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 Plii Delta Phi isome remarks made before 
 
 3 1924 018 799 480 
 
 (Snrnpll Slam i>rlyooI Slibtary 
 
PHI DELTA PHI, 
 
 Some Remarks Made Before Story Chapter, 
 On Friday Evening, April 28th, 1898. 
 
 BY Walter S. Carter. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924018799480 
 
Some Eemaeks Made Before Story (Columbia) Chapter 
 OP Phi Delta Phi, on Peiday Evening, April 28th, 
 1898, BY Walter S. Carter, Honorary Member of 
 the Praternity. 
 
 Mr. Consul and young gentlemen : — My first words 
 shall be those of thanks and congratulation ; thanks for 
 the honor you have conferred by inviting me to address 
 you, congratulation upon the privileges which it is per- 
 mitted you to enjoy as members of this distinguished law 
 school. I hope you are all college graduates, but if you 
 are not, don't be troubled ; some of the greatest lawyers 
 in the world have never seen the inside of a CoUege. 
 Judah P. Benjamin, the leading Barrister of his time at 
 the English bar, was not a graduate, neither were 
 Matthew H. Carpenter or Eoscoe Conkling. George P. 
 Edmunds, of Vermont, and Ed Baxter, of Tennessee, both 
 great lawyers, also obtained their education in ordinary 
 schools and academies. You have heard, haven't you, 
 of the country editor, who uttered his calamitous wail, 
 " Our great men are all dying off; I am not feeling very 
 well myself." I too, am not a college graduate. It 
 always has been the grief of my life that the opportunity 
 for a liberal education was denied me ; and standing 
 here this evening I can but contrast your opportunities 
 with my own forty-five years ago. A former school 
 teacher, who had become a lawyer, had been elected 
 Judge of Probate ; and he came and asked my parents 
 to let me study law with him, saying that if I would 
 write up his probate records, he would give me free 
 tuition. Of course I was crazy to go, and my parents 
 were crazy at the thought of my going. They were 
 anxious I should become a farmer ; I felt sure I might 
 
2 
 
 be Marshall and Pinckney, rolled into one, if I only had 
 half a chance. I shall never forget the evening when 
 the question was to be finally decided ; my mother had 
 reserved her highest trump for the occasion. " My son," 
 said she, as the tears came into her eyes, " I ani afraid if 
 you leave your father's house and go out into the world 
 to shirk for yourself, you will end your career on the 
 gallows." It was a big card, but it didn't win ; I went, 
 and inasmuch as the electric chair has superseded the 
 gallows in New York, I have the notion that my chances 
 of escaping the fate which my mother feared, are fairly 
 good. 
 
 And now, there are so many things to be said, I 
 scarcely know where to begin. I will tell you, though, 
 that I shall not usurp the functions of the average orator 
 at law school commencements. I have heard several 
 addresses to law graduating classes, and this was their 
 gist: be honest, be highminded, be truthful, be honorable, 
 and all such useless rubbish. Why, of course, you will 
 be honest, and highminded, and truthful, and honorable. 
 What I have said to myself on those occasions has been, 
 these young men, standing at the threshhold of their 
 professional lives, should have been told where to locate, 
 how to start, what means to employ to succeed, and 
 things along all such lines. That shall be my task now, 
 and drawing from my own experience and that of others 
 whom I have known, I shall simply go ahead and blaze 
 the trees through the Black Forest that lies before every 
 young man entering upon the profession of the law. 
 
 The first question you of the senior class are face to 
 face with, is that of location ; where shall these gifts and 
 graces of mine, have their exercise, is the first great 
 question, and here, of course, is a great opportunity 
 to blunder.. I know how natural it is, how universal is 
 the tendency, for young men to rush to the large cities. 
 
I estimate that I have been consulted by twenty-five 
 hundred of them within the last seventeen years, and I 
 don't believe there were a dozen who did not wish to 
 come to New York. I am glad to add that by the kindly 
 aid, at times of a base ball bat and at others of a shot 
 gun, as the case might require, I have kept a few of 
 them away. I think most of them came, however, and 
 among them were many who have grandly succeeded, 
 some who have ignominiously failed, while the rest are 
 just keeping soul and body together. It is amusing to 
 add, that while so many have sought my advice, I recall 
 but two instances in which any of them ever followed 
 it. One young man came from Connecticut, about 
 fifteen years ago, who had an uncle, a janitor of the 
 building where we had our o£&ces. The relative had 
 told him that New York was the place, and he pointed in 
 illustration possibly to me, certainly to Mr. Hornblower, 
 and others then associated with me. In those days I 
 made the most powerful speech of my life on Grand 
 Rapids, Michigan, as a place for young men to locate in. 
 It is true I never had been there, I never yet have been 
 there, and I probably never shall go there ; but, all the 
 same, my eulogy on the city was an eloquent one. I 
 recollect particularly how I dwelt upon the fact that it 
 well nigh doubled its population every ten years ; I de- 
 clared it to be an ideal place in point of location ; I 
 described, with some particularity of detail, its beautiful 
 opera house, its fine churches and school houses, its re- 
 fined and polite society. My young friend from Con- 
 necticut was much impressed, and I nearly fell in a faint 
 when I heard him declare that he would go. I gave 
 him letters of introduction to every one I knew there, 
 and in due time he bade Connecticut roof-trees farewell 
 and went west — to Grand Bapids — to make his home and 
 climb to fame. He wrote me shortly after his arrival, 
 
thanking me for having directed him so wisely, telling 
 me that Grand Rapids was all I had described it to be, 
 and expressing himself as having much confidence in his 
 ultimate success. It was the last letter I have ever re- 
 ceived from him, and I have never seen him since. He 
 returned to Connecticut, at the end of six months, where 
 he is now a Judge of the Superior Court. 
 
 In selecting a location, my advice to you is to 
 keep away from the large cities; even if you decide 
 to go to one, do it as the old woman proposed to fire 
 the gun— by degrees. For instance, if you propose to 
 settle in Milwaukee, go first to Racine, stay there ten 
 years, make local name and fame, and then remove to 
 Milwaukee. That is the way the most brilliant man I 
 have evei* known, Merrftt Decatur Hammond Carpen- 
 ter did. Destined for Milwaukee, he went from Rufus 
 Choate's office in Boston, first to Beloit,Wisconsin, where 
 he made a reputation so great, that the members of the 
 Rock County Bar, at the conclusion -of one of his argu- 
 ments before the Supreme Court of the State, gave him 
 the name of "Matthew Hale," which he carried ever 
 after, even into the chair of the presiding officer of the 
 Senate of the United States. If I were going to live my 
 life over again, and could start with the experience and 
 knowledge I now have, I should settle in a small State 
 instead of a large on^. It is possible that Senator Gray, 
 of Delaware, might have been a Senator of the United 
 States, had he lived in New York, but I doubt it; his 
 colleague, Richard R. Kenney, I am sure never would 
 have been. When I was a student in New Hartford, 
 Connecticut, about forty-five years ago, I recollect two 
 little boys who used to come there from St. Louis for 
 their summer home. When I went to Chicago, in 1869,^ 
 the older one, who had graduated from Yale a year or 
 two before, was there, endeavoring to get a start as a 
 
lawyer. His mother meanwhile had changed her home 
 from St. Louis to Bristol, Rhode Island, and there the 
 young lawyer went for his summer vacation. Chicago 
 never saw him afterwards ; he remained in Rhode Island, 
 commenced practice in Providence, upon the death of 
 Judge Knowles became United States District Judge, and 
 upon the retirement of Judge Lowell, became United 
 States Circuit Judge, which position he still adorns. 
 His brother was Attorney General of the State seven 
 years, has practiced law successfully and is now the 
 president of one of the largest financial institutions in 
 New England. Now, in my opinion, neither one of 
 those young men would have come to any such eminence 
 had they settled in New York ; it was the small forum, 
 the comparatively small number of those engaged in the 
 race with them, that gave them their success, superior 
 though their abilities were. And here is something 
 that you who are thinking of settling in New York should 
 not overlook. As you know, we have here the vicious 
 system of electing judges. What possible chance is there 
 for a young man attaining what should be the object of 
 every true lawyer's ambition, the bench, save through 
 the medium of a Tammany nomination? There have 
 been but few instances in the twenty-five years and more 
 that I have been here, when the route thither lay 
 in any other direction. In two or three instances only 
 have the candidates of the dominant organization been 
 defeated. Occasionally a Republican Governor has had 
 the chance to bestow the ermine upon one of that faith, 
 but not often. On the other hand, see what the chances 
 for judicial preferment in the other portions of the State 
 have been. Look at Syracuse, for instance. Since I 
 came here, George F. Comstock, who ranked during the 
 later years of his life as the ablest lawyer in the State, 
 William C. Ruger and Charles Andrews, have all been 
 
Chief Judges of the Court of Appeals, and Irving G. 
 Vann is now a member of that distinguished court. 
 George N. Kennedy, Peter B. McLennan, and Frank H. 
 Hiscock have been on the bench of the Supreme Court, 
 the last two being there now, and WiUiam J. Wallace is 
 United States Circuit Judge. The same rule would hold 
 good in Rochester and Buffalo, differing only in degree. 
 MiUard Fillmore was elected Vice-President of the 
 United States from Buffalo, and a month after assuming 
 office became President ; but he never would have at- 
 tained that exalted station had he located in New York ; 
 in Buffalo he was easily distinguished among a half 
 dozen ; here he would have been overlooked among 
 several scores of men of equal, if not superior ability. 
 Let me say another thing ; you hear only of the men 
 who come to New York and have succeeded ; I recall 
 one who began in 1874 at $10 a week, and in 1888 had 
 an income of $20,000 a year ; but that was the excep- 
 tion, not the rule. And when success, as it is called, is 
 achieved here, what does it amount too ? The chances 
 are that your neighbor in the next block may never see 
 or hear of you. It is my judgment, and it is the judg- 
 ment of the wisest members of the profession with whom 
 I converse, that young men who settle in the smaller 
 places, get more out of life, come as a rule to higher 
 estate, both in the profession and in politics, than those 
 who gather in the great centers. Put in a single sen- 
 tence, I should state the rule relative to location thus : 
 settle in the place where you have the most friends of 
 influence, who will mak;p your cause their own, and push 
 you for all there is in you. I have tried a thousand 
 times to say something better than that, but I have given 
 it up ; it tells the whole story. Of course, I need hardly 
 add, that if the application of this rule holds you in New 
 York, if you live hefe, or if it brings you here, if you 
 
do not, then by all means apply it. As Daniel Webster 
 said : " There is always room at the top." 
 
 And now, having located you, the question is how 
 shall you make your beginning — shall you "flock by 
 yourself," or go in with some one ? To this there can be 
 but one answer — enter some good office, where the prac- 
 tice is of a general nature, and where, during the first 
 year, you will be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water 
 for everybody. The second year you should be assis- 
 tant to the Managing Clerk, going tb some of the courts 
 while he is in attendance upon others, assisting him 
 generally, and acting in his place during vacation and 
 other absences. The third year you should succeed 
 him, and at the end of that time, " sink or swim, live or 
 die, survive or perish," make your plunge for fame and 
 fortune. This is the time-table for a young man intend- 
 ing to be a lawyer : four years in preparatory school^ 
 four years in college ; three years in law school, and 
 three years in an office ; then if your friends bring busi- 
 ness, you will know how to do it ; if you should start be- 
 fore you had office experience, you wouldn't know what 
 to do with a case if it came to you. Avoid, as you would 
 a pestilence, the very large offices, where you are set to 
 work in some department, like that of admiralty, real 
 estate, land damage, personal injury, collections, or any 
 of the specialties that are found in many law offices. 
 Do not seek a position with any lawyer to look up law 
 for him ; you have been doing that for three years, and 
 what you want is to familiarize yourself with legal ma- 
 chinery. Mr. Hornblower used to be Managing Clerk in 
 our office, and later, when he wanted to administer dis- 
 cipline to some employee, he knew wherein the offence 
 consisted — he had been there himself. Mr. Bowers, 
 general Counsel of the Chicago & Northwestern Eailroad 
 Co., one of the finest positions of the kind in the country, 
 
8 
 
 was our managing clerk less than fifteen years ago ; Mr. 
 Kelsey, President of the Title Guarantee & Trust Com- 
 pany was his predecessor, and Mr. Hughes, now of our 
 firm, his successor. Learn the machinery and learn it 
 as thoroughly as you have learned Equity with Keener, 
 Contracts with Gumming, or Bills and Notes with Bur- 
 dick. 
 
 In advising you to start for yourself, I do not mean 
 to advise you to decline offers from established lawyers 
 or firms. Of course no general rule can be stated re- 
 garding such matters, save this : if a good opportunity 
 offers, take it ; if it does not, start for yourself. Which 
 of the two plans is most likely to succeed ? I cannot 
 say ; I have known both to succeed, and both to fail. 
 Were I to express a preference, it would be in favor of 
 an effort to effect a connection with an established firm. 
 If you get a chance in a good ofiice, make yourself 
 indispensable — so useful that they simply cannot get 
 along without you. Is this difficult, you are asking? 
 Oh no, it is easy. If the office opens at nine, get there 
 at half past eight ; if it closes at half past five, stay until 
 six ; if there are shirks on the staff — as there generally 
 are — be swift to do their work ; make the cause of the 
 firm your own, be instant in season and out of season, 
 neglect no possible opportunity, and you can't escape 
 success if you try. 
 
 If you enter an office, its character and surroundings 
 of course will be made for you. If you start alone, 
 what then ? In other words, how should a young man 
 begin, alone or with some one else ? Well, that depends 
 — -as a rule, with some one else. A firm with two names ? 
 Yes, unless you can have what is better, one with three. 
 How should they be made up ? Politically, two E.e- 
 publicans and one Democrat, or two Democrats and one 
 Bepublican ; no Mugwump need apply. Religiously ? 
 
Three different denominations, no two alike. Socially ? 
 One who is in the " 400 " — though that would be a great 
 trial to me — the other two, men who are intent only on 
 their work. Colleges ? Harvard, Tale, Princeton, or 
 any of them ; the point is not to have two alike. Resi- 
 dences ? One in Manhattan, one in Brooklyn, the other 
 might try New Jersey. Should all be orators ? Oh, no ; 
 only one of them ; one should be the court lawyer, one 
 the office lawyer and the other the outside member — the 
 level-headed man of affairs. An office now- a-days with- 
 out such a man, is a pretty poor office — he is the most 
 important person in the firm. And about offices ? The 
 old days have passed away and all things have become 
 new. Fifty years ago the lawyer's office was the dingiest 
 and dirtiest place on earth ; no order but disorder ; no 
 carpet or rug ; a stove in the center set in sawdust, three 
 or four rickety chairs and a possible bookcase, that was 
 the entire outfit. To-day all that is changed ; the lawyer's 
 office, as a rule, is furnished as well as his house, and 
 sometimes better. In our own office — I mention this 
 because I do not know any other well enough to speak 
 of it — we have Turkish rugs in every room, and scores 
 of artists' proofs of distinguished judges upon every 
 wall ; the furniture, the wood work and the walls harmo- 
 nize, and every appointment is as good as we know how 
 to make it. I know no reason why a lawyer, who lives 
 in comfort and elegance in his home, should live in 
 plainness and discomfort in his office. At least half a 
 lawyer's waking moments are spent in his office ; why 
 shouldn't it be pleasing to the eye and contain everything 
 that will conduce to his comfort and pleasure ? Don't 
 say you cannot afford it ; you can't afford not to have it. 
 I know a young lawyer, formerly a resident in a western 
 city and now in practice here, whose firm of three mem- 
 bers dissolved. The junior, then about thirty years of 
 
10 
 
 age, went to the president of the largest bank in the city, 
 which had just erected the finest office building there, 
 and told him if they would make the firm which he pro- 
 posed to form attorneys for the bank, he would rent the 
 entire first floor for their offices. The offer was accepted, 
 the new firm organized, the other two being young men 
 who had been in the office of the old firm, and in less 
 than two years it was doing the best business in the city 
 and had one of the best collection and commercial prac- 
 tices in the State of Missouri. Now if those same young 
 men had made a firm, rented three meager offices, start- 
 ed without clerks, stenographers or helpers of any sort, 
 they would probably be eking out a hand to mouth ex- 
 istence at this moment. Argument, have a good office, 
 one that will make an impression on clients and callers, 
 that will proclaim to everybody who sees it that busi- 
 ness is done there, and that the firm is on the high road 
 to prosperity. I have always been a believer in good 
 offices as an aid to business, as some stories of me, some 
 true and some not, attest. A distinguished Federal 
 Judge, for example, started this story on me nearly forty 
 years ago. As he has been telling it all these years — 
 telling it I verily believe till he now actually believes it 
 to be true — the story runs in this wise : in starting my 
 office I built a book case across one of the sides of the 
 room and put shaded windows in it ; having done this I 
 tore a hole in one of the shades and put the only law 
 book I had, viz : the Bevised Statutes of Wisconsin, 
 in front of the hole. I have had as much fun out of this 
 yarn, I venture to say, as the Judge has himself, and 
 mention it in, the confident hope that you young gentle- 
 men will enjoy it as much as we have. 
 
 Let me say a word about cards, letter-heads and the 
 stationery that a young lawyer should have. This may 
 strike some of you as a trifling matter — it is a very 
 
11 
 
 important one. When a young man's card comes in to me, 
 I know him before he enters my room ; if he should send 
 in a printed one, I want to express sorrow for him here 
 and now. The visiting card is the one infallable test of 
 that quality which is expressed by the word gentleman ; 
 no other is so unerring, no other can be so implicitly de- 
 pended upon. Query : if the printed visiting card makes 
 a young man a duffer, what does a printed professional 
 card do for a lawyer ? I would give up law practice, if I 
 couldn't make business communications on engraved 
 letter heads, and I would be ashamed to send a printed 
 professional card into any lawyer's office or any business 
 place whatsoever ; and yet, the printed card and printed 
 letter-head are in almost universal use. On our list of 
 upwards of a thousand correspondents in the various 
 states and territories, up to half a dozen years ago, I 
 doubt if one of them wrote us on an engraved letter- 
 head. Then it was that I began work on letter-head 
 reform, by slipping blue pencil notes into business letters 
 to this effect : what a pity it is that you don't know the 
 luxury of writing to correspondents on engraved letter- 
 heads. The hint took, and now I am glad to add, that 
 most of our important correspondents, like those of Eng- 
 land and Canada, communicate with us on Dreka's best, 
 many of them having copied our letter-head exactly. 
 We carry it to the extent of having engraved bill-heads 
 and bank checks, the latter having the only lawyer's 
 vignette I have ever seen — a fair hand holding scales, 
 the open Bible and a shield ; in other words, Justice, 
 Truth and Law. 
 
 I advise such of you as may not succeed in mak- 
 ing a connection with some established lawyer, to start 
 for yourselves ; and some of you may be saying, well, 
 suppose we follow your advice, go to some suitable 
 place, rent pleasant offices, fix them up attractively, what 
 
12 
 
 shall we do then to get business ? In answering this, let 
 me say, first, get all the letters of introduction you can 
 to persons in the place where you are going. No matter 
 whether they are influential or not, get the letters ; as a 
 practical question it will turn out that those you count 
 most on, will do you no good, while those you count 
 little upon, may do you a great deal. The influential 
 and important person has so many missives of this kind 
 that he pays little attention to them ; the man of lesser 
 importance, on the other hand, feels especially honored, 
 and so he will do everything he can. Let me relate one 
 experience of my own. I had, in 1874, placed my two 
 oldest sons in a preparatory school in New Jersey, whose 
 principal I had known when he was in Wesleyan Uni- 
 versity, in 1854-8. It happened that the $50 I sent as 
 their deposit on entering, was the first dollar that had 
 been received by the school, which was a new one. The 
 principal called upon me to express his thanks, and 
 remarked in the course of the conversation that he would 
 be happy to have me meet the President of their Board 
 of Trustees, who was a well known merchant here, and if 
 I would like, he would give me a letter of introduction. I 
 told him I would be glad to have him do so, whereupon 
 he sat down at my desk and wrote it. Let me say, right 
 here, that if you are ever given a' letter of introduction, 
 don't fail to present it, as too many persons do. I called 
 the next day and presented the letter "to Mr. George J. 
 Ferry, then as now, the head of one of the large whole- 
 sale hat houses of the city. He received me with great 
 courtesy, and asked me, I recollect, if I was familiar with 
 bankruptcy law, and presently I took my leave. As I 
 was returning I recollect I felt very much in doubt 
 whether my call had done me any good ; there certainly 
 was not much warmth in my reception, and I felt 
 certain I had not been at my best ; but a couple of 
 
13 
 
 hours later a letter was sent to me by this same Mr. 
 Ferry, asking me if I could call at his store at three 
 o'clock that day. I was there on time, and upon enter- 
 ing was introduced to Mr. Samuel Shethar, another of 
 the leaders of the hat trade. The result was that before 
 I left, my firm had been retained to put the firm of J. J. 
 Johnston & Co., into bankruptcy. This we did, a com- 
 promise was soon afi'ected, and we were paid a fee of 
 $3,500. Three or four years later, they failed a second 
 time, again we were employed, and this time our fee 
 was $2,000. Meanwhile, the firm of Henry W. Duryea & 
 Co. had failed ; we were again employed b^ the same 
 parties, succeeded in effecting a settlement and received 
 a fee of $1,500. By this time, we had made such a 
 reputation as bankruptcy lawyers that when the great 
 straw goods house of Vyse & Sons failed, with liabilities 
 of $7,000,000, we were employed to put them into bank- 
 ruptcy, and I received a fee of $3,000 from the Com- 
 mittee of creditors ybr two days work. Mr. Shethar was 
 elected Assignee, selected us as his attorneys, and we 
 were allowed and paid by the court $13,000 more 
 as counsel for the Assignee. Then we were retained to 
 put the firm of Duncan, Sherman & Co., which had 
 failed with liabilities of $11,000,000, into bankruptcy, 
 were employed by their Assignee, and were allowed a fee 
 of $15,000 more. One of the creditors of Duncan, Sher- 
 man & Co. was interested in the firm of Frederick 
 Schuchardt & Sons, and through his influence we were 
 employed in that matter, in which we received a fee of 
 $11,000, and from that time on until the repeal 
 of the bankrupt law, we had practically all the 
 business of the hat and straw goods trade of the city, and 
 had the largest bankruptcy practice in the country. In 
 a word, I could trace in less than five years from the 
 date. of that letter of introduction, from a plain Methodist 
 
14 
 
 minister, fees amounting in cash to at least $60,000. 
 Shall a young man entering professional life seek 
 letters of introduction ? The question needs no further 
 answer. 
 
 What things can a young lawyer properly do, that 
 will be most likely to bring business, is a question which 
 you doubtless have all asked before now ? The answer 
 is plain — extend your acquaintance. A young man, just 
 admitted to the bar, you can make no claims for your- 
 self on the score of professional eminence, nor can your 
 friends for you ; but you can get acquainted with people. 
 If you are introduced to a man, remember his name and 
 everything about him, and when you meet him next time, 
 no matter whether it be in a day or a year, if his name is 
 Smith, call him Smith, and not Brown. It is almost an 
 offense to address a man by a wrong name ; on the other 
 hand, especially if the acquaintance is a slight one, to 
 call him by his right name, is to pay him a compliment 
 ^he feels that he made an impression. Secret societies ? 
 Yes, if you feel like it — it's simply another way of mak- 
 ing acquaintances. I tried it once, years ago, but gave 
 it up — I could find better methods. Clubs ? Yes, but 
 you will be greatly disappointed in what they will 
 do for you. That is the wire that everybody pulls, and 
 so it don't amount to much. I would rather have the 
 friendship of a drummer for some wholesale house, whom 
 you may elbow against in some ordinary boarding house, 
 than any club influence that was ever exerted in the 
 world. Military? Yes, but it only extends your ac- 
 quaintance ; you will strike a lot of mighty fine fellows, 
 have a royal good time, and it may mean dividends some 
 day. Politics ? Certainly, why not ? The highest duty 
 of citizenship consists in being interested in politics — I 
 mean clean politics. Connect yourself with one or the 
 other of the two great parties ; don't on any account be 
 
15 
 
 a Mugwump, with nose high in air as the followers of 
 Seth Low carried theirs last fall ; don't assume to be 
 wiser than a convention when nominations are made ; 
 stand by the machinery, through evil as well as good re- 
 port, if you value success ; if you don't, then it dosen't 
 matter. In my forty years of observation of men and 
 things, I have never known a political kicker get any- 
 where ; on the other hand, those who have joined one 
 or the other of the two dominant parties and stuck to 
 them, have generally succeeded. If you stay in New 
 York, select as your place of residence an assembly dis- 
 trict where the party majority agrees with your politi- 
 cal views, and stay there — don't go outside on any ac- 
 count, whatever ; then, having joined the organization, 
 go to work and build up a following, and this done you 
 will find yourself sent as a delegate to conventions, next 
 to the Assembly, then likely enough to the Senate, later 
 possibly to Congress, and where you will land will 
 depend upon the record you make, upon the things you 
 accomplish. As ex-Senator Farwell, of Illinois, said to 
 me when I removed in 1869 from Milwaukee to Chicago : 
 " We've not much use down here, Carter, for bookish 
 lawyers ; what we want is men who can inake things 
 happen^ Well, if you turn out to be of those who can 
 "make things happen," there is no telling to what high 
 estate you may attain. 
 
 What about advertising, is a question which you 
 likely are asking, and as a general answer I will say that 
 the world moves. When I came to the bar, forty-three 
 years ago this month, very few, if indeed any good law- 
 yers, advertised. To-day all that has changed. In the 
 English Law List, which is the official organ of the bar 
 of that country, are to be seen the cards of Alexander & 
 Green, Cary & Whitridge, Evarts, Choate & Beaman, 
 Parsons, Shepard & Ogden, our own firm, and those of 
 
16 
 
 several otliers in New York. In the Scottish Law List, 
 for 1898, I notice the names of Alexander & Green, 
 Evarts, Choate & Beaman and Carter, Hughes & Dwight. 
 The Irish Law List contains the cards of Evarts, Choate 
 & Beaman and our own. I think the strongest, as it is 
 one of the largest firms in the world, having thirteen 
 partners, is that of Blake, Lash & Cassels, of Toronto, 
 whose card I see in all the foreign law lists, and in well 
 nigh all of our own legal and banking directories. In 
 Canada the large firms, as a rule, all advertise. The two 
 other leading firms in Ontario are McCarthy, Osier, 
 Hoskin & Creelman, and Beatty, Blackstock, Nesbitt, 
 Chad wick & Riddell, and they both advertise. So do 
 the three great firms of Winnipeg, viz : Macdonald, 
 Tupper, Phippen & Tupper, Ewart, Fisher & Wilson, 
 and Aikins, Culver & McClenaghan. Indeed, in all the 
 provinces of Canada, there is not a firm of any import- 
 ance that does not advertise. Of course, the advertise- 
 ment must be a dignified one ; merely the card, nothing 
 more. An ambitious young law firm in New York two or 
 three years ago said in an advertisement in a legal di- 
 rectory, " We defy competition." They were so gener- 
 ally laughed at, however, that if they breathe defiance 
 any more, they certainly don't express it in their adver- 
 tisements. A firm in Salt Lake advertised in Hubbell's 
 Legal Directory as follows : " We are a Godsend to 
 honest creditors, a holy terror to delinquents. Our 
 motto is 'the devil take the hindmost man.' We are 
 dandies on stale claims ; " but the attention of the pub- 
 lishers having been called to it, in the next issue it was 
 suppressed. Answering your suppositious question then, 
 I should say, that it is just as legitimate and . proper for 
 a lawyer to publish his card, preferably in a legal or 
 banking journal, as it is for a business man to advertise 
 his business. 
 
17 
 
 Probably one of the best ways to get business is to 
 do what business you have so well that you will make a 
 warm friend of your client, and perhaps also of your 
 opponent's client. When Mr. Hornblower was with me 
 we had some claims for the Metropolitan National Bank 
 against the firm of Sirret & Stafford, of Buffalo. Mr. 
 Hornblower went there and tried the cases himself, hav- 
 ing for his assistant, John L. Eomer, Esq., then and now 
 of the firm of Day & Eomer, of that city. The cases 
 were heard before Grover Cleveland, as Referee, and it 
 was then and there that his acquaintance with Mr, 
 Honblower began, culminating as you all know in his 
 nomination of the latter to the bench of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. The cases went to the Court 
 of Appeals, where we were finally beaten. Mr. Romer, 
 however, made so good a reputation for himself by his 
 careful preparation for trial, that he attracted the atten- 
 tion of Mr. Stafford, who afterwards recovered himself, 
 became the proprietor of the Imperial and one of the 
 other large hotels of New York, became the most valu- 
 able client Mr. Romer had, and when he died made him 
 executor of his estate, which, with his widow, he is now 
 administering. In Milwaukee once I had $13,000 in 
 claims against the Propeller Rocket, of the New York 
 Central Transportation Company's line, but they were 
 stale in every jurisdiction except that of Wisconsin, and 
 the wily owners kept her out of the ports of that State. 
 One day I saw in a daily paper a dispatch from Detroit 
 that the Rocket had passed up. I supposed that prob- 
 ably she was going to Chicago, but knew, of course, she 
 might put in to Green Bay or some other place in Wis- 
 consin. It was at a time when there was quite a de- 
 mand for freight, and a good deal of grain was being 
 shipped from Green Bay. I immediately wrote a cor- 
 respondent there that if the Rocket should arrive, to 
 
18 
 
 telegraph me at once. The next day came a dispatch 
 saying the steamer was in port. I had about a dozen 
 monitions issued, my partner, Honorable William G. 
 Whipple, now of Little Kock, Arkansas, was specially 
 deputized to make service, and he went up there and 
 seized the vessel. Some time after Dean Richmond, the 
 great New York politician, President of the Transporta- 
 tion Company, came to Milwaukee to see me with a view to 
 a settlement. He wanted to know on what terms we would 
 settle, and I told him principal, interest and costs. He 
 talked and argued and tried every art of the great 
 negotiator that he was, but I was firm. Finally he came 
 to terms ; I figured up the amount, and he gave me his 
 check for it. It was all done in three minutes when we 
 got to it. I supposed he would require formal papers of 
 discontinuance, but all he said was: "You please see 
 that the libels are dismissed," which I told him I would 
 do. Then turning to the agent of the line, who was 
 present, he told him when the company's year with the 
 law firm in Milwaukee that then did its legal business 
 expired, to employ " this house," as he termed us. Argu- 
 ment, just as likely as not, the sounder the beating you 
 administer to your opponent, the better the friend you 
 may possibly make of him. 
 
 Well, what things can a young lawyer do, you are 
 not unlikely asking, which will enable him to distinguish 
 himself both with clients and opponents ? I will men- 
 tion four : (1) If you are going to be a trial lawyer, read 
 at least a half hour a day, as ■ long as you live, either 
 some text book or some case on evidence. In every 
 other department of the law, you have the chance to 
 take a long aim, abundant time to examine the authori- 
 ties, and find out exactly where you are ; but a question 
 of evidence is sprung on the instant. If a question is 
 asked that is not admissible, you should have your 
 
19 
 
 objections at your tongue's end and be on your feet in a 
 a moment ; there is no chance for looking up authorities 
 then. On the other hand, if you are conducting the ex- 
 amination in chief, quick as a flash may come the ob- 
 jection, and quick as a flash you must be ready to an- 
 swer it. Many times in my life have I seen justice de- 
 feated and injustice triumph, simply because one lawyer 
 knew his business and the other didn't. (2) In prepar- 
 ing a case for trial or argument, alternate your attorney- 
 ship for your client with the attorneyship for your 
 opponent's client. In other words, assume that you are 
 on the other side and work as hard as you can to ascer- 
 tain reasons why that contention should prevail. Having 
 done this, return to your own side and study how the 
 points you were just contending for can be overthrown. 
 Tou may be pretty sure that every point that will occur 
 to you, when you are playing attorney for the other side, 
 will occur to your opponent when the trial is actually 
 reached, and it will be of immense value to you to have 
 the arguments in reply well matured and thoroughly 
 reasoned out. (3) Take the greatest possible pains to 
 make the statement of your case, either in the court be- 
 low or in that above, as clear, concise and comprehen- 
 sive as possible. If a lawyer is all muddled up, either in 
 his statement of fact or of law, how can it be possible 
 for the judge and jury not to be muddled also ? On the 
 other hand, if he has his facts well marshalled, and his 
 statement of them is clear and accurate, he may depend 
 upon it he will have gained a great point. Justice 
 Bradley, of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 who was an uncle of Mr. Hornblower, advised him above 
 all things to aim at clearness of statement in opening his 
 argument before an appellate tribunal. He added, that 
 the lawyer who opened with the fewest words and the 
 clearest statement, had half won his case already. For 
 
20 
 
 examples of style in this respect let me refer you to the 
 opinions of Sir George Jessel, Master of the Rolls, in 
 the English Law Eeports, Equity series, beginning with 
 Volume 17, and Judge Francis M. Finch, in the New 
 York Court of Appeals Eeports, Volumes 81 to 148 in- 
 clusive. And just here, let me emphasize the import- 
 ance of brevity ; this a hurrying age, and with over 
 crowded dockets, judges want everything boiled down. 
 " No matter about that, come to the point ; tell me what 
 you want and cite your authorities," I have heard from 
 the bench many a time, directed at some young lawyer 
 who was too long-winded. There has been no greater 
 lawyer at the American bar in my time than the late 
 Benjamin Bobbins Curtis, of Massachusetts, and his 
 arguments, even in the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, seldom exceeded from twenty minutes to a half 
 hour. Of all bores, the long-winded lawyer is the worst, 
 and of all cheap things, eloquence in a legal argument is 
 the cheapest. (4) As a rule, the lawyer who prepares his 
 case best will be most likely to succeed ; nothing else 
 under the sun will take the place of the most minute and 
 careful preparation. Every possible phase of the case 
 should be carefully thought out and the evidence always 
 on hand. It is related of a celebrated western lawyer, 
 now in the United States Senate, that his method of 
 preparation was like this : summoning his client he 
 would ask for a statement of the facts and the client 
 would begin. " Have you a witness to that ?" the lawyer 
 would inquire, and upon being answered in the affirma- 
 tive, he would say : "All right, go ahead." Then when 
 the next fact was stated, again would come the inquiry : 
 " Have you a witness to that ?" and if the client's answer 
 was in the negative, he would add : " Well, you must 
 go right off and get one." There is no use in asserting 
 things unless you have witnesses on hand to prove them. 
 I have mentioned Matt Carpenter of Wisconsin before; I 
 
21 
 
 will do so again. He told me, the last time I ever saw 
 him, that he prepared his cases more carefully then, than 
 he ever had before in his life. A young man who is 
 going to play a fiddle or a piano, will go to Europe and 
 study for years, and spend thousands of dollars on his 
 preparation, before he will think of going before an 
 audience to play. Young lawyers, on the other hand, in 
 cases involving the most important interests of person 
 and property, yea, even life itself, will go before a court 
 and jury with scarcely any preparation at all. A 
 friend of mine once called upon Paderewski and found 
 him practicing at the piano. " What, do you have to 
 practice ? " my friend inquired. " Oh, yes," was the 
 reply, " I never think of playing before an audience 
 without several hours of practice." Harry Rowe Shelley, 
 organist of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church here, is 
 one of the finest concert players I have ever heard. He 
 played in the New York Avenue Church, in Brooklyn, 
 last week, Wednesday evening, and he told me after the 
 recital, that he had practiced three whole days in prepa- 
 ration for the evening's work. Assuming that a young 
 lawyer will win half of his cases anyway, he who will fol- 
 low .the rules I have laid down, will be certain to win 
 three-fourths of them ; and if he does that, it will soon 
 get around that he is a case winner, business will follow 
 atd high success be assured. 
 
 I wonder if some of you are not saying to youi'selves, 
 you have told us a good many things that we should do, 
 are there any you would not have us do ? Oh, yes, 
 there are more of the latter than of the former, 
 several times over. I cannot mention them all, but I 
 will lay down one general rule: don't have any per- 
 sonal peculiarities — be an everyday, sensible, level- 
 headed human being. Up to the time when I was nearly 
 forty, I remember with a shame that I cannot express, I 
 wore long hair, that reached almost down to my shoul- 
 
22 
 
 ders. What under the sun I ever did such a thing for, I 
 have no idea, unless it was that in the city where I lived 
 there was an exceedingly able minister, named Dudley, 
 who wore long hair. He was generally regarded as a 
 genius, and I think somehow I must have gotten the idea 
 that if I wore my hair long I might also be mistaken for 
 a genius. Don't part your name in the middle ; leave 
 the J. Caesar Smith, N. Bonaparte Brown and G. Wash- 
 ington Jones to someone else. I have believed for many 
 years, that a new society should be organized for the 
 prevention of cruelty to children in the matter of their 
 names, and my advice to you is that if your parents 
 have cast dishonor upon you, by naming you Peleg or 
 Medad, Vivian or Lionel, repudiate what they have 
 done, take some good ancestral name, and ever after- 
 wards go by it. Three or four years ago, a youngs lady 
 called at our office to get a position as a stenographer. 
 " What is your name ?" I asked ; " Miss G. M. Dunn," 
 she replied. " What does G. stand for ?" I inquired. 
 Evidently very much disturbed, and I don't blame her, 
 she answered-: " Graceful." "What ?" said I. "Graceful," 
 she repeated. " Where did you get that name ?" was my 
 next inquiry. " From my mother," she said. " Well, if 
 she is living," I added, "tell her she has done you a great 
 wrong, and you won't stand it." She thanked me, said 
 she had always felt just as I did about it. and left promis- 
 ing that henceforth she would be Miss Grace M. Dunn. 
 I hope she has stuck to her resolution. But it is not 
 always the parents who are to blame. Five or six years 
 ago an exceedingly fine looking young fellow, a graduate 
 of Cornell College and Law school, called upon me, who 
 wanted a position in our office. " What is your name ?" 
 I inquired. " J. S. Waterman," he answered. " What 
 does J. stand for?" 1 asked. He, too, looked troubled as 
 he replied, " Jot." "Where did you get that name?" 
 was my next inquiry. " I didn't like my name Joshua 
 
23 
 
 and so I took it," was the answer. " Well, I don't want 
 you, wouldn't take you if you would work for nothing, 
 wouldn't have you around, or any other man who has so 
 little sense as to discard the grand, old Scriptural name 
 of Joshua for the supremely ridiculous one of Jot," was 
 my reply. I think ' ' Jot " S. Waterman departed this 
 life then and there and that Joshua S. Waterman was 
 born again. 
 
 As it was difficult to know where to begin, there 
 were so many things to be said, so now I find it equally 
 difficult to know where to stop, so many things still 
 remain unsaid ; but I must not violate the rule of 
 brevity which I have just laid down for you, and so in a 
 word, I will sum up what I have tried to say : locate 
 in the place where you have the most influential friends ; 
 enter some office having a general practice and stay 
 until you have learned the practical side of things 
 thoroughly ; make a connection with some established 
 firm, or failing in this, organize a firm of three, no two 
 of whom shall be alike in politics, religion, or anything 
 else ; rent good offices, fit them up attractively, especi- 
 ally with good stationery ; extend your acquaintance by 
 means of letters of introduction, clubs, societies, and 
 organizations of all sorts, not overlooking dignified ad- 
 vertising ; when business comes, do it so well that you 
 will make a friend of client and adversary alike ; have 
 no personal peculiarities ; always stand for what is best 
 in the community, and certain success will be yours. 
 
 I began with thanks and congratulations ; I will end 
 in the same way. I thank you for the attention with 
 which you have listened to me ; I congratulate you 
 that you are so soon to enter upon the practice of the 
 noblest profession on earth. If your success is com- 
 mensurate with your deserts, I am sure it will be most 
 abundant. , Would you have a model ? Find it in Him 
 who was the faultless pattern of all men.