If*
 
 JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE
 
 JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE 
 
 fjfcemotrtal 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION 
 
 JANUARY 19, 1918 
 
 ADOPTED MAY 16, 1917 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION 
 1918
 
 JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE 
 BORN JANUARY 24, 1832 DIED MAY 14, 1917 
 
 .Elected a Member of 
 
 THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION 
 1858 
 
 President 
 I9II-I9I7 
 
 2021116
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 RESOLUTIONS 9 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 ELIHU ROOT 10 
 
 LETTER 
 
 THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT BRYCE . . 17 
 
 LETTER 
 
 CHARLES W. ELIOT .... 19 
 
 CABLE MESSAGE 
 THE RT. HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 25 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 V/ THEODORE ROOSEVELT . . . .27 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 FRANCIS LYNDE STETSON 35
 
 RESOLUTIONS 
 
 ADOPTED BY 
 
 THE BOARD OF MANAGEMENT 
 
 At a special meeting of the Board of Man- 
 agement on January i6th, 1917, to take action 
 on the death of the President of the Century 
 Association, the Honorable Joseph H. Choate, 
 the following resolutions were adopted : 
 
 RESOLVED: That the Board of Management, 
 expressing the deep personal sorrow felt by every 
 member of the Century Association, desires to 
 record the peculiar honor and affection in which 
 Mr. Choate has been held as President of the 
 Club. The sense of his intimate and friendly 
 interest in the Association, transcending any 
 purely official relation, has made us all richer in his 
 animating presence. His memory, and our pride 
 in his career, will be among our most treasured 
 traditions. 
 
 RESOLVED: That the sympathy of the Associa- 
 tion be expressed to the family of Mr. Choate by 
 the sending of a copy of these Resolutions through 
 the Secretary. 
 
 HARRY OSBORN TAYLOR, 
 
 Secretary.
 
 ADDRESS OF 
 ELIHU ROOT 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE CENTURY: It is peculiarly 
 grateful to me that the first occasion of per- 
 forming the duties to which your too partial 
 judgment has called me should be in memory 
 of the noble and dear friend who has been our 
 President during these past years. Many or- 
 ganizations and institutions have done honor to 
 his memory. He was a lawyer whose excep- 
 tional talent in some directions rose almost, if not 
 quite, to genius, and the lawyers have with one 
 acclaim paid honor to his memory. He was a 
 diplomatist of the highest quality, and the public 
 men of this country and of Europe have testified 
 to their high appreciation of his work and his 
 achievements. He was a great citizen, imbued 
 with a sense of duty to his country, to the com- 
 munity in which he lived, to his fellowmen, dur- 
 ing all his long life laboring without ceasing 
 ungrudgingly for their benefit. 
 
 He was a patron of the arts, for more than forty 
 years devoting his time first in the organization, 
 then in guiding the feeble steps of the Metropoli- 
 
 10
 
 of JElibu "Root n 
 
 tan Museum of Art, and to the last devoting his 
 time to its service, as a member of its Board of 
 Trust, a member of its Executive Committee, 
 Chairman of its Law Committee, Vice-President, 
 never for a moment* feeling that the time ex- 
 pended for the education of the people of his own 
 city, his own country, to higher standards of art, 
 education in the love of all that is beautiful, was 
 time wasted. 
 
 He was full of human charity. He worked for 
 the poor with deep comprehension of all their 
 troubles, their sufferings, their sorrows. As Presi- 
 dent of the State Charities Aid Association, as 
 Governor of the New York Hospital, as President 
 of the Society for the Blind, in all his busy life 
 always ready to give his time and his effort in that 
 cause. 
 
 And from all these associations of his long life 
 have come expressions of sorrow over his loss, of 
 admiration for his career, and of gratitude for the 
 things that he accomplished. We meet, we, his 
 old friends in The Century, meet for something 
 far different. We meet to celebrate the man 
 as we knew him, his personality. As I look back 
 over his life, with more than forty years of which 
 I was very familiar, it seems to me that, as I sum 
 up what he did in all the directions to which he 
 turned his high abilities, as I sum them all up, the 
 man was greater than they, the man was greater 
 than what he did. 
 
 But there is little that we can say or do to per- 
 petuate the memory of that fine and gracious per- 
 sonality. Words may awaken the memories of 
 those who knew him; words may call up from the
 
 12. a&fcreee of 
 
 hidden layers of consciousness recollections of this 
 incident and that, of this act and that, of the 
 influence of his presence, of the unexpressed and 
 undefined impression which we received; but words 
 can do little or nothing to carry to the minds of 
 those who did not know him or to perpetuate 
 in future generations any conception of what the 
 man was. Garrick said, you will remember: "One 
 common grave covers the actor and his art." 
 That is the universal truth: one common grave 
 covers the person and his personality. All the 
 exquisite, the subtle, the delicate, the lambent, 
 the bright, the shining light of his life must die 
 with us, and lives now only with our memories, 
 and with our memories it must cease to be. 
 
 Yet, this is the truest memorial, this memorial 
 of the Choate we knew; and all that the lawyers 
 and the diplomatists and the citizens can say and 
 record and perpetuate in print is but the outside, 
 the shadow of the man we knew. We can say 
 that he had high courage, clear, lofty courage; he 
 feared the face of no man; no power, no dignity 
 abashed him or caused the slightest tremor in that 
 clear and instant courage. We remember the 
 uniform, the constant, bright, and genial cheerful- 
 ness under all circumstances, dominant and 
 diffusing itself among all the surroundings. 
 
 Grief was not unknown to him; bitter sorrows 
 came into his life, but that beautiful and bright, 
 cheerful courage rose above them all and presented 
 always to the world the same steady and beaming 
 countenance. Serene and imperturbable temper 
 went with him everywhere, under all circum- 
 stances. He was never sour, or bitter, or fretful,
 
 IRoot 13 
 
 or cross ; never gave way to passion ; never allowed 
 himself to be swayed by personal animosity; of 
 kindly judgment, but not mushy, not a negation of 
 spirit, the kindly judgment that comes from a 
 knowledge of man's infirmities and an even balance 
 of the temptations and the obstacles to right 
 conduct. 
 
 I don't know any man with a more genuine 
 interest in human life than he had. The secret of 
 the interest that others found in him, the reason 
 why for so many years in countless banquets and 
 meetings of all kinds he always found something 
 that was interesting and inspiring for his audience, 
 lay in the fact that he was genuinely interested in 
 his audience, interested in everything in life about 
 him, interested in everything that went on in the 
 world. 
 
 All those things we remember, and when we 
 put them all together we make some little approach 
 to the reasons why we think of him and feel of him 
 as we do. And there is the reason for his humor : 
 his humor was the reaction of the people and the 
 events about him, his individual reaction; it was 
 not borrowed. He was always interesting because 
 what he gave to his audiences was his own fresh 
 and original way of looking at the events of the 
 times and of studying the characters of the people 
 about him. Every speech that he made was his own 
 contribution to a study of life. He had, I think, 
 in the highest degree what we have no word in our 
 language for and what the French call esprit. He 
 of all the men we know embodied to our under- 
 standing what they mean by esprit. He had what 
 is so rare and what the highest ability and the
 
 14 Hfcfcresa of 
 
 longest experience and the greatest achievement 
 do not give: he had distinction; his personality 
 stands up among all those of this great city, of 
 this great country as having distinction; and he 
 had charm. I cannot define it; we do not know 
 whence it comes; we don't know what it is; we 
 don't know why it is, but he had it; and we can't 
 communicate to anyone else in the world the 
 impression which comes from charm, the charm 
 that he had. He was beyond imitation; he was 
 himself, and there never will be another. 
 
 There was a little book many of you have seen 
 it privately printed the other day by his family, 
 a few copies printed but not published. Two or 
 three years ago when he was quite ill and was kept 
 in bed by his physicians for wearisome weeks, he 
 yielded to the urgent requests that his family had 
 been making for a long time to leave some account 
 of his early years. Influenced, I think, to some 
 degree by the fact that in undertaking to write a 
 memorial upon an old friend for the Bar Associa- 
 tion he had found it so difficult to learn anything 
 about his friend's early life, lying in his bed he 
 had his secretary come and day by day he dictated 
 some of his early recollections. It is one of the 
 most delightful and charming pieces of literary 
 work that I have ever seen. It is the man himself. 
 And I think that there you find the key to a great 
 deal of his character, and the reason why with all 
 his intellectual force and power, with all the habits 
 of a lawyer, with all the skill with which he used 
 the weapons of sarcasm and of ridicule, nevertheless 
 all who knew him loved him. For there you find 
 that through all his long life he had treasured in
 
 IRoot 15 
 
 his heart the memories of his early youth in the 
 simple surroundings of his home; they never lapsed 
 back into the past with him ; they continued witfc 
 him always. 
 
 He says, "In my bedroom there are the photo- 
 graphs of eighty-five of the members of my college 
 class," all but three of that college class from 
 which he separated in 1852; and he says, "I fre- 
 quently put myself to sleep in calling the roll of 
 the class, which is as familiar to me now as it 
 was when I graduated." He tells how William, 
 his brother, whom we know, led him by the hand 
 when first he was taken, two and one-half years of 
 age, to the Dames' School. He tells about the 
 school and its little incidents. He dwells with 
 peculiar interest and humor upon the records 
 in the family Bible; how the Choates old sea- 
 faring family, born and bred upon the borders of 
 Salem Harbor recorded the births not only by 
 date and hour but by the state of the tide. ' ' George, 
 born about nine in the morning, just at high tide;" 
 "William, born three in the afternoon, four hours 
 of ebb tide;" and so through the long list. There 
 is something about it evidently that carries him 
 back to old Salem. He dwells with most charm- 
 ing and pathetic love upon the sacrifices that 
 his parents made to send him and his brothers 
 to college. His father, he says he had known 
 him to pay out what must have been nearly the 
 last dollar in his pocket towards their education ; 
 four brothers in the Harvard Catalogue of 1848-49 
 at one time; and he says: "This done when the 
 ordinary fees of the hard-working country physi- 
 cian were seventy -five cents for a visit and $7.50
 
 16 Bfcfcress of EHbu IRoot 
 
 for bringing a new child into the world." And 
 with manifest joy he recounts the pleasure that 
 must have been his parents' when he and his 
 brother sandwiched the college class between them, 
 William, who he says was superior to all other 
 students, having no second, being the valedicto- 
 rian and he, Joseph how it happened he cannot 
 tell made salutatorian, so that they appeared 
 upon the commencement stage at either end of 
 the class. 
 
 Those reminiscences carry the very breath of 
 Salem, of old Salem, and when I had read them 
 I took down some volumes of Hawthorne and 
 turned them over; it seemed to me that I was 
 going to a next friend when I did that, and that 
 I found the same charming spirit there. It was 
 that side of his nature, living always, under the 
 brilliant career, under the high endeavor, under 
 the great achievements, that kept him the dear 
 delightful youth that he was, with his blithe 
 spirit and his tender sympathy and his loyalty to 
 friends; it was this that made us love him, and 
 it will keep his memory green in our hearts the 
 memory of the real man. 
 
 In all the long career of The Century, it has 
 never done honor to anyone whose spirit it was more 
 honorable to honor than when it made him our 
 President and surrounded his old age with the 
 glory of affection that accompanied him to his end.
 
 JOSEPH H. CHOATE AT HIS GRADUATION IN 1862, AETAT 20
 
 LETTER FROM 
 THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT BRYCE 
 
 LONDON, December lyth, 1917. 
 
 DEAR MR. PUTNAM : 
 
 Since I cannot be with you on January I9th, I 
 send these few lines in response to your request. 
 During the last forty years, The United States 
 has sent to England a long succession of dis- 
 tinguished men who have worthily represented 
 their country here. When Mr. Choate came, he 
 had a high tradition to maintain and he more 
 than maintained it. We knew his fame as a 
 great advocate and a great American citizen, 
 high-minded and public-spirited. We soon found 
 that he was also a great citizen of the world, 
 understanding Europe, and in particular under- 
 standing and appreciating all that was best in 
 England. Himself a characteristic product of 
 New England, he was at home in Old England, and 
 we saw in him how the ancient stock had grown 
 and flourished and what fruit it was bearing in the 
 new Western soil. His ready tact, his spontaneous 
 geniality, his inexhaustible humour, made him 
 the delight of every company he entered. He did 
 
 17
 
 is letter from Ht t>on. Discount :Bn?ce 
 
 not confine himself to the diplomatic duties he 
 discharged so skilfully, nor to the legal gatherings 
 where our Bench and Bar so often welcomed him; 
 but went hither and thither through the country, 
 delivering addresses that were always full of ripe 
 thought and literary grace. No American ever 
 did more to make more close and more tender 
 the ties of affection that bind Britain and America 
 together. No envoy ever left more friends, or 
 warmer friends, behind. 
 
 I can never forget the serene dignity and sweet- 
 ness of his old age when at Stockbridge, in the calm 
 softness of an Indian summer, his friends gathered 
 round him and Mrs. Choate, rejoicing to pay 
 their homage, on the occasion of the Golden Wed- 
 ding, to a life that had rendered such noble service 
 to two great countries, and beside the memory of 
 that softly declining day I place in thought the 
 sunset that came five years later, when, after 
 welcoming the representatives of England and 
 France, he passed from among us happy in the 
 knowledge that that for which he had so earnestly 
 hoped and striven had been achieved, and that 
 his country had taken her stand as the champion 
 of right and liberty in the greatest cause for which 
 nations have ever fought. 
 I am, 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 (Signed) JAMES BRYCE.
 
 LETTER FROM 
 CHARLES W. ELIOT 
 
 Joseph Hodges Choate was a genuine product 
 of democratic society at its best. His life and 
 character illustrate the importance, in a demo- 
 cracy, towards individual success and happiness, 
 of good inheritances, both physical and moral, 
 sound education, the power to work intensely and 
 with enjoyment, diligence and thrift, professional 
 ambition and faithful citizenship. 
 
 His parents and grandparents were Salem people 
 of the best sort; and through them Choate drew 
 precious qualities from the adventurous sea- 
 faring life of the New England ports, and from the 
 sober, conscientious, low-paid professional life and 
 simple domestic life of the first half of the nine- 
 teenth century. He felt a strong interest in his 
 Salem ancestors, and was well content that many of 
 them followed the sea. When he was Ambassador 
 to Great Britain, he took much pains to look up 
 some of his English forebears, and was glad to find 
 that Choate was an old name among the better sort 
 of English yeomen . 
 
 His parents were keenly interested in the 
 education of their six children, and made many 
 
 19
 
 20 Xetter from 
 
 sacrifices to procure for them the best training 
 which Salem and Massachusetts then afforded. 
 What Choate said of his own father and mother 
 will forever be true of every worthy common- 
 wealth: "Fathers and mothers such as I have 
 described mine to have been do really constitute 
 the pride and glory of the Commonwealth. " The 
 support given by these parents to their children 
 did not cease with the completion of their "edu- 
 cation" in the technical sense. When Choate 
 went to New York in the fall of 1855 to begin 
 his career at the Bar, it was his father who provided 
 the forty dollars a month on which Choate thought 
 he could live, and did live for a time. 
 
 While in College and the Law School, Choate 
 acquired and exhibited a remarkable power of 
 mental application, and of working at once ac- 
 curately and rapidly the sufficient fruit of any 
 education. This power was the great means of his 
 success at the Bar and in the public service. He 
 could master quickly the facts of a new case, the 
 brief which another had drawn for him, or the 
 underlying principles of a great subject which he 
 had never before studied much. In the use of his 
 extraordinary gifts and powers he was very dili- 
 gent, working long hours every week, and allowing 
 himself no proper vacations or recesses until he 
 was an old man. At last, he set up an inviolable 
 two months' summer vacation at Stockbridge, but 
 on the ground that at his age he could do more 
 for his clients in ten months than he could in twelve. 
 He himself believed that his good bodily constitu- 
 tion carried him safely through many years of 
 unreasonably severe prof essional labors; but doubt-
 
 Charles W. Eliot 21 
 
 less plain living most of the time, and liking for 
 walking as an exercise contributed to the fortunate 
 result. His labors were lightened by a lively 
 sense of humor, a quick perception of the amusing 
 elements which often enter into grave situations, 
 and a cheerful temperament. In conversation 
 his wit sparkled genially, and in public speech it 
 was, as a rule, gay and enlivening; but sometimes 
 in court or on the political platform it was audacious 
 and formidable. 
 
 Thrift was one of Choate's characteristics. As 
 soon as he earned an income which exceeded his 
 moderate expenses he began to save and ac- 
 cumulate. He and his wife began their married 
 life on a modest scale, which was gradually en- 
 larged; but looking back in his eighty-third year 
 on those early experiences Choate records: "We 
 were able by dint of a reasonable frugality to lay 
 aside from year to year about half our income." 
 The result was as sure as it was well deserved. In 
 the American democracy, with its free education 
 and its social fluidity, the steadily thrifty people, 
 who are spared ill-health, are quite sure to be 
 able to transmit to their descendants education 
 and the comforts and refinements of life. 
 
 From his youth up professional ambition was a 
 strong motive with Choate. While he was study- 
 ing law, he liked to watch the leading lawyers 
 of the day at work in the court-room before judge 
 or jury, and to estimate the qualities which gave 
 to each his eminent success. It was the advocate 
 rather than the judge that he admired and emu- 
 lated. The contest itself invited him. It was a 
 delight to him to gain a suit, particularly if the odds
 
 22 Xetter from 
 
 were against his client. In the cause of a man to 
 whom he thought a grave injustice had been done 
 like Gen. Fitzjohn Porter, for example he would 
 put forth all his strength, and find a sufficient re- 
 ward in the joy of the encounter, and the righting 
 of his client. He enjoyed an arduous trial before a 
 jury, better than a quieter trial before a judge. His 
 ambition was an honorable one; it was stimulated 
 by frequent conflicts with able rivals at the Bar, 
 and it was abundantly gratified. 
 
 In his family life at Salem, and during his stu- 
 dent life at Harvard University, Choate imbibed 
 the idea that every worthy citizen should win for 
 himself and his family a satisfactory support, but 
 should also give much time and attention to public 
 service; and he put this teaching into practice all 
 his life. Although he was by early association and 
 habit of mind an intense New Englander, he had no 
 sooner established himself in New York as a rising 
 young lawyer, than he began to interest himself in 
 all movements to promote the welfare of the great 
 city, and particularly to improve its government. 
 There was no genuine reform movement, and no 
 sound charitable or social enterprise, that did not 
 look to Choate for sympathy and help, and seldom 
 in vain. He began his long service as a political 
 speaker in 1856 during the Fremont campaign, and 
 ever after gave time and thought generously to 
 that sort of public duty; although, as a rule, he 
 declined to be a candidate for political office either 
 elective or appointive. He gave to the New York 
 public disinterested service on many boards of 
 trustees having charge of valuable institutions. 
 
 When he was sixty-seven years old, and had
 
 Cbarles M. JBllot 23 
 
 attained unquestioned eminence at the Bar, 
 Choate accepted appointment as American Am- 
 bassador to Great Britain, and served in that 
 capacity for six years (1899-1905) with great 
 acceptance both abroad and at home. He enjoyed 
 the opportunity to compare the British legal in- 
 stitutions and practices with the American, and 
 to hold friendly intercourse as a peer with many 
 of the leading men of Great Britain and other 
 European countries. He moved with ease in 
 English society as it was before the War, still 
 showing many traces of the Feudal System, and 
 illustrated perfectly in his high office the New 
 England ideas of good birth, good family stock, 
 democratic opportunity for capacity and char- 
 acter, and the appropriate rewards for intellectual 
 superiority and hard work. His service as First 
 Delegate from the United States to the Inter- 
 national Peace Conference at The Hague in 1907 
 was congenial, professionally appropriate, and 
 vigorously performed; although his advocacy of 
 neutral and non-combatant rights in wartime, long 
 urged by the United States, could not prevail 
 against various European policies of that day, 
 policies which the Great War was soon to make 
 intelligible to everybody. 
 
 When the United States went to war with 
 Germany, Choate, who had strenuously opposed 
 both the first and the second election of Woodrow 
 Wilson to the Presidency, and had freely uttered 
 unfavorable opinions of several members of his 
 Cabinet, expressed generously his admiration for 
 recent addresses made by the President, and for 
 the measures the President was advocating before
 
 24 letter from Charles TK& Eliot 
 
 Congress and the American people, and thereafter 
 supported every measure proceeding from Con- 
 gress or the Administration which looked to the 
 vigorous prosecution of the War. In the last 
 months of his life, it was the successful prosecution 
 of the War which occupied his thought, and 
 inspired his action. For him it was a war for 
 human liberty and a lasting peace, to be won and 
 maintained by superior morality and superior 
 force. 
 
 Altogether, Joseph Hodges Choate was a fine 
 type of nineteenth-century American manhood, 
 and a shining example to that of the twentieth. 
 
 (Signed) CHARLES W. ELIOT. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 January 14, 1918.
 
 CABLE MESSAGE FROM 
 THE RT. HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 
 
 DEAR MR. PUTNAM : 
 
 It is with the greatest pleasure that I respond to 
 your invitation to send a message to the meeting 
 summoned to honour the memory of Mr. Choate. 
 
 I had the pleasure of Mr. Choate' s friendship 
 during the whole period of his Ambassadorship in 
 London, which happened to fall within the time 
 when I was Leader of the House and Prime 
 Minister, and I was, therefore, brought into close 
 touch with him not only in the sphere of private 
 life, but in that of great international transactions. 
 
 He was admirable both in his warmth of heart 
 and his quickness of perception, and his humour 
 made him a delightful companion ; while in public 
 affairs, his directness, his high sense of honour, 
 his power of effectively expounding his own case 
 and of rapidly grasping the case of those with 
 whom he was dealing, made him a diplomatist of 
 the first rank. 
 
 Let me add that, beneath all the passing subjects 
 of international interests, and sometimes of in- 
 ternational difficulty, which from time to time 
 occupied the attention of his Embassy, he per- 
 
 25
 
 fl 
 26 Balfour's Cable 
 
 ceived with unerring clearness the fundamental 
 unity of ideals and of character which bind to- 
 gether America and Britain. 
 
 Next to his own country, I believe he loved mine, 
 and by his personality, not less than by his exer- 
 tions, he earned the gratitude of the old world as 
 well as of the new. 
 
 He left England in 1905. I did not see him 
 again till May, 1917, and then we met for the last 
 time. 
 
 When the British Mission visited New York, he 
 was the first to greet us when we landed at the 
 Custom House, and his was the last hand I grasped 
 before leaving the City. 
 
 During the strenuous and moving scenes which 
 filled the intervening hours, his eloquence, his 
 vigour, his eternal youth, were perpetual sources 
 of wonder and delight. 
 
 He exulted in the great part which America was 
 destined to play in the great struggle for liberty ; 
 and when on Sunday we parted at the Cathedral 
 door, it was in a mood of high hope that he said 
 to me, "We shall not meet again till peace is 
 declared." 
 
 But the peace which was to be his (though we 
 could not know this at the moment) was serener 
 far than mortal statesmanship can compass or 
 earth-born treaties secure. 
 
 On the Monday night he died, and as few lives 
 have been fuller or more distinguished so no 
 death could well be happier. 
 Believe me 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR.
 
 ADDRESS OF 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT, FELLOW-MEMBERS : Mr. Root 
 
 has set forth the private side of Mr. Choate's 
 life in a way that renders it almost impossible for 
 anyone to add much to what he has said, and Mr. 
 Choate as a lawyer will be dealt with by one 
 peculiarly competent to deal with him. I shall 
 speak mainly of Mr. Choate's public services. 
 Yet I want to add just a word or two about Mr. 
 Choate in his private relations. 
 
 I doubt if anyone could wish to have, after 
 death, anything said of him better than was said 
 of Choate by Balfour in the letter to which we 
 have just listened; for there was a man with the 
 indefinable charm of distinction writing of another 
 man who also had the indefinable charm of distinc- 
 tion. One of Choate's great friends, a man who 
 was his superior in diplomatic position at the time 
 that Choate filled the great and honorable place of 
 Ambassador to Great Britain, was John Hay ; and 
 Choate and Hay both rendered to American public 
 life the service which American public life espe- 
 cially needs to have rendered it, the service of the 
 holding of high public position by men to whose 
 
 27
 
 28 a&fcress of 
 
 native dignity of character is added the dignity 
 that comes from education and from life-long 
 association with men of refinement. 
 
 In the highest and truest sense of the word there 
 could be no truer product of a democracy than 
 Choate or than Hay ; but they had all that dis- 
 tinction, all that charm, all that quality of being 
 a gentleman which we like to think that there is 
 nothing in democracy that excludes. And it is a 
 very real service to this country to have public 
 men of the stamp of Choate and Hay in it. Aside 
 from the specific services they rendered their mere 
 being in public life was an asset to the country. 
 I was President during part of the time that John 
 Hay was Secretary of State and Choate Ambassa- 
 dor to Great Britain, and I was always certain that 
 anything they did would be marked by the quality 
 of a high and fine courtesy. I could count in their 
 case that there would never be any chance of a 
 fortiter in re being marred by a vulgariter in modo. 
 And I think that your distinguished President, 
 who, for my great good fortune, was afterwards 
 associated with me as Secretary of State, I think 
 that he will agree with me that now and then those 
 in high office in American life wish that their 
 efficient champions had a little better manners. 
 It is never pleasant to win a diplomatic victory and 
 then to feel like apologizing for some of the expres- 
 sions used in winning it. 
 
 Mr. Choate was, as Mr. Root has said, pre- 
 eminently the good citizen, pre-eminently the man 
 of stainless integrity, of a high-mindedness such 
 that everyone who was in any shape or way 
 associated with him took it for granted. It was a
 
 Gbectoore IRooeevelt 29 
 
 pleasure to be in the room with him; it was a 
 pleasure to be associated with him in any way. 
 You will notice that almost everyone who has 
 spoken or written of him this evening has al- 
 luded to his sense of humor even President 
 Eliot. 
 
 Choate, like Hay, was one of those very, very 
 rare men who actually say the things that ordi- 
 narily we only read about in writings that tell of 
 the sayings of the contemporaries of Horace Wai- 
 pole. Both Choate and Hay actually said the 
 things that the rest of us only think of afterwards 
 and then wish we had said them at the time. 
 
 I don't think that there will ever be a more 
 charming and lovable bit of humor, a bit of humor 
 casting a more delightful light on the character 
 of the man and his surroundings, than Choate' s 
 famous expression when asked what he would most 
 like to be if he were not Mr. Choate and he said, 
 "Why, Mrs. Choate's second husband." 
 
 Of course, as we all know, his humor was some- 
 times more mordant. I shall never forget one 
 incident at a reception at the then Vice-President 
 Morton's. There was present a thoroughly nice 
 lady of possibly limited appeal to whom Choate 
 spoke; whereupon, with a face of woe, she began to 
 relate how much she had suffered since she had last 
 seen him on account of an attack of appendicitis 
 and of the operation thereby rendered necessary. 
 After Choate had expressed his sympathy two or 
 three times the lady said, "I didn't know whether 
 I had changed so that you would not recognize 
 me." Mr. Choate replied, "Madame, I hardly 
 did recognize you without your appendix. " That
 
 30 Hfcfcrees of 
 
 I heard myself; and the good lady's face looked 
 exactly as if a sponge had been passed over it. 
 
 I think the only time that I personally ever saw 
 Choate meet his equal in any such encounter was 
 once when Tom Reed was present. It was at a 
 dinner at ex-Senator Wolcott's. Senator Wolcott 
 I am not speaking of him ancestrally, but in 
 his individual character was not a Puritan. 
 (I am cultivating the habit of diplomatic reserve.) 
 The conversation turned on horse racing. Sen- 
 ator Wolcott was feeling rather impoverished 
 in consequence of his experience at the last race 
 meeting. Choate remarked, "I never drink to 
 excess, gamble, or bet on horses." Wolcott 
 responded with a sigh, "Oh, I wish / could say 
 that." Whereupon Reed, with that nasal drawl 
 of his, said, "Why don't you? Choate has said it." 
 
 Mr. Choate while Ambassador to England 
 rendered two types of great service. In the first 
 place he was the kind of Ambassador who achieved 
 the good- will so strikingly shown to-night, so strik- 
 ingly proved to-night by the letters of Balfour and 
 Bryce. That is no small service in itself. It is a 
 curious thing that the ninety years' period during 
 which well, I don't know that it is so curious a 
 thing; it is a lamentable thing; I will put it that 
 way that the ninety years' period during which 
 Great Britain ingeniously showed toward America 
 a hostility which usually irritated without cowing, 
 has been succeeded by a fifty years' period dur- 
 ing which the average American demagogue has 
 sought publicity by being ill-mannered toward 
 England; and under such conditions the service 
 rendered by the men of the calibre of Choate as
 
 Hbeofcore TRoosevelt 31 
 
 Ambassador are in themselves of great conse- 
 quence to this country; of such consequence that 
 we cannot afford to ignore them in our estimate 
 of the worth of any Ambassador. 
 
 In addition to this, however, Mr. Choate played 
 a great and distinguished part in connection with 
 three international matters of the highest conse- 
 quence: the Alaska Boundary, the open door in 
 China, and the Panarna Canal. The open door 
 in China was one of those diplomatic triumphs 
 necessarily ephemeral, because it could only be 
 permanent if backed by force; and we chose to 
 delude ourselves into the belief that a "scrap of 
 paper" was of more permanent consequence than 
 events proved. Nevertheless, it represented a 
 real a temporary, but a real diplomatic gain 
 of great consequence, and Choate and Hay share 
 the honor, not unequally, of that achievement. 
 
 Ambassador Choate also played a distinguished 
 part in what was the opening stage of the securing 
 and digging of the Panama Canal; that is, in the 
 abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty; unless 
 that treaty had been abrogated the Canal must 
 either have remained unbuilt or have been built 
 at the cost of a substantial measure of estrange- 
 ment between Great Britain and ourselves. It 
 was a real triumph to have secured the abrogation 
 of the treaty accomplished partly through Mr. 
 Hay, partly through Ambassador Choate, partly 
 through Lord Pauncefote, and partly through 
 Mr. Balfour himself. In its first draft I do not 
 think that the treaty was satisfactory. It was 
 rejected by the Senate, as I think quite properly 
 because and it shows the curious, and; I am
 
 32 Hfct>res0 of 
 
 tempted to say, early Victorian innocence of both 
 nations we tried to secure an international 
 guarantee for the neutrality of the Canal by asking 
 Germany and France to help us guarantee it! 
 Think of the complications that such a joint 
 guarantee would have led up to during the last 
 three and one-half years, during the two and one- 
 half years before we found out that Germany was 
 our foe a discovery which we made in leisurely 
 fashion. Following, of course, upon the abro- 
 gation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was the 
 attempted treaty with Colombia which Colombia 
 asked us to enter into ; her then effort to blackmail 
 the French Panama Canal Company out of an 
 additional $10,000,000; the refusal of the French 
 Panama Canal Company to submit to the black- 
 mail, relying on our promise to protect her; the 
 secession of Panama, and the building of the 
 Panama Canal, in all of which Mr. Choate was 
 only indirectly concerned. My own part in it 
 may perhaps be explained by the fact that I 
 deemed it better not to have half a century of 
 debate prior to starting in on the Canal ; I thought 
 that instead of debating for half a century before 
 building the Canal it would be better to build 
 the Canal first and debate me for a half century 
 afterwards. 
 
 The Alaska Boundary dispute was one of those 
 disputes which contain within themselves the very 
 ugliest possibilities. Its settlement was of prime 
 consequence ; and with its settlement disappeared 
 the last question which could not be arbitrated 
 between Great Britain and the United States. 
 
 I have spoken of the great services that Choate
 
 Gbeofcore "Roosevelt 33 
 
 and Hay together rendered. On the occasion of 
 the Alaska Boundary dispute the great services 
 were rendered by Choate and Root together. 
 And I think that their attitude in the closing 
 phases of that transaction furnished the exact 
 model by which all American diplomats should 
 guide themselves in any similar matter where it is 
 necessary to insist unflinchingly on the rights of 
 our country, and equally necessary to do it with 
 the utmost courtesy, forbearance, and generosity 
 toward the friendly country with which we are 
 dealing. 
 
 So, Gentlemen, it was the great good fortune of 
 Mr. Choate, in the closing period of his active 
 career, to render distinguished service to American 
 diplomacy, and therefore to the American nation. 
 This was the closing service of his active career. 
 Yet, even when he had retired, he continued to 
 render very, very real service. From the begin- 
 ning of the Great War he declined to hold his 
 judgment in abeyance as between the conflicting 
 powers. I remember some time in the fall or 
 early winter of 1914, when he presided at a 
 meeting on behalf of the Belgians, when he recited 
 the atrocities that had been committed by Ger- 
 many on Belgium, and said: "Germany has as- 
 sured us that in the end she will pay Belgium. 
 If Heaven is willing, she shall pay in full!" To- 
 ward the end of our period of neutrality, in com- 
 mon with the major portion of our people, Mr. 
 Choate grew restlessly unwilling longer to submit 
 to the treating of right and wrong with the same 
 cool and indifferent friendliness. I never shall 
 forget the expression of which he made use when
 
 34 Hbfcress of Gbeofcore IRoosevelt 
 
 finally we went to war, or, to speak more accurately, 
 acknowledged that we were at war, we had been 
 at war for some time, acknowledged that we were 
 at war; whereupon Choate said, "At last I can 
 go about with my head erect, unafraid to look 
 strangers in the face. " 
 
 Mr. Choate was one of the great assets of our 
 national life, a great citizen, a great lawyer, a great 
 diplomat, and, as Elihu Root has said, he himself 
 in his person was greater than anything that he 
 did.
 
 ADDRESS BY . 
 FRANCIS LYNDE STETSON 
 
 Invited by your Committee to read a paper this 
 evening upon Mr. Choate as a lawyer, I hesitated 
 to consent, saying that superior fitness for this 
 important duty had been shown already by three 
 Centurians, Mr. Strong, Mr. Rowe, and Mr. 
 Guthrie. But I was met with the reply that 
 excepting one other I was the oldest living lawyer 
 member of The Century and that I could not shift 
 the obligation attaching to seniority. The argu- 
 ment though far from convincing was conscriptive, 
 and obediently I am here. Since then our Presi- 
 dent Mr. Root has delivered before the City Bar 
 Association a masterly memorial address, so com- 
 prehensive as to leave unconsidered no feature in 
 the many-sided life of our departed friend. So I 
 shall undertake to comply with your invitation 
 not by traversing again the field so fully and so 
 finely occupied by these superior husbandmen, but 
 merely by presenting briefly my personal appreci- 
 ation of the remarkable professional qualities of 
 Mr. Choate. 
 
 His qualities were so manifold that to speak of 
 him as a lawyer only seems to lose sight of most 
 
 35
 
 36 
 
 that endeared him to our public, and to follow him 
 into the workshop, instead of through the great 
 world where for more than fifty years, day in and 
 day out, he devoted himself to the instruction and 
 the entertainment of his fellow-men, to the very 
 limit of his great abilities. 
 
 But considered even within the lines of his chosen 
 profession, he is to be described as the advocate 
 more than as the lawyer. There have been pro- 
 found lawyers like Mr. Southmayd who were not 
 advocates, and there have been great advocates 
 like Wendell Phillips who were not lawyers. And 
 again there have been lawyers like Mr. Webster 
 and Rufus Choate whose power of advocacy was 
 so preponderant as to outweigh and in a meas- 
 ure to obscure their extraordinary capacity as 
 craftsmen. But, like James Scarlett (later Lord 
 Abinger) at the English Bar, Mr. Choate at the 
 American Bar was par excellence the Advocate of 
 the Trial Courts. 
 
 For his high service as such, he combined most 
 of the many necessary qualifications in such an 
 unusual degree as to set him apart from his fellows, 
 and to mark him for special admiration alike by 
 them and by the general public. 
 
 Some, though not all, of these essential quali- 
 fications were indicated by him in his fine tribute 
 to the memory of James C. Carter in language 
 which may well be quoted with reference to himself 
 and as illustrating his own high professional ideals. 
 He there said : 
 
 " Let me try very briefly to trace the personal 
 qualities which were the weapons by which he
 
 jfrancte X$nt>e Stetson 37 
 
 won the victory. * * * He had a very sound 
 mind in a very sound body. His conscience was 
 clear as crystal and never went back on him as 
 it sometimes does on men whose mental vision 
 is less clear than his. Absolute independence 
 was the controlling feature of his life. He was 
 not without a large share of self-assertion and 
 yet he was one of the most unselfish of men. 
 He was imbued with a high sense of public duty 
 and was ardently patriotic. His power of labor 
 was prodigious. By nature he was warm- 
 hearted and magnanimous. He honored and 
 magnified his profession." 
 
 This enumeration, however, would be incom- 
 plete if applied in respect of Mr. Choate, who 
 possessed also most of the many other traits re- 
 garded as necessary to the greatest success by Mr. 
 Cox in his instructive and analytical essay upon 
 "The Advocate." Some of these characteristics 
 of Mr. Choate may be mentioned. He had a 
 capacity for prolonged labors continued without 
 sleep. He once cited the instance of Sir Roundell 
 Palmer (Lord Selborne) still at work on Wednes- 
 day morning though having had no sleep since 
 the preceding Sunday. Such cases are not without 
 parallel at our own Bar. He had also honesty of 
 purpose, truthfulness of nature, benevolence of 
 aim, love of justice, and detestation of wrong. In a 
 remarkable degree he was quick to feel the moral 
 atmosphere of his tribunal. None was more alert 
 than he in close and concentrated observation of 
 judge, jury, witnesses, and opposing counsel, nor 
 could any more quickly conform to any change, 
 however sudden or unexpected. He seldom had 
 occasion for vain regrets over a failure to say at
 
 3$ Hfcfcress bp 
 
 the proper moment the proper thing. His intended 
 speech was completed in the court-room and not 
 in his homeward bound cab. His swift and sure 
 perception, and his vivid and sensitive imagi- 
 nation were supported and directed by a prompt 
 and sound judgment. For the exercise of all these 
 great native powers he was fully fitted tempera- 
 mentally, for he was courageous, strong-willed, 
 self-confident, cautious, and firm. Beyond all 
 others he maintained habitually complete com- 
 mand of temper and self-control. 
 
 This specification of his qualifications may seem 
 unduly extended, but in my opinion, and I believe 
 in the opinion of lawyers who have had oppor- 
 tunity of observing his conduct in the court-room, 
 they are not all that might justly be attributed to 
 him. 
 
 No classification general in terms could embrace 
 this Darling of the Gods and of Men, unique in a 
 charm which was all his own. He had a beautiful 
 person and a winning address and a strong voice 
 with smoothness and fluency of speech. In his 
 shining grace and sure swiftness of movement he 
 excited and captivated the admiration of those 
 whose favorable regard it was his bounden duty to 
 win. Not the thunderbolt of Jove, but a shaft 
 of Apollo, luminous and gleaming with fun, and 
 drawn from a full quiver, was his preferred weapon, 
 which he aimed to lodge in the consciousness of his 
 willing hearers, and generally with such sure effect 
 that it might be said of him as of Scarlett, that 
 when he spoke there were thirteen men in the 
 jury box. As occasion seemed to require, but 
 without loss of dignity or of his native refinement,
 
 jfrancte Xpnfce Stetson 39 
 
 at times he would assume the part of the laughing 
 cavalier. Indeed, his contagious humor might 
 be taken as his distinguishing feature. During 
 the last fifty years at the New York Bar hardly 
 more than four of its leaders have been notable 
 for their wit Mr. Evarts, whose lambent humor 
 tickled and illuminated, but never scorched; 
 Francis N. Bangs, whose brilliant thrusts flashed 
 like a meteor with ,a train of burning sparks; 
 Frederic R. Coudert, of Gallic vivacity; and Mr. 
 Choate, the fun-maker. His fun was a veritable 
 bonfire around which his hearers gathered and 
 warmed themselves, and in the fire was his point, 
 which later they felt, whether or not at first 
 they saw it. He was the most dangerous adver- 
 sary at the American Bar of later days, although 
 the late John G. Johnson was the most formidable. 
 By this I mean that while from the very outset 
 of a trial Mr. Johnson inspired among his adver- 
 saries anxiety and often terror, Mr. Choate was 
 always suave but no less effective in attack, and 
 he overcame his opponents without prior alarm 
 or shock and almost without pain. His method 
 was all his own. As observed by a chemical friend, 
 "It was Choatide of Chodium." 
 
 His lofty leadership was attained by no easy- 
 going gait or by merry jaunting. He climbed the 
 heights by virtue of determined will and unrelent- 
 ing effort. He might again have been speaking 
 of himself when in 1907 he said to the New York 
 State Bar Association : 
 
 " I have known the leaders of the Bar on both 
 sides of the Atlantic and in this respect the same
 
 40 
 
 rule prevails. There is every variety among 
 them of physical, mental, and moral qualities. 
 No two are ever alike in personal character- 
 istics, except in one essential and vital quality 
 which is common to them all. I mean the power 
 and will to hold on and hold out under all cir- 
 cumstances and against all counter inducements 
 until the goal is reached. This indomitable 
 tenacity of purpose with brains, health, and 
 character insures success and leadership." 
 
 He had and he exercised habitually power of 
 concentrated and continuous mental application 
 notwithstanding his disclaimer in this same me- 
 morial of Mr. Carter, when he said : 
 
 "His mental endowments were of a very su- 
 perior and splendid quality and he appreciated 
 his own intellectual powers and reveled in the 
 exercise of them. Thinking, which to most of 
 us is a painful and tiresome process, he de- 
 lighted in, and pursued it as a most fascinating 
 game. His mind was of a decidedly philo- 
 sophical turn, fond of considering and solving 
 all the problems of human society and progress 
 and the reasoning powers which in most of 
 us are dwarfed and twisted, in him were natur- 
 ally and fully developed. Logic as a pastime 
 was as acceptable to him as golf or bridge is 
 to the average man to-day." 
 
 Indeed it was quite usual for Mr. Choate to 
 speak lightly of the thinkers. When I told him 
 that Mr. Carter had referred to a lawyer friend 
 as " a man whom an idea intoxicates, " he replied, 
 suggestively, "There are others." 
 
 It is true that the philosophy of the law engaged 
 his attention less than it did that of Mr. Carter,
 
 frauds X^nfce Stetson 41 
 
 but, nevertheless, underlying all of his apparently 
 casual discussion was a solid and substantial basis 
 of learning and reflection. 
 
 The path by which Mr. Choate attained the 
 pinnacle of success was that pursued by eminent 
 predecessors from time immemorial and that which 
 still must be pursued by those who would follow 
 him. He himself described it in his 1905 address 
 before the New England Society. The youth of 
 limited means but of clear and sturdy integrity, 
 diligent in his studies and courteous in demeanor, 
 attracts the regard of some lawyer of eminence and 
 liberal disposition in this case, a remote kins- 
 man Rufus Choate and bears a letter from him 
 to another great lawyer, William M. Evarts. As 
 generally in the experience of the bearers of such 
 letters there is no immediate result. He turns 
 to a college friend and finds modest opportunity 
 for service. Then he endeavors to conduct an 
 office of his own in association with a youth remark- 
 able for his gift of eloquence, William H. L. Barnes, 
 later of San Francisco. After the lapse of four 
 years the Rufus Choate letter bears fruit, and an 
 invitation comes from Mr. Evarts to join his 
 firm, then receiving an annual income of $20,000, 
 moderate enough according to present standards 
 for a law firm of commanding importance in New 
 York and throughout the country. There he 
 finds congenial and stimulating companionship 
 with the versatile Evarts, of whom, he said, "I 
 owe him more than words can tell," the erudite 
 and caustic Southmayd, his constant and never- 
 failing fount of legal learning, and the polished 
 and impressive Charles E. Butler. Thus at once
 
 42 Sfcbrees bp 
 
 he was plunged into a great volume of business in 
 an old and established firm of which the elder 
 members were already overworked. From that 
 fortunate moment he had never need to seek 
 a retainer or to worry about income. Of course 
 such favoring conditions tended to induce the 
 genial serenity which enhanced the attractiveness 
 of his handsome face and person, and to develop 
 the naturally buoyant waggishness that even then 
 led Professor Dwight in the familiarity of close 
 personal intimacy to dub him "Jocose." By his 
 brethren generally, he was referred to affection- 
 ately, but never with disrespect, as "Joe Choate, " 
 reminding us of the familiar appellation of a 
 much loved Englishman of Letters "whom men 
 know as Lord Houghton, but whom the gods call 
 Dicky Milnes. " With each of these great men, 
 loving friendship was the dearest of possessions. 
 His great powers were employed always under a 
 clear and abiding sense of the profound obligations 
 of the advocate as declared by him in many public 
 utterances wholly consistent with his own pro- 
 fessional conduct. He regarded it as a duty to 
 hold himself ready to respond to the call of those 
 needing his professional service, irrespective of the 
 merit of themselves or of their cause. This obli- 
 gation was described by him in his memorial 
 of Mr. Carter of whom he said : 
 
 " He was very far from restricting himself to 
 causes that he thought he could win, or to such 
 as were sound in law or right in fact. No genu- 
 ine advocate that I know of has ever done that. 
 He recognized and maintained the true relation 
 of the advocate to the courts and the commu-
 
 frauds Xpnfce Stetson 43 
 
 nity; that it is a strictly professional relation 
 and that either side of any cause that a court 
 may hear the advocate may properly main- 
 tain." 
 
 Mr. Choate saw clearly the possibilities of cruel 
 injustice to those who either in appearance or in 
 fact had incurred the penalties of the law, if at the 
 very outset they were to be denied all opportunity 
 through competent professional assistance either 
 to prove themselves free from legal fault or to 
 bring their punishment within limits prescribed 
 by law. So he stood ready as an advocate in the 
 halls of justice to present any cause which it was 
 the duty of the courts to hear. 
 
 For him the highest duty of the advocate was to 
 be loyal to the client and to the cause that he had 
 undertaken to maintain or to defend. "I have 
 made it my rule never to neglect a case, no mat- 
 ter how unimportant it may seem." To win the 
 case which he had undertaken to win was his 
 obligation, and to this end he spared no effort 
 and he rejected no expedient within the bounds 
 of honorable conduct. As Mr. Strong has said, 
 "When hard-pressed he took refuge in a techni- 
 cality if it happened in his way." He did not 
 accept all of Lord Brougham's notorious declara- 
 tion as to the exclusive and unlimited obligation 
 of the advocate to his client, but neither did he 
 reject all of it. His own opinion was expressed 
 in this delineation of Rufus Choate : 
 
 "His theory of advocacy was the only pos- 
 sible theory consistent with the sound and 
 wholesome administration of justice that
 
 44 
 
 with all loyalty to truth and honor, he must 
 devote his best talents and attainments, all 
 that he was and all that he could, to the sup- 
 port and enforcement of the cause committed 
 to his trust," and (quoting Mr. Justice Curtis, 
 one of the most high-minded and conscientious 
 of lawyers and judges) "in doing so he did 
 but his duty. If other people did theirs the 
 administration of justice was secure." 
 
 The duty of the advocate to maintain the dignity 
 and the honor of the courts of which he is a minister 
 he felt and fulfilled in the highest degree. The 
 very atmosphere of the court-room was clarified 
 by his presence and its conflicts were ennobled 
 by his participation. This duty as well as that 
 of guarding and maintaining a high standard of 
 public morality were regarded by him as in the 
 light of a sacred service, as presently we shall have 
 occasion to note. 
 
 The court-room, especially the trial court, was 
 the arena in which he found daily delight, for 
 he felt to the full the joy of contest gaudium 
 certaminis. His appearances there were almost 
 continuous from October to June. It is doubtful 
 whether any other member of the New York Bar 
 appeared in so many cases and so various, though 
 in this particular as in many others a parallel 
 may be found in the great career of his junior 
 competitor John G. Johnson of Philadelphia, who 
 by only one month preceded him into the great 
 hereafter. Each of these remarkable men es- 
 chewed mere dialectics and refined historical phras- 
 ing, and each passed every proposition through the 
 alembic of his common-sense. To simplify abstruse
 
 jfrancis Xpnfce Stetson 45 
 
 problems, to clarify cloudy or obscure cases was 
 with each the fundamental philosophy. Neither 
 talked "like a book, " but like our great master of 
 style, Abraham Lincoln, each sought the simple 
 and often the homely phrase with which to 
 win, not to dazzle, the mind of his hearer. For 
 Mr. Choate the familiar narratives of the Bible, 
 and even of the Books of Nursery Tales Balaam's 
 Ass, the Cave of Adullam, "The House that Jack 
 Built" became potent and sufficient illustrations. 
 His eminence was based upon his exceptional 
 knowledge of human nature even more than upon 
 his learning as a student of the law, for which con- 
 fessedly he relied much upon Mr. Southmayd. 
 How clearly he comprehended the mental modes of 
 the average man, including the judge on the bench, 
 is illustrated by the account given by Mr. Strong 
 of Mr. Choate' s voluntary and friendly appear- 
 ance in behalf of Mr. (now Judge) John W. Goff 
 when arraigned for contempt before a most upright 
 and resolute judge, Recorder Smyth. In present- 
 ing the case Mr. Choate declared that the con- 
 tempt charged had not been committed because on 
 that particular occasion Mr. Goffs conduct was 
 not what Recorder Smyth declared it to be : 
 
 "But," interrupted the Recorder heatedly," I 
 saw him do it. " "Then, " replied Mr. Choate 
 quite calmly, "it becomes a question of course 
 between your Honor's personal observation and 
 the observation of a crowd of witnesses who tes- 
 tified to the contrary. Was your Honor ever 
 conscious of being absolutely convinced from 
 the very outset of a trial that a certain person 
 was guilty? If not, then you are more than
 
 46 Bbbress bp 
 
 human. Was your Honor ever conscious as the 
 trial proceeded that it was impossible to conceal 
 your opinion? If not, then you are more than 
 human. Well, that has happened in many 
 courts and time and again when it does happen 
 it arouses the aggressive resistance of every ad- 
 vocate who understands his duty ; and he would 
 be false to his trust if it did not arouse him. " 
 
 Before this suggestion of an issue of fact, possibly 
 of veracity, the excellent Recorder receded, and 
 contented himself with a general admonition to 
 the lawyers present to be good boys in the court- 
 room. 
 
 Brief reference may now be made to two or three 
 cases of public interest in which Mr. Choate 
 appeared. 
 
 I agree with his own estimate of the high import- 
 ance of the case of Fitzjohn Porter, whose unjust 
 conviction and degradation by a court-martial was 
 reversed and whose military rectitude was vindi- 
 cated after a lapse of a score of years through the 
 mighty effort of Mr. Choate. 
 
 Next, I should place his extraordinary success, 
 despite the powerful reasons to the contrary (set 
 forth in the dissenting opinion) in the United 
 States Supreme Court, in freeing from trial for 
 murder, U. S. Marshal Neagle, who, in protection 
 of Mr. Justice Field, whom he was attending in 
 Lathrop, California, had there shot dead his assail- 
 ant, David S. Terry. It was not doubted that the 
 killing was justifiable, but there was presented for 
 affirmance the novel point that this question of 
 fact could be withdrawn from a jury and could be
 
 jfrancis X^nfce Stetson 47 
 
 determined in the affirmative by a judge upon a 
 writ of habeas corpus. In maintaining this pro- 
 position of overwhelming importance for the pro- 
 tection of courts in the discharge of their official 
 duty, Mr. Choate demonstrated his own great 
 ability and public spirit and justified the con- 
 fidence in his professional capacity by Mr. Justice 
 Field, who for the defense of his protector chose 
 Mr. Choate out of the entire American Bar. Could 
 there be higher testimony than this, from a court 
 supreme in America and without superior in all 
 the world? 
 
 Mr. Choate's part in the Income Tax cases of 
 course was highly important, but for two reasons 
 I do not rank it so highly as do some others. In 
 the first place the credit as well as the responsi- 
 bility for the origination, the presentation and, in 
 large measure, the winning of these cases, in my 
 personal observation, was due primarily to our 
 fellow member Mr. Guthrie. In the second place 
 the attitude of Mr. Choate towards the Income 
 Tax and his argument in these cases illustrates 
 a characteristic feature in his mental make-up. 
 Ever benevolent in every case of individual hard- 
 ship, he had abiding doubt as to the validity of the 
 claims of what are called sociological reforms. He 
 did not fully appreciate the deep, persistent, and 
 powerful determination of our people not to submit 
 to what they regarded, and what in this particular 
 the courts previously had decided to be, an attempt 
 unduly to limit the powers of their representatives 
 in Congress. The adequacy of that power and the 
 propriety of the exercise of that power in the In- 
 come Tax Law were asserted in masterful argu-
 
 48 
 
 ments then presented by Attorney-General Olney 
 and Mr. Carter and adopted in the dissenting 
 opinion of Mr. Justice White. Since then those 
 arguments have found practical and compelling 
 expression through the adoption of an amend- 
 ment to the Federal Constitution, through what 
 may be recognized as little less than a social 
 revolution. 
 
 This ultimate result had been forecast in the 
 arguments of Mr. Olney and Mr. Carter, who in- 
 timated that among the possibilities of departing 
 from the former decision and of overthrowing a 
 law looking to a distribution of the burdens of 
 taxation according to ability to bear the burden, 
 was the stirring up of a "popular wrath that might 
 sweep the court away." The warning seems to 
 have been justified by the event, for when after 
 re-argument the divided court rendered decision 
 overruling the act of Congress with the concurrence 
 of one Justice who on the first argument had voted 
 otherwise, Mr. Bryan found ample opportunity 
 for his terrifying campaign of 1896, and his taunt: 
 
 "They say that we passed an unconstitu- 
 tional Income Tax Law: well, it wasn't un- 
 constitutional until a judge changed his mind, 
 and we couldn't know that a judge was going 
 to change his mind. " 
 
 The thrust was so keen that in conversation 
 with me Mr. Choate said, "That was very sharp; 
 it was the best part of his speech. " 
 
 The argument of Mr. Choate was based upon 
 this proposition :
 
 jfrancis X^nfce Steteon 49 
 
 " I thought that the fundamental object of all 
 civilized government was the preservation of 
 the right of private property. That is what Mr. 
 Webster said at Plymouth Rock in 1820, and I 
 supposed that all educated men believed it." 
 
 This declaration, of course, contains an import- 
 ant truth, but is it now as certain as in 1820 it 
 might have seemed to be, that the essential truth 
 of the declaration is challenged by a proposition 
 to appropriate property's surplus income for the 
 support of government, even a government with 
 greatly widened activities? Is it unfair to let the 
 burden of taxes for national purposes follow the 
 accumulations of wealth, regardless of sectional 
 distribution, into every part of the country 
 under national protection? Would Mr. Choate to- 
 day lay the emphasis just where he did? Could 
 he or could any one else in the light of present 
 conditions assert unqualifiedly that the preserva- 
 tion of the right of private property "is the fun- 
 damental object of all civilized government?" 
 But, it should be repeated, his position then 
 taken professionally and from a sympathetic 
 and anxious desire to maintain the provisions 
 and the limitations of the Federal Constitution 
 in their strictest sense implied no disregard for 
 the sufferings and burdens of his fellow-man to 
 which he was as keenly sensitive as was any sup- 
 porter of the legislation there denounced by him. 
 
 In the case of Laidlaw against Russell Sage, won 
 by him before every jury and lost by him in each 
 Appellate Court, there was no limit to his sallies 
 upon the defendant or upon the defendant's coun- 
 sel, for here as always he was audaciously personal,
 
 50 Hfcfcrees b\> 
 
 frequently and intentionally pushing his opponents 
 beyond the bounds of self-control, though seldom 
 to the rupture of personal relations. 
 
 In the Sage case he deemed it necessary and he 
 found it sufficient to destroy the prestige of the 
 defendant before the jury by the most minute and 
 pin-pricking cross-examination. When a lady's re- 
 monstrance that "Mr. Choate is not respectful to 
 Mr. Sage" was repeated to him, he answered, 
 "Oh, some of my lady friends tell me that I am 
 positively indecent." 
 
 Referring to Mr. Sage's statement that some- 
 thing had been done not by him but by his counsel, 
 Mr. Choate said, " I see; you don't do any barking 
 when you have a dog to do it for you." One 
 of the defendant's counsel then asked "Which of 
 us is referred to as the dog?" To which, with his 
 accustomed good nature, Mr. Choate replied, "Oh, 
 all of us." If so, then, at that, they must have 
 been a group of great St. Bernards, no less helpful 
 and kindly than they were sagacious and powerful. 
 
 In the Central Pacific Railroad litigations where 
 Collis P. Huntington was defendant, Mr. Choate 
 was opposed by two eminent counsel, Roscoe 
 Conkling and the acute Francis N. Bangs, father of 
 two of our fellow members. Mr. Choate won be- 
 fore the jury but lost finally before the Appellate 
 Court. His powers of audacity and badinage 
 found opportunity for brilliant display at the trial, 
 but the keenest and quickest reply was that made 
 by Mr. Bangs when about to begin his argument 
 to the question of Judge Van Vorst, "How long 
 will your peroration take, Mr. Bangs?" "Your 
 Honor means my pre oration, do you not?"
 
 If rands Hpnfce Stetson 51 
 
 Mr. Choate's often quoted application to Mr. 
 Conkling of Hamlet's apostrophic rhapsody over 
 his father's portrait may have been intended in 
 some measure to appease his late coming opponent, 
 to whom he had turned from his opening address 
 before the jury with the jaunty salutation, "Oh, 
 Senator, are you here when did you blow in?" 
 
 Mr. Choate and Mr. Bangs faced each other 
 finally in the noted trial of Feuerdant v. Cesnola, 
 in which Mr. Choate greatly exasperated Mr. 
 Bangs, and finally defeated him. The trial 
 lasted for weeks and was without pecuniary 
 benefit to either counsel, each giving his time, his 
 labors, and, in the case of one, his life, for the 
 discharge of what he deemed a public duty. Mr. 
 Bangs was a sick man during the trial and its inci- 
 dents and exactions hastened his end. He died a 
 few months later. 
 
 The list of cases of first importance conducted 
 to successful issue by Mr. Choate, occupies nearly 
 ten columns of Mr. Rowe's admirable and sym- 
 pathetic sketch in Case and Comment for Sep- 
 tember, 1917, which may well be consulted by 
 any who desire a fuller account of his court activi- 
 ties than can be given within the limits of the time 
 assigned to me by your committee or permitted 
 by your patience. 
 
 The court-room, however, did not absorb all the 
 energies or witness all of the achievements of 
 Mr. Choate as a lawyer. He was a wise and as- 
 tute counsellor, and his sympathies were readily 
 aroused and earnestly exerted in behalf of those 
 seeking him in trouble or perplexity. His comfort- 
 ing and illuminating advice soothed many pangs
 
 52 
 
 and saved many hearts and homes and fortunes. 
 He affected and perhaps sometimes he felt a cynical 
 indifference to the concoction or to the consum- 
 mation in legal form of plans for business enter- 
 prises, once asking a friend so engaged, "How 
 are you getting on with your clients and damned 
 schemes?" He may have felt as did the lamen- 
 ted Hornblower that he "would rather reap the 
 fruits of litigation than sow its seeds, " and yet in 
 this very field when he chose, he was a master 
 of design. He could visualize as well as any a 
 venture into an untried and obscure region of com- 
 mercial experiment, and few of his clients demon- 
 strated a sounder business judgment than did he 
 in the management of his own affairs. Indeed, 
 his scope was so wide and his success so constant 
 that the general view of him must be of a great 
 man, not merely even of a great advocate. As 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson was described by Matthew 
 Arnold as being not a great poet, but a great man 
 who wrote poetry, so it may be said of Mr. Choate 
 that whether or not the most learned in the law 
 certainly he was a great man who practiced law. 
 
 But his greatness burst the bounds of pro- 
 fessional vocation and enlarged the sphere of 
 American influence as you have been told to-night 
 by our eminent and powerful leader Colonel 
 Roosevelt, whose presence and address we sincerely 
 appreciate and for which we thank him. 
 
 During the notable seventeen years after 1899 
 Mr. Choate gave to his country and to mankind a 
 service as glorious as any rendered by almost any 
 member of our profession or by any on the field of 
 battle.
 
 jfrancis Hsnfce stetson 53 
 
 In 1898 he received and accepted the call of Presi- 
 dent McKinley to go as Ambassador of the United 
 States to Great Britain, and there "to promote the 
 welfare of both countries by cultivating the most 
 friendly relations between them." How wonder- 
 fully he accomplished this mission is indicated in 
 the volume of addresses in England published under 
 the title Abraham Lincoln and Other Addresess. In 
 the scope and death, of these eleven addresses of 
 which seven concerned exclusively Americans or 
 America, every true American will find fresh cause 
 for admiration of the delightful speaker. I can 
 quote now from only one of them, noteworthy for 
 its range and raciness, that delivered at the dinner 
 given to Mr. Choate by the Bench and Bar of Eng- 
 land at Lincoln's Inn, April I4th, 1905. Rollicking 
 fun and tender pathos alike lighted the avenue to 
 his hearers' hearts. For example of fine foolery 
 take this : 
 
 "Our barristers appear in plain clothes in 
 court. The Judges some of them wear 
 gowns, but never a wig. I think it would be a 
 very rash man that would propose that bold 
 experiment to the democracy. If the Lord 
 Chancellor had wished that our primitive and 
 unsophisticated people should adopt that relic 
 of antiquity and grandeur he should not have 
 allowed his predecessors in his great office to 
 tell such fearful stories about each other in 
 respect to that article of apparel. We have 
 read the story of Lord Campbell as given in his 
 diary annotated by his daughter, as to what be- 
 came of Lord Erskine's full-bottomed wig when 
 he ceased to be Lord Chancellor. That it was 
 purchased and exported to the coast of Guinea
 
 54 
 
 in order that it might make an African warrior 
 more formidable to his enemies on the field of 
 battle. We have a great prejudice to anything 
 that savors of overawing the Court, overawing 
 the jury, and if any such terrors are to be 
 connected with that instrument, our pure de- 
 mocracy will never adopt it. " 
 
 And then listen to this fascinating tribute to the 
 Chairman, Lord Chancellor Halsbury : 
 
 "I am especially proud that the chair is oc- 
 cupied by the Lord Chancellor whose name in 
 both countries is a synonym for equity and jus- 
 tice. In spite of his thirty-five years at the Bar 
 and his eighteen years upon the woolsack, he is 
 the very incarnation of perennial youth. Time 
 like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons 
 away, but the Lord Chancellor seems to stem the 
 tide of time. Instead of retreating like the rest 
 of us before its advancing waves he is actually 
 working his way up stream. He demonstrates 
 what I have been trying to prove for the last 
 three years that the eighth decade of life is far 
 the best, and I am sure he will join with me in 
 advising you all to hurry up and get into it as 
 soon as you can." 
 
 But the address not merely entertaining and 
 tactful reached a lofty height in this unsurpassed 
 tribute to his profession : 
 
 The world struggle dominated him as power- 
 fully as the passion of his early youth for freedom. 
 
 "I started in life with a belief that our pro- 
 fession in its highest walks afforded the most 
 noble employment in which any man could 
 engage, and I am of the same opinion still. 
 Until I became Ambassador and entered the
 
 franc!* Ipnfce Stetson 55 
 
 terra incognita of diplomacy I believed a man 
 could be of greater service to his country and 
 his race in the foremost ranks of the Bar than 
 anywhere else and I think so still. To be a 
 priest and possibly a high priest in the temple 
 of justice, to serve at her altar and aid in her 
 administration, to maintain and defend those 
 inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property 
 upon which the safety of society depends, to 
 succor the oppressed and to defend the inno- 
 cent, to maintain constitutional rights against 
 all violations whether by the Executives, by 
 the Legislature, by the resistless power of the 
 Press, or worst of all by the ruthless rapacity 
 of an unbridled majority, to rescue the scapegoat 
 and restore him to his proper place in the world 
 all this seemed to me to furnish a field worthy 
 of any man's ambition. " 
 
 He was zealous for justice and for the good of his 
 country and of the world. He was the head and 
 heart of much more than our Bar. 
 
 As a writer and speaker his fame would be secure 
 had he delivered only his addresses on Abraham 
 Lincoln and on Rufus Choate. This last was con- 
 sidered his masterpiece, and when this was said to 
 him, he answered: "Yes, that is the best. I never 
 worked so hard on a speech as on that one. " And 
 herein lay an explanation. The finished, flowing, 
 easy, self-speaking address in this case, as in the 
 others, was something that had not merely hap- 
 pened. It was, and most of the others were, the 
 sum of painstaking labor and of earnest reflection. 
 
 His ending was almost an apotheosis. At the 
 reception of the British Commission in the City 
 Hall the Mayor of New York hailed him as 
 our first citizen. At that glorious service at the
 
 56 Hfcfcress b Jfrancte X^nfce Stetson 
 
 Cathedral on the morning of Sunday, May I3th, 
 full of honors, crowned with love, carrying dignity 
 and reverence in his presence, he was in his beau- 
 tiful old age, uttering a nunc dimittis, without 
 precedent since the days of the ancient Simeon. 
 
 All honored him and those admitted to his inti- 
 macy loved him. In sincerity and love, his own 
 tribute to Rufus Choate may be repeated of him : 
 
 EMERSON MOST TRULY SAYS THAT "CHARACTER 
 IS ABOVE INTELLECT AND THIS MAN'S CHARACTER 
 SURPASSED EVEN HIS EXALTED INTELLECT AND 
 CONTROLLING ALL HIS GREAT ENDOWMENTS 
 MADE THE CONSUMMATE BEAUTY OF HIS LIFE."
 
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