Page:Bench and bar of Colorado - 1917.djvu/34

30 When that task was finished two years later, the court again passed out of existence.

With the ever-increasing court business it is but a question of time, in the opinion of attorneys, until it will become necessary to either increase the number of Supreme Court judges again, or once more create a Court of Appeals. Lawyers and litigants alike are entitled to and demand a speedier disposition of cases than a court of last resort of but seven members, with the utmost application and diligence can give them.

When Colorado was admitted to the Union as a state, a United States District Court was established with Denver as the seat of the judge presiding over it. Elmer S. Dundy, judge of the District of Nebraska, held the first session of the court on December 5, 1876. On January 23, 1877, Moses Hallett, for ten years chief justice of the Colorado Territorial Supreme Court, took the oath of office as United States judge, and until death called him thirty years later, he presided over the court. Westbrooke S. Decker was the first United States District Attorney for Colorado. He took office on the day that Judge Hallett ascended the federal bench.

Since the day it was established, the United States Court for Colorado has had only two judges: Moses Hallett and Robert E. Lewis, the present judge, appointed upon Judge Hallett's death in 1906.

No history of the bench and bar of Colorado, no matter how brief, would be complete without some reference to the men who were and are members of the bar, and called to the bench to administer the laws. It is no exaggeration to say that, from the days when the first gold-seekers flocked into the country at the base of the Rockies until the present day, Colorado has been fortunate in having lawyers and judges who have been a credit to the state, and who, in taking care of the interests of those in need of legal advice and assistance and in administering the law, have been and are second to none in the country.