Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/272

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Published Monthly, at $3.00 per annum.

Bag. Single numbers, 50 cents.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, 15^ Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession; also anything in the .way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetia, anecdotes, etc. THE GREEN BAG. A Boston correspondent favors us with the fol lowing interesting reminiscences of Rufus Choate : Editor of the " Green Bag " : It is an immense loss to literature that so little of Mr. Choate's accomplishments at the bar, in the forum, or in Congress has been preserved for succeed ing generations. Stenography was in its veriest in fancy in his day, and was unable to represent him fully; it could not express his tone, his gestures, or his manner. His exuberant diction, his musical voice, the quick, nervous tremor of his lig, the flash of his brilliant eye, and the general magnetism of his manner fascinated the spectator with a sense of superior power. One of his biographers has felicitously said, " He often drove a substantive and six," referring to the numerous adjectives and epithets which he unspar ingly employed; as in the famous Tirrell trial, where, speaking of the defendant, he said " Doating, gloat ing. fond, enamoured, fascinated fool that he was." This case was remarkable as an exhibition of Mr. Choate's influence upon a jury which, not doubting the prisoner's guilt, nevertheless acquitted him of the charge of wilful murder. In an argument before the Board of Aldermen of Boston in 1856, where he was employed by the store keepers on Washington Street to oppose the petition of the Metropolitan Railroad Company for leave to lay down rails on that great thoroughfare, Mr. Choate spoke as follows : " Why, gentlemen, if prop erty be taken by constitutional authority, except upon these two considerations, first, that it is necessary, and second, that the owners should be completely paid for it,— ay, gentlemen, completely paid for it,— there is an end of our boasted freedom, and liberty is but a breath! In such a state of things I 'd rather live in despotic Prussia than in the American Union; for, gentlemen, in the reign of Frederick the Great, who was nearly the equal of Napoleon in ability though not in war, there stood opposite the palace of the

monarch at Potsdam a simple, singular mill, the prop erty of a poor subject. As an' incumbrance on the view from the palace the miller was directed .to re move the mill. He declined the removal. He was requested to name his price. He refused to name a price. He was then told that the king would de stroy the mill. In reply to that threat the miller calmly stated that there was a tribunal at Berlin that would respect his rights. Gentlemen, that mill was suffered to remain, and there it stands to-day in front of the imperial palace, — a more splendid monument to the intelligence and justice of the great Frederick than the most gorgeous column which could be erected in commemoration of his Austrian victories." In the same argument he displayed a singular readiness and tact in converting an apparent discom fiture into a triumphant argument for his position. The petitioners had introduced a manufacturer of platform scales in New York to show that his wagons by running their wheels upon the rails could carry heavier loads than otherwise could be conveyed, and that therefore the rails were no impediment to gen eral travel. Now, Mr. Choate's manuscript was sim ply abominable, — no one could decipher it, and it was often illegible to himself when it was cold; so on this occasion, while reviewing in his argument the testimony of the petitioners, and glancing hastily at his notes, he remarked, " What is the testimony on the other side? They have imported from New York a sail-maker I Pray, what is his statement worth, where progress through our streets is not dependent upon the billowy canvas, but on the cold obstruction of a rigid rail —" " But, Mr. Choate," interrupted the opposing counsel, " the man is a jf«/<?-maker, not a j(7/7-maker." " Ah," resumed Mr. Choate, with a smile, " my brother says the witness is a scale-maker. Well, gentlemen, the evidence of a jvj/7-maker would be better on a question of locomotion; but now his testimony is worth nothing at all, for in this case there is nothing to be weighed except the grasping avarice of a gigantic monopoly on the one side, and the diligent industry and unswerving integrity of our honest shopkeepers on the other." No description could adequately represent Mr. Choate when he was warm and earnest in argument or debate. The pencil of the reporter was stayed by the power of his eloquence, which fascinated the eye as well as charmed the ear of his auditor. To have seen him was a sensation, but to have heard hm was an ecstasy.