Part 38 (2/2)

They objected to fees which were very large. Sheriff Dan Kinley had a fee bill of $1,000.00, which the parties contested. The motion was set down for hearing, when Kinley stepped up and wanted his matter disposed of. Judge Wolf was on the bench and asked if the sheriff had any lawyer. He replied, ”No, I asked several lawyers and they all claimed they were retained on one side or the other.” The judge looked down upon an array of lawyers, counting about fifteen, and said, ”All right, go ahead gentlemen.” As the long string of lawyers came out after the hearing Major Smith came along and said to the judge, who came out with Kinley, ”How about that motion for fees, Judge, which you have been hearing?” ”Well,” replied Wolf, ”there were twenty lawyers on the other side, and after lengthy arguments Dan and I managed to beat them.”

When Judge Thompson was on the bench he used to sentence criminals like this: ”You deserve just ten years in the pen, or as long as the law allows. You should stay there. I never heard any good you ever did. But I see your wife here. She looks like a good woman: I'll give you thirty days in jail.”

At one time a woman came to Thompson to get a divorce from her husband.

The judge heard her story. She stated that when the husband came home and the meals were not ready he would simply rave. ”How does he act when you do have the meals ready?” ”Oh, he acts all right then,”

replied the woman. ”Well,” said the judge, ”I advise you to go home and feed the brute, and you will have no trouble.”

On the stump the judge was often accused of waving the ”b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+rt,”

and he used to reply to his opponents that ”he knew what he was waving, because he had been there.” When in congress the major was a member of the committee to try the contested election cases. Colonel R. G.

Ingersoll was one of the attorneys frequently employed by the contestants and he became very friendly with the members of this committee. One morning as the colonel entered and found the major looking over some of the records, the great orator, looking at the Iowa congressman, said, ”Major, I like you.” Thompson looked up and inquired, ”Why so, Colonel?” ”Well,” replied the magnetic orator, ”because if I can establish the fact that my client is running on the republican ticket I have won my case with you, but it takes a great deal more to convince the other members of your committee.”

George W. Wilson was an old character at the bar of Linn county, and many are the cases on our county records with the words, G. W. Wilson _per se_. He brought more worthless cases than any other firm or individual and was the owner of more tax t.i.tles than any other individual in this or any other county in Iowa. His tax t.i.tles were so clouded that the court intimated in a certain execution ”that they would never fasten on anything in particular.”

Linn county has had its share of ”constant litigants.” The dam across the river has been a constant eyesore, with rights vested and otherwise. There has not been a time since the franchise was granted by the state for dams up to the present time that some suit has not been pending in the district or supreme court involving some phase of the property rights of the respective owners in common. The so-called legal owners.h.i.+p of the dam is now supposed to be vested in the city of Cedar Rapids, and fees are no longer forthcoming, so during the past few years there has been a lull in this branch of litigation.

William Harper, J. W. Traer, J. P. Gla.s.s, John Weare, W. S. Cooper, N.

B. Brown, Colonel J. M. May, J. J. Snouffer, G. W. Wilson, Theresa O'Connell, Doc Paul, and Lewis & Mason kept the legal mill grinding for many years. However, by common consent, Elias Doty, son of one of the first settlers, seems to have held the trump card for litigation in the number of suits that he has brought and defended. He is something like Micawber in this particular that ”he has become acquainted with the law by being made a party so often.” It is said that Doty started his litigation by taking a law book in a horse trade, from which he got a smattering of law, which volume was cited in many trials until some up-to-date lawyer ruled the book out before a justice because it had been printed in England.

The Bever will case was one of the most hotly contested cases in the county on account of the large interests at stake and the prominence of the interested parties as well as the prominence and standing of the attorneys employed.

Many have questioned whether the lawyer of the future will occupy the same position in the community as the pioneer lawyers. The legal business is rapidly changing, and before many years the successful lawyer will be one who renders legal opinions as to what the law is before suit is brought, and there will be less and less of great speeches delivered ”amid full houses and loud cheers.” The pioneer lawyer arose to distinction and political preferment by force of his native ability. It is doubtful if we shall in the future have a cla.s.s of attorneys who will play such an important part in the upbuilding of the county and of the state. It is doubtful if we ever shall look upon their kind again.

The practicing attorneys of Linn county at this time are as follows:

F. B. Armstrong, E. C. Barber, A. R. Berry, U. C. Blake. Charles W.

Bingham, Don Barnes, Fred A. Bowman, George F. Buresh, Frank C. Byers, C. M. Brown, Charles A. Clark, Frank G. Clark, C. F. Clark, William G.

Clark, A. T. Cooper, W. L. Crissman, J. C. Cook, J. H. Crosby, W. L.

Cron, William Chamberlain, H. R. Churchill, F. F. Dawley, F. J. Dawley, C. J. Deacon, Vincel Drahos, L. D. Dennis, M. J. Donnelly, O. J.

Felton, E. A. Fordyce, Elmer Green, J. W. Good, J. M. Grimm, W. J.

Grunewald, T. M. Giberson, E. W. Griffiths, S. M. Hall, Warren Harman, G. J. Hedges, J. N. Hughes, C. D. Harrison, Louis Heins, F. W. Hann, Frank A. Heald, J. W. Jamison, E. C. Johnson, L. M. Kratz, J. C.

Leonard, J. J. Lenehan, G. P. Linville, Fred Luberger, Joseph Mekota, R. A. Moses, Matt J. Miles, Stephen Novotny, E. C. Preston, J. H.

Preston, Thomas B. Powell, M. I. Parter, Frank H. Randall, Mac J.

Randall, John M. Redmond, John A. Reed, C. B. Robbins, Henry Rickel, H.

C. Ring, C. S. Smith, M. P. Smith, William Smythe, W. E. Steele, John D. Stewart, A. H. Sargent, Roland Shaver, H. E. Spangler, C. R.

Sutherland, L. J. Storey, G. R. Taylor, P. W. Tourtellot, J. H. Trewin, J. M. Tallman, C. G. Watkins, Charles E. Wheeler, B. L. Wick, J. U.

Yessler, Cedar Rapids; H. C. Printy, Center Point, Iowa; Thomas Davis, Central City, Iowa; E. A. Johnson, B. J. Laucamp, Lisbon; F. L.

Anderson, James E. Bromwell, M. W. Courtney, W. S. Griffiths, James M.

Gray, Charles J. Haas, B. P. Harding, C. S. Lake, William G. Thompson, J. M. Thompson, D. E. Voris, Marion; C. W. Kepler, Louis H. Kepler, G.

M. Wilson, F. T. Davis, William Glenn, Mt. Vernon; D. D. Stevens, Paralta, Iowa; Thomas Ware, Troy Mills; A. W. Fisher, Walker; Homer James, Springville.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LUTHERAN CHURCH, LISBON]

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