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 The

Volume XXI

Green

Bag

July, 1909

Number 7

Chief Justice Ira B. Jones

IT is with pleasure that the Green Bag presents this month a portrait and brief character sketch of Hon. Ira B. Jones, who was commissioned Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Carolina last April, succeeding Hon. Y. J. Pope, resigned. It is not often that a man of such varied accomplishments is elevated to an eminent position on the bench. Chief Justice Jones is not only a jurist of ability, who at one time was one of the leaders of the bar of his state, but is one whose experience in legislative and po litical affairs and whose noble personal character fit him for the performance of his functions not only with skill and learning but with the good judgment of well balanced manhood. A charac teristic instance illustrates the qualities of his temperament. When he was Speaker of the lower House of the South Carolina Legislature, an act reducing the pay of the members from five dollars to four dollars a day was passed. The member of the Leg islature who introduced the appropria tion bill in 1894 insisted that the act did not take effect until a year later and that the members were entitled to the old rate of compensation. A minority of the House opposed him but was voted down. The Senate then passed a vote in favor of the lower rate. Then it was

that the present Chief Justice appointed a committee of three to go into confer ence with the Senate, naming on it con servative men who understood and were determined to uphold the law. This committee brought in a report in favor of the House concurring with the Senate. The House refused to adopt the recommendation, and in defiance of all traditions of the Legislature and of every precedent to be found in its his tory proposed a free conference, and that it elect such a conference committee as it might itself select. Then Speaker Jones acted in a manner at once dramatic and dignified. He declared that the vote of the House was a reflection upon the integrity of the Speaker, who al ways had appointed committees, and offered his resignation as Speaker. A pandemonium broke loose. The House refused to accept the resignation, and passed a resolution expressing absolute confidence in Speaker Jones. The wise course of concurring with the Senate was then followed. This is the sort of man Chief Justice Jones is, one with the highest conception of the duties and responsibilities of public office. When he was a candi date for Chief Justice, was it at all strange that the bar of Lancaster County should unanimously indorse him, or that he should have been elected in preference