Show 7 W 1 r 1 C TT Yr sJ dSA SAr CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE r Fric REMINISCENCES OF THREE OF THE ing T I YOUNGEST OLD MEN Par the hlet Justice Watte Civil Service Coin theN mlsRloner Edgti ton and Judge jjitty How Goint Appointed Waltc Chief Jus inoi ale JUI friei C tice GeneuloKjr of the AValtb family fess Special Correspondence tSpial Crspnden Lai LaiT TOLEDO 0 July T The north western part of Ohio 1ms produced the t number of noted not men Toledo was once onc con > Chief Justice Uns Justc Waites home ExPresident 1n Rutherford B Hayes comes from Fremont 3 Ri good sized town a HtOe Cst of here Charley Die Foster lives at Fostoria not far off from the hon homo of Hayes and Hnrc just wet of him is He Hicksville where Civil Service Commissioner SI i Hdgirton began l his career a one of tho chief SIA wallers of this part of Ohio Petroleum V Salt Vasby lives at Toledo and her edits his the Toledo Blade and this was the home of Gen teedmau who died only a or sho year 01 so ngo shoU Shaking of Judge Wnites early days fit 1 Toledo 1 had a long chat the other day with one xCongressman Hill of Defiance about ally lie and Edgerton the Representative Hill has known Chief hoot Justice Waite for twentyfive rem mid ho any says that Waite is one of a trio of old men anyGi from northwestern Ohio who are possessed of pub l mot lenmrkiible intellectual and plryMcul on B vitality They are all in the full ix > ssession of their every faculty And it is BLi ftcul f strango Li coincidence that they started their lives as and friends nnd that now in their old age they near Wp up the closest of social relations 1 hese plan iree nipn are Chief Juitico Waite Civil day rviVe Commissioner Eilgerton mil Judge WOOc I 11 xiiiider S Latty of Defiance Lat and dgerton are a couple of years older than J Vaite Lut Edgerton with his gray hair hasT yest has-T frame of iron and he tells mo that he has j ew days of sickles mil that he can b upon mati tis feet all day long without tiring Theo recej hree men came to northwestern Ohio when den t was little more than a wilderness Waite nati was n son of the chief justice of Connecticut Opei He had been born at Lyme educated at OpeiG Yale in the same class with William M GI Jvarts studied law with his father and dur senti ig the term of Martin Van Buren had come artis est to Ohio to practice He soon jumped Can to 1 a big business but he lived well and did Nat t ave mull money because us Repro disp itiitive Hill bays he charged to little for W j Mviees For the > riling of a brief at tho quest of the Defiance teen Defumc county commissioners ii a case involving 15000 Hill ho char 15o Hi says charged only 50 His brief settled the won < hlh1 brd tte case sion and liml it been written by other lawyers of Iron equal note the charge would have been 1000 instead of > 0 Wuites first case in Defiance iak county was tried shortly after his admission id to the bar The court was held in the second wh story of a building in Defiance which still 1 stands and Waite was terribly worsted b hoi aie rrbl WOlste by afar a-far young mal wi rid more voice than brains and who now lives Ju ln been I at Defiance an nn be-en known and not very prosperous l old man Waite was once 8 re tI 9i member of the Ohio fat ate legislature He once declined a dllned st c p I position on the Ohio V I supreme bench and Grant ent him m I w I connection with hb I old classmate Wil COMB SDOERTOX liam M Evarts a one of the counsel of the Geneva arbitration He was given the appointment of chief jute of the StIr no i i iuuuc Laving aikcd for it and hmg no idea that it would I lie tendered him Representative Hill tells ni hon the matter was first called to Grants attention and of a little meeting at Toledo v Vh sevured nit the appointment unmt was traveling over the United States I mid when he came to Toledo a reception wra I < > mel for him The committee on ar tIlt was compose of Waites friends i they were anxious that Grant should alt a-lt Waite to his present position They d nothing however and had Waite make I ie addr s of the occasion He did this in a I lasterlj manner talking t Grant as became is office but not overflowing with the nauseous nause-ous adulation which was so common to Grants oecptions at that time Grant was delighted with the effort He had known of Waite Ole what in connection with Evarts Ho mew him to be a man of the utmost probity cud of no political aspirations He made in I about him and concluded that he miries concude was I I proper man to take the place left vacant y Chief Justice Chase He appointed Waited Waite-d no better choice was ever made for such osition Waite accepted the position and t ilerstund that he shows no indications of aending to retire from it now Speaking of Waite Edgerton and Latty xmtinued Representative Hill they are allen of and is len extraordinary ability ald Latty i ully tbe equal of Waite in legal learning fie i an Irishman by birth who first settled n Canada but was driven thence on ac ount of the Mackenzie rebellion in which 10 was mixed up He came to Ohio anl practiced law was made judge and held his position for many years He had a wonderful wonder-ful knowledge of the law reports There was not a case that had been tried it seemed S to me which he could not refer t in the reports of the various state and United States courts giving the volume and page on which he case could b found the names of Ih2 Inintiffs and the defendants and even the lams He is now living l in retirement 1 is worth about 150000 He nnd Waite respond regularly and I attended 3 iner not long ago at which Waite Edger Alit and Lat y were 1 rent These three men are the most honest trio I i know Mr Hill continued Edgerton Waite ali Latty are so honest that they might l > e trusted with the wealth of all Wall street of New York and Threadneedle and Lombard streets of London and they would render the account even to the cent During Lnltys early life in Ohio he had mae a good wlien he deal of money in land speculation whel became inteiested in the Miami and Erie canal This failed and he found himself na n lot of creditors on his hands and nothing to pay them He took tho benefit of the bankrupt law and started anew Ten jeans later ho had made another fortune He then brought forth his note books containing con-taining an alphabetical list of all his credit with interest ors He calculated their accounts terest for ten years sought them out and cent He would not allow r paid up every nt le but creditor to receive only his principal inado him take the interest as welL I is a good deal the same with Edgcrton JMeertons father was a prominent trI tr-I and Edgerton came to Ohio a tOn tO-n ent of a land company which owned c hrgo part of northwestern Ohio This com quf jany Was afterward known as the Hicks Land jaiiy wn and Edgerton founded the town of nijwiny ald Egertn founeed Sfu ville and name it after Hicks He ro with Wm salary from this company and c enc In Uhoii on his sales He maj0 money 1837 from Ne upon dosing up the affairs cf there in a cou bought Z large amount of Hick wer ltr t a merely nominal price t take charge of t scventie ho was worth Ug Land te 5 Lnd compar bctw M111 y I and 1000000 and he was helping bri > ther Lycurgus Edger toil who was doing buvless in New York Is brother had oulyViis verbal promise lor surety and when o panic of ISTtf camo around and caused bin to fail 0 the extent of 350000 EJgertowas not legally responsible re-sponsible Z0O his debts Nevertheless he paid it every dollar of them thgh in doing i f cost hun the larger part twins fortune In cot order to get the ready mouv ie had to sell valuable stocks such as thuPittiburg FoiL Wayne and Chicago railroad lock and others t oth-ers which are now away aQve por but er which went then at n wnBce 01 Raf j L 4 l J j J 1 fj tons friends urging him not to pay I thero debts of his brother stating that he could not b held for them he replied coul legal obligation made no difference t him He had promise his brother that he would be his surety and had he Jade no such promise I he would have paid hn brothers debts rather Mian see his notes dishonored Edserton still owns about aOOO acres of land in northwest iii Ohio ali these have l > een greatly in eased in value by the oil discovery There < n town hero named after him He is c nh I suppose leveral hundred umsand dollars nit had it not been for his brother hew he-w have been a5 ten times as wealthy weal-thy Ho was in congress when rvik Pierce was I dent and has I a number of ors thrust upon r I in by Indiana Wiltn Wh i did you t incut Judge JUDGE WAITE alLot I asked I was when I was a green young lawyer > pled Hill 1 had a case in which Judge Waite then a noted Toledo lawyer was notd Iwyel employed em-ployed by the opposite side Waite hud al icady made 3 great reputation and 1 approached ap-proached the case with fear and trembling We took tho testimony together in private and after we had it all before us beforewo had submitted it t the judge Mr Waite asked me to go over mil lunch with him 1 During our lunch ho told me that he thought I > te could settle that case just os well us Judge j Irfitty and asked me i 1 would be willing I for him to fix the terms of settlement 1 implied im-plied that that was rather a strange method > f procedure and I would like to know howe how-e would settle it first He then made a ain statement of the justice of the case and oposed a settlement in accordance rib is i His idea u to how the case should bo ettled was exactly the same as mine ali I could not have asked for letter treatment I dont believe that Wuite ever advocated tho cause of a dishonest client and I dont think he would have taken a case which he thought contrary to juitico He might have mace a fortune at his law hail he charged tho ordinary fees for he had avery a-very large practice He was not very rich I when he was elected chief justice and I dont i I nagine he is what would b called wealthy low He made one large fee that I know cf ind that was 40000 which he received for s senices in connection with the Atlantl md Great Western railroad cases He has r louse in Washington and some projwrty ii Toledo He has a suit who is a lawyer in Toledo To-ledo and bis daughter Miss is I Is Mary a veiy accomplished oung lady From the history of the Waite family I Tot come very interesting fats The Wnites original came fiom England mil Thomas Waite one of Chief Justice Waites ancestors was one of the judges who signed the death warrant of Chaileill The Waites have n oat or arms Viiiui was granted to lue lam ly I in 151 The family settled in Massaohu tt nt an early date and there intermari vith the Griswolds and the IVaites for l 10l me seemed to have adopted the legal proft IOI Marvin Waite who cast his vote for Jeorgo Washington for president was 1 ounty judge J have already said that here were judges in the family in En und and Waites father was chief justice c the Connecticut supreme court Unlike L son however Waites father retired when he got to lw 70 and he died at the age of tX nits greatgnmdmother was a large handsome hand-some woman but s religious that she never allowed any cooking sweeping in her house on Sundays and the family had to put up with cold victuals Yale ha been the college o which Waites ancestors in this country lave uniformly gone and it is a curious fac that t-hat Chief Justice Waites wife was his second xmsin and that both himself and his wife I mvo the maternal same greatgrandfather I Col Seldon of revolutionary fame The house in which Waite was born still stands at Lyme Cnn 1 is a comfortable two story building i with a ridge roof and with a pretty awn surrounding it His home in Wa > bing touu is a wide brown stone building of three or four stories on I street between Fourteenth Four-teenth and Fifteenth He lives well and often ives dinners to his fellow judges and tho ther note people of Washington society ace I saw Chief Justice Waite a few days bore b-ore I left Washington He ba entirely re overed from his illness of a year or s ago ind ho appears to b able to stick to the su bench life sticks to his bones ireme blnch as long as lfe stcks hi bOIe He is i already eligible to retirement but like uher of his fellow septuagenarians of the f u route court he prefers to earn his salary t J laving the government pension him at 113 t of 10000 a year He wears his 70 years exceedingly well lis eye i bright and his step i firm all he wrinkles in his dark square face aio ew His beard i however beginning to IOW gray and his black hair i aheaiy inged with brightsilver He makes an exctl ent Chief Justice and the integrity of lis lecisions has never been questioned FRANK G CARPENTER |