." His parents were foreign missionaries at that place at the time of his birth. This fact would appear to be explanatory oí his Scriptural names, but as a matter of fact his first name is that of his maternal grandfather, David D. Field (to whom not pnly this country, but the whole world, owes a debt of gratitude be yond computation), and his middle name is that of his father. David D. Field was a Congregationalist minister of Massachusetts. He was also the father of the famous men of that name, the most famous of whom was Cyrus W. Field, upon the fruits of whose gigantic brain, un ceasing perseverance, and indomitable will we feast twice a day. Justice Brewer was brought to this country during his early childhood by his parents. He attended school in Connecticut and college at Wesleyan and Yale, from which iatter he gradu ated in 1856. After completing his law studies he located for a short time with his uncle, David Dudley Field. He subsequently went to Kansas, where he eventually settled. He was first elected to the Bench of that State in 1862, when he was but twenty-four years of age, and again two years later to the District Court for the first judicial dis trict of Kansas. In 1870, again in 1876, and yet again in 1882, he was elected to the Bench of the Supreme Court of Kansas. In 1884 he was appointed Judge of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eighth Circuit. His eminent attainments received their just recognition when in the month of December, 1889, he was appointed by Presi dent Harrison to the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy created by the death of Mr. Justice Matthews. At the
MAY, 1904. time when Justice Brewer became the junior member of that tribunal, his uncle, Mr. Jus tice Stephen J. Field, was one of its senior members. Never before had an uncle and a nephew sat together upon that bench, and it is safe to predict that many years will elapse before the wheel of fortune again will effect such a combination. Justice Brewer has demonstrated the cor rectness of at least two of the statements con tained in the proverb that "Early to bed and early to rise Makes a man healthy, and wealthy, and wise." He retires about nine o'clock and rises at the stroke of four, beginning the day (for many it would be ending the night) with a large cup of black coffee. His long service upon the bench and his varied experiences furnish him with an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes, which, with the assistance of an unusually keen sense of humor, lose nothing in the telling. Besides possessing this happy trait, he is an orator of no mean ability, and the tribute which he paid to Mr. Justice Har ían on the occasion of the dinner given to the latter in recognition of his twenty-five years of service upon the Bench, was a master piece of eloquence. In his family and social relations he is charming; as a law lecturer he is unsur passed; as a member of those international boards of arbitration upon which he has been induced to serve, he has evidenced the pos session of qualifications which preeminently fit him for such work; as a jurist he has won the confidence, respect, and admiration of the entire Bar, and has earned tor himself the right to be reckoned among the most distin guished of the celebrated family to which he belongs.
