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 was to make me President Judge of the Court. My commission was read and I assumed the duties December 13th. One day Sulzberger and I sat in our room discussing the situation and we concluded when our advice should be asked to suggest the appointment of J. Martin Rommel, a capable young lawyer, as the third member of the court. A tap came upon the outside of the door. When it was opened in stepped Colonel Lewis E. Beitler, a tall person with a military air, who said: “At the command of Governor Hastings I come to present his compliments and to inform you that he has concluded to appoint Mr. William W. Wiltbank to the vacancy in this court.” And he did. Judge Wiltbank was a descendant of Bishop William White and of General William MacPherson of the Revolutionary Army. He had been an officer in the War of the Rebellion. He had a considerable practice and had had long experience at the Bar, and he possessed a technical knowledge of the law as well as intelligence. His mental processes were a little prone to be stiff, prim and formal. He never would permit himself to precede me in going through a doorway. He was almost horrified when he found me sitting on a bootblack stand on the street having my boots blacked. He made an excellent judge and distinctly strengthened his professional reputation by going upon the bench.

In 1897 I took my three daughters—Josephine Whitaker, Eliza Broomall and Anna Maria Whitaker—to Europe and we spent the most of the time in Holland and England. It is one of the comforts of my life that I have spent a month of it in Holland. The Englishman, with a capacity for organization and a force of character which has made itself felt in the world, is a surly sort of creature and retains many of the original brutal instincts. This fact is shown in all of his dealings with weaker peoples. The Dutchman, while inheriting from the same ancestry the strong traits of courage, tenacity and the willingness to surrender individual inclinations in order to combine with his fellows, has a Rh