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Ways that win :some remarks made before 
 3 1924 018 811 699 
 
 Ways That Win 
 
 WALTER 5. CARTER 
 
 (Unrupll Slaui ^rlynol Slibtary 
 
Ways That Win 
 
 SOME REMARKS 
 
 MADE BEFORE STORY (COLUMBIA) CHAPTER 
 
 OF PHI DELTA PHI, ON FRIDAY 
 
 EyENING, APRIL 28, '98 
 
 WALTER 5. CARTER 
 
 HONORARY MEMBER 
 OF THE FRATERNITY 
 
 THE COLLECTOR PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 DETROIT, MICH. 
 
■B793Gy 
 
 Copyrisht, 1899, 
 Br The Collector Publishinjf Co- 
 Detroit, Mich. 
 
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 
 
 The address of Walter S. Carter, which forms 
 the body of this little book, was published in 
 pamphlet form, soon after its delivery, at the 
 request of members of Story Chapter of Phi 
 Delta Phi, and distributed gratis through pri- 
 vate channels. The address brought forth such 
 favorable comment, some of which happened 
 to come to our notice, that we at once applied 
 to Mr. Carter for the privilege of publishing it 
 in this form and ofiEering it for sale to the 
 public. Mr. Carter graciously acceded to the 
 request. As every book should have a name, 
 and as the author of it is in the best position to 
 name it, we called upon Mr. Carter for a title. 
 In this matter he was pleased, he said, to defer 
 to the wider experience of the publishers. We 
 have, therefore, given it the title " Ways That 
 Win," believing that it exactly describes the 
 
4 
 book, and that by that name it will be most 
 easily remembered and referred to. 
 
 Mr. Carter is one of the leading members of 
 the American bar, so that young men who have 
 the privilege of reading these pages may con- 
 sider themselves highly favored. The address 
 is remarkable for its practical, common sense 
 treatment of a somewhat hackneyed subject. 
 
 The Collector Publishing Co., 
 
 PUBLISHERS. 
 DETROIT, Mich., May 1, 1899. 
 
Carteii, Huohk* a Dwibht, 
 
 ATTCMTMETS and COUNSELINIt AT Law, 
 
 New Yorh Citv. 
 
Ways That Win. 
 
 SOME REMARKS 
 
 MADE BEFORE STORY (COLUMBIA) CHAPTER OF PHI DELTA PHI, 
 
 ON FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 28, 1898, 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER S. CARTER, 
 
 HONORARY MEMBER OF THE FRATERNITY. 
 
 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 permitted 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 College. Judah 
 P. Benjamin, the leading Barrister of his 
 time at the English bar, was not a gradu- 
 ate, neither were Matthew H. Carpenter 
 or Roscoe Conkling. George F. Ed- 
 munds, of Vermont, and Ed Baxter, of 
 Tennessee, both great lawyers, also ob- 
 
tained 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 my- 
 self." I too, am not a college graduate. 
 It always has been the grief of my life 
 that the opportunity for a liberal educa- 
 tion was denied me; and standing here 
 this evening I can but contrast your op- 
 portunities 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, say- 
 ing that if I would writ6 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 far- 
 mer; I felt sure I might be Marshall aud 
 Pinckney, rolled into one, if I only had 
 half a chance. I shall never forget the 
 evening when the question was to be fi- 
 nally decided ; my mother had reserved 
 her highest trump for the occasion. "My 
 
son," said she, as the tears came into her 
 eyes, "I am 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 highmind- 
 ed, and truthful, and honorable. What I 
 have said to my self on those occasions has 
 been, these young men, standing at the 
 threshold of their professional lives, 
 should have been told where to locate, how 
 to start, what means to employ to succeed, 
 
8 
 
 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 oif the 
 law. 
 
 The first question you of the senior 
 class are face to face with, is that of loca- 
 tion ; 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 tend- 
 ency, for young men to rush to the large 
 cities. I estimate that I have been con- 
 sulted 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 g^n, 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 gfrandly 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 build- 
 ing where we had our oflEces. The rela- 
 tive had told him that New York was the 
 place, and he pointed in illustration pos- 
 sibly to me, certainly to Mr. Homblower, 
 and others then associated with me. In 
 those days I made the most powerful 
 speech of my life on Grand Rapids, Mich- 
 igan, 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 declared it 
 to be an ideal place in point of location ; 
 I described, with some particularity of de- 
 
lO 
 
 tail, its beautiful opera house, its fine 
 churclies and school houses, its refined 
 and polite society. My young friend from 
 Connecticut 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 Connecti- 
 cut roof-trees farewell and went west — to 
 Grand Rapids — to make his home and 
 climb to fame. He wrote me shortly alter 
 his arrival, thanking me for having di- 
 rected him so wisely, telling me that 
 Grand Rapids was all that 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 received 
 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 
 
II 
 
 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 ever known, Merritt Decatur Ham- 
 mond Carpenter, did. Destined for Mil- 
 waukee, he went from Rufus Choate's 
 ofl&ce 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 arguments 
 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 in- 
 stead of a large one. 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, 
 
12 
 
 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, ^^^ older one, 
 who had graduated from Yale a year or 
 two before, was there, endeavoring to get 
 a start as a lawyer. His mother mean- 
 while 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 after- 
 wards ; he remained in Rhode Island, 
 commenced practice in Providence, upon 
 the death of Judge Knowles became Uni- 
 ted States District Judge, and upon the 
 retirement of Judge Lowell became Uni- 
 ted States Circuit Judge, which position 
 he still adorns. His brother was Attor- 
 ney-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 emi- 
 nence had they settled in New York ; it 
 was the small forum, the comparatively 
 
13 
 
 small number of those engaged in tlierace 
 with them, that gave them their success, 
 superior though their abilities were. And 
 here is something that you who are think- 
 ing 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 havg 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 
 
14 
 
 lawyer in the State, William C. Ruger 
 and Charles Andrews, have all been Chief 
 Judges of the Court of Appeals, and Irv- 
 ing G. Vann is now a member of that dis- 
 tinguished court. George N. Kennedy, 
 Peter B. McLennan, and Frank H. His- 
 cock have been on the bench of the Su- 
 preme Court, the last two being there 
 now, and William J. Wallace is United 
 States Circuit Judge. The same rule 
 would hold good in Rochester and Buffalo, 
 differing only in degree. Millard Fill- 
 more was elected Vice-President of the 
 United States from Buffalo, and a month 
 after assuming ofl&ce became President; 
 but he never would have attained that ex- 
 alted 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 ex- 
 
15 
 
 ception, not the rule. And when success, 
 as it is called, is achieved here, what does 
 it amount to? 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 judgment of the wisest mem- 
 bers of the profession with whom I con- 
 verse, that young men who settle in the 
 smaller places, get more out of life, come 
 as a rule to higher estate, both in the pro- 
 fession and in politics, than those who 
 gather in the great centers. Put in a 
 single sentence, I would state the rule rel- 
 ative to location thus : settle in the place 
 where you have the most friends of influ- 
 ence, who will make your cause their own, 
 and push you for all there is in you. I 
 have tried a thousand times to say some- 
 thing 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 here, 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." 
 
i6 
 
 And now, having located you, the ques- 
 tion 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 practice 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 assistant to the Managing Clerk, going 
 to some of the courts while he is in attend- 
 ance 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, sur- 
 vive or perish," make your plunge for 
 fame and fortune. This is the time-table 
 for a young man intending 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 business, you will know how 
 to do it. If you should start before you 
 had office experience, you wouldn't know 
 what to do with a case if it came to you. 
 
17 
 
 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 fam- 
 iliarize yourself with legal machinery. 
 Mr. Homblower used to be Managing 
 Clerk in our office, and later, when he 
 wanted to administer discipline to some 
 employee, he knew wherein the offence 
 consisted — he had been there himself. 
 Mr. Bowers, general Counsel of the Chic- 
 ago & Northwestern Railroad Co., one of 
 the finest positions of the kind in the 
 country, was our managing clerk less than 
 fifteen years ago ; Mr. Kelsey, President 
 of the Title Guarantee & Trust Company, 
 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 Cumming, or Bills and 
 Notes with Burdick. 
 
i8 
 
 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 office, make 
 yourself indispensable — so useful that 
 they simply cannot get along without you. 
 Is this d.fficult, 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 op- 
 portunity, and you can't escape success if 
 you try. 
 
 If you enter an office, its character and 
 
19 
 
 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 Republicans and one Democrat, or two 
 Democrats and one Republican ; no Mug- 
 wump need apply. Religiously ? Three 
 different denominations, no two alike. 
 Socially? One who is in the "400" — 
 though that would be a g^at trial to me 
 — the other two, men who are intent only 
 on their work. Colleges? Harvard, Yale, 
 Princeton, or any of them; the point is 
 not to have two alike. Residences ? One 
 in Manhattan, one in Brooklyn, the other 
 might try New Jersey. Should all be or- 
 ators ? Oh, no ; only one of them ; one 
 should be the court lawyer, one the oflBce 
 lawyer and the other the outside member 
 — ^the level-headed man of affairs. An 
 office now-a-days without such a man, is a 
 pretty poor office — he is the most import- 
 
20 
 
 ant 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 j udges upon every wall ; the 
 furniture, the wood work and the walls 
 harmonize, and every appointment is as 
 good as we know how to make it. I know 
 no reason why a lawyer, who lives in com- 
 fort and elegance in his home, should live 
 in plainness and discomfort in his office. 
 At least half a lawyer's waking moments 
 are spent ih his office ; why shouldn't it 
 be pleasing to the eye and contain every- 
 thing that will conduce to his comfort and 
 
21 
 
 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 members dissolved. 
 The junior, then about thirty years of age, 
 went to the president of the largest bank 
 in the city, which had just erected the 
 finest oflBice 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 
 practices in the State of Missouri. Now 
 if those same young men had made a firm, 
 rented three meager offices, started with- 
 out clerks, stenographers or helpers of 
 any sort, they would probably be eking 
 out a hand to mouth existence at this mo- 
 ment. Argfument, have a good office, one 
 that will make a good impression on clients 
 
22 
 
 and callers, that will proclaim to every- 
 body wlio sees it that business 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 busi- 
 ness, 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 be- 
 lieves 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: 
 theRevised Statutes of Wisconsin, in front 
 of the hole. I have had as much fun out 
 of this yam, I venture to say, as the Judge 
 has himself, and mention it in the confi- 
 dent hope that you young gentlemen 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 
 
23 
 
 some of you as a trifling matter — it is a very 
 important one. When a young man's card 
 comes in to me, I know him before he en- 
 ters 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 infallible test of that quality which 
 is expressed by the word gentleman; no 
 other is so unerring, no other can be so 
 implicitly depended upon. Query: if the 
 printed visiting card makes a young man 
 a duflfer, 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 letterheads, 
 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 corres- 
 pondents in the various states and terri- 
 tories, up to half a dozen years ago, I 
 doubt if one of them wrote us on an en- 
 graved letterhead. Then it was that I 
 began work on letterhead reform, by 
 
24 
 
 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 letterheads. 
 The hint took, and now I am glad to 
 add, that most of our important corres- 
 pondents, like those of England and 
 Canada, communicate with us on Dreka's 
 best, many of them having copied our 
 letterhead exactly. We carry it to the 
 extent of having engraved billheads 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 suc- 
 ceed in making 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 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 g^eat 
 deal. The influential and important per- 
 son 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 ever3rthing 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 University, in 1854-8. It hap- 
 pened 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 
 
26 
 
 I would like lie 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 pre- 
 sent 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 wholesale hat 
 houses of the city. He received me with 
 gfreat 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 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 
 entering was introduced to Mr. Samuel 
 Shethar, another of the leaders of the hat 
 trade. The result was that before I left 
 
27 
 
 my firm had been retained to put the firm 
 °^ J- J- Johnston & Co. into bankruptcy. 
 This we did, a compromise was soon ef- 
 fected, 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. Mean- 
 while the firm of Henry W. Duryea & 
 Co. had failed; we were again employed 
 by the same parties, succeeded in effect- 
 ing 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 bankruptcy, and I received a 
 fee of $3,000 from the Committee of 
 creditors for two days' work. Mr. She- 
 thar 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 em- 
 
28 
 
 ployed by their Assignee, and were allow- 
 ed a fee of $15,000 more. One of the 
 creditors of Duncan, Sherman & Co. was 
 interested in the firm of Frederick Schuc- 
 hardt & Sons, and through his influence 
 we were employed in that imatter, in 
 which we received a fee of $i 1,000, 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 bank- 
 ruptcy practice in the country. In a 
 word, I could trace in less than five years 
 from the date of that letter of introduc- 
 tion, from a plain Methodist minister, 
 fees amounting in cash to at least $60,- 
 000. Shall a young man entering pro- 
 fessional life seek letters of introduction? 
 The question needs no further answer. 
 
 What things can a young lawyer prop- 
 erly do, that will be most likely to bring 
 business, is a question which you doubt- 
 less have all asked before now ? The 
 answer is plain — extend your acquaint- 
 ance. A young man, just adinitted to 
 the bar, you can make no claims for 
 
29 
 
 yourself 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, remem- 
 ber 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 oflfense 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 making acquaint- 
 ances. I tried it once, years ago, but 
 gave it up — I could find better methods. 
 Clubs ? Yes, but you will be greatly dis- 
 appointed 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 
 
30 
 
 ever exerted in the world. Military? 
 Yes, but it only extends your acquaint- 
 ance; 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. Con- 
 nect yourself with one or the other of the 
 two great parties ; don't on any account be 
 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 con- 
 vention when nominations are made; 
 stand by the machinery, through evil as 
 well as good report, if you value success ; 
 if you don't, then it doesn't matter. In 
 my forty years of observation of men and 
 things, I have never known a political 
 kicker get anywhere ; 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 district where the 
 party majority agrees with your political 
 
31 
 
 views, and stay there — don't go outside 
 on any account 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 pos- 
 sibly to Congpress, 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 Mil- 
 waukee to Chicago : ''We've not much 
 use down here, Carter, for bookish law- 
 yers; what we want is men who can make 
 things happen^'' Well, if you turn out to 
 be one 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 lawyers, advertised. To- 
 day all that has changed. In the English 
 
32 
 
 Law List, which is the oflScial organ of 
 the bar of that country, are to be seen 
 the cards of Alexander & Green, Gary & 
 Whitridge, Evarts, Choate & Beaman, 
 Parsons, Shepard & Ogden, our own firm, 
 and those of several others 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 part- 
 ners, is that of Blake, Lash & Cassels, 
 of Toronto, whose card I see in all the 
 foreigfn 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, Chadwick & Riddell, and they 
 both advertise. So do the three great 
 firms of Winnipeg, viz: Macdonald, Tup- 
 per, Phippen & Tupper, Ewart, Fisher & 
 
33 
 
 Wilson, and Aikins, Culver & McClen- 
 aghan. Indeed, in all the provinces of 
 Canada, there is not a firm of any import- 
 ance that does not advertise. Of course, 
 the advertisement 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 adver- 
 tisement in a legal directory, "We defy 
 competition." They were so generally 
 laughed at, however, that if they breathe 
 defiance any more, they certainly don't 
 express it in their advertisements, 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 
 publishers 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, 
 pieferably in a legal or banking journal, 
 as it is for a business man to advertise 
 his business. 
 
34 
 
 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, having for his assistant, 
 John L. Romer, Esq., then and now of 
 the firm of Day & Romer, of that city. 
 The cases were heard before Grover 
 Cleveland, as Referee, and it was then 
 and there that his acquaintance with Mr. 
 Hornblower 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 care- 
 ful preparation for trial, that he attracted 
 the attention of Mr. Stafford, who after- 
 wards recovered himself, became the pro- 
 prietor of the Imperial and one of the 
 
35 
 
 other large hotels of New York, became 
 the most valuable 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 
 $I3,CKX) in claims against the Propeller 
 Rocket, of the New York Central Trans- 
 portation 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 probably she was going 
 to Chicago, but knew of course, she might 
 put in to Green Bay or some other place 
 in Wisconsin. It was at a time when 
 there was quite a demand for freight, and 
 a good deal of grain was being shipped 
 from Green Bay. I immediately wrote a 
 correspondent there that if the Rocket 
 should arrive, to 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 Rock, 
 
36 
 
 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 Transportation Com- 
 pany, 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, interests 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 discon- 
 tinuance, 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 oppon- 
 
37 
 
 ent, the better the friend you may pos- 
 sibly 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 
 mention four: (i) 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 authorities, 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 objections at your 
 tongue's end and be on your feet in a 
 moment ; there is no chance for looking 
 up authorities then. On the other hand, 
 if you are conducting the examination in 
 chief, quick as a flash may come the ob- 
 jection, and quick as a flash you must be 
 ready to answer it. Many times in my 
 life have I seen justice defeated and in- 
 justice triumph, simply because one law- 
 
38 
 
 yer knew his business and the other 
 didn't. (2) In preparing a case for trial 
 or argument, alternate your attorneyship 
 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. ascertain 
 reasons why that contention should pre- 
 vail. Having done this, return to your 
 own side and study how the points you 
 were just contending for can be over- 
 thrown. You 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 im- 
 mense 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 below or in 
 that above, as clear, concise and compre- 
 hensive 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 
 
39 
 
 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 
 g^eat point. Justice Bradley, of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, who 
 was an uncle of Mr. Homblower, advised 
 him above all things to aim at clearness 
 of statement in opening his argrument 
 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 ex- 
 amples ot style in this respect let me 
 refer you to the opinions of Sir George 
 Jessel, Master of the Rolls, in the English 
 Law Reports, Equity series, beginning 
 with Volume 17, and Judge Francis M. 
 Finch, in the New York Court of Ap- 
 peals Reports, Volumes 81 to 148 inclus- 
 ive. And just here let me emphasize the 
 importance of brevity ; this is a hurrying 
 age, and with overcrowded dockets, judges 
 want everything boiled down. "No mat- 
 ter about that, come to the point ; tell me 
 what you want and cite your authorities," 
 
40 
 
 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 Robbins 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 argu- 
 ment 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 care- 
 fully 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 in- 
 quire, and upon being answered in the 
 
41 
 
 afl&rmative, 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,^o« must go right off 
 and get one?'' There is no use in assert- 
 ing things unless you have witnesses on 
 hand to prove them. I have mentioned 
 Matt Carpenter of Wisconsin before; I 
 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 law- 
 yers, on the other hand, in cases involv- 
 ing 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 on Paderewski and found him prac- 
 ticing at the piano. "What, do you have 
 
42 
 
 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 Brook- 
 lyn, last week, Wednesday evening, and 
 he told me after the recital, that he had 
 practiced three whole days in preparation 
 for the evening's work. Assuming that 
 a young lawyer will win half of his cases 
 anyway, he who will follow 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 and 
 high success will be assured. 
 
 I wonder if some of you are not saying 
 to yourselves, 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 
 
43 
 
 general rule : Don't have any personal 
 peculiarities — be an everyday, sensible, 
 levelheaded 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 shoulders. 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 min- 
 ister 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. Washington Jones to some- 
 one 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, re- 
 pudiate what they have done, take some 
 
44 
 
 good ancestral name, and ever afterwards 
 go by it. Three or four years ago, a 
 young lady called at our ofl&ce 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 
 wout stand it." She thanked me, said 
 she had always felt just as I did about it, 
 and left promising 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 exceed- 
 ingly fine looking young fellow, a gradu- 
 ate 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 answer- 
 
45 
 
 ed. "What does J. stand for?" I 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 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 ridicu- 
 lous one of Jot,'' was my reply. I think 
 "Jot" S. Waterman departed this life then 
 and there and that Joshua S. Waterman 
 was bom 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 in- 
 fluential friends; enter some office having 
 a general practice and stay until j'ou 
 
46 
 
 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 any- 
 thing else ; rent good offices, fit them up 
 attractively, especially with good station- 
 ery ; extend your acquaintance by means 
 of letters of introduction, clubs, societies, 
 and organizations of all sorts, not over- 
 looking dignified advertising ; when busi- 
 ness 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 com- 
 munity, and certain success will be yours. 
 I began with thanks and congratula- 
 tions ; 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 commensurate 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. 
 
.4i.*r. ..■ '■•