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THE GREEN BAG

state has grown to power and prosperity and industrial strength, and among these men we have great reason to mention James M. Woolworth. The fifty years that have rolled by since he came to Nebraska have been the busiest and most progressive years in United States history. They have been years that have given to the mentally vigorous much food for thought. Things moved at a pace that stimulated the mental energies. For a time it was a controversy over state sovereignty and human freedom. Then came the years of the civil war that stirred the depths of human emotion. Then came the period when the nationhood of the government began to take form. Still later the great prominence and strength of the Union, as it slowly and surely took its place at the head of the industrial and commercial countries of the world, and began to make its full influence felt in the accomplishment of its destiny as the controlling power in the western hemisphere. The man of keen in tellect, who found pleasure in his books and pride in his professional calling, derived from all these conditions and considerations in centives to action ajid a stimulus to ambi tion. It was an age to produce great men, if they possessed the essential qualities of sterling manhood and the mental capacity to rise to the demands of the occasion. James M. Woolworth was more than an observer of these exciting times and sweep ing changes and progressive movements. Trained from early boyhood as a student, he became a thinker. His mind grew and ex panded in harmony with the events we have mentioned. His mental powers, naturally keen and well cultured, became a power when concentrated upon any particular subject which appealed to his taste or his judgment. The law being his chosen pro fession, it was in that field of engagement that he developed his strongest energy and employed his closest application. Be fore he had rounded out his life he had achieved a reputation that made him well

known to the eminent lawyers and the prominent judges of the highest courts within the land. James M. Woolworth enjoyed another ad vantage which may have had much to do in advancing him to the high place which he held in the front ranks of the American Bar, and that arose from frequent associa tion with men in high station, who were charged with great responsibilities, and who sustained themselves by their great intelli gence. In 1862 when but thirty-three years of age he appeared in argument before the Supreme Court of the United States, then presided over by Roger P. Taney as chief Justice, and who had among his associates such celebrated jurists as John McClean, Samuel Nelson, Robert C. Grier, and Nathan Clifford. If it needed something more to stimulate the energies of the young man to reach the highest possible attainment in his profes sion, we find it presented, when in 1871 he again appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States, with Lyman Trumbull, then holding the office of United States Senator, and a record as one of the greatest lawyers in the country, as his adversary. At that time the great Salmon Portland Chase was the chief justice, and on the Bench, among others, there sat Stephen J. Field, Joseph P. Bradley, and another per sonally known to almost every western lawyer, the great Samuel F. Miller. At the same sitting of the court Mr. Woolworth again appeared in another case when Mr. Lyman Trumbull again appeared as his adversary. Mr. Woolworth had associated with himself another member of the Omaha Bar who achieved a great reputation, Hon. A. J. Poppleton. He had associated with him another who in that day stood at the forefront of the American Bar and who also occupied a high place in the national coun cils as a United States Senator, Hon. Matt. H. Carpenter. I might continue this line of association with great men, but it would serve no valu