Washington and Lee University - Calyx Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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CONGRESSMAN FLOOD William A. Glasgow, of Philadelphia; H. L. Norwood, Attorney-General o( Arkansas; James H. Dillard, of New Orleans, president of the Jeanes Founda- tion ; H. R. Preston, of Baltimore, gen- eral counsel for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; Ambrose H. Burroughs, of New York, general counsel for the Ameri- can Tobacco Company, and practi- tioners recognized as leaders at the bar in almost every state in the Union. The showing of this Law School is, in the words of the New York Evening Post, altogether extraordinary, and various newspapers have undertaken an explana- tion of it. The St. Louis Republic states its theory in this way : The kind of education that makes great men is not merely cultural, technical, or what not; it is a training that unlocks the possibilities of personality. In Wash- ington and Lee today the life of the teach- ers is static rather than dynamic ; they also among the many Law School alumni who have been members of the lower House, these three having represented Virginia. Recent years have added to the four- teen Washington and Lee men who have represented their states in the United States Senate the names of Owen, of Oklahoma, Foster, of Louisiana, William J. Bryan, of Florida, whose promising career was cut .short so soon ly death; N. P. Bryan, of Florida, a brother of William J. Bryan; Poindexter, of Wash- ington, and Chamberlain, of Oregon, lour of them Law School graduates. And there are other honored names, not to be left out of account, who in various ways have brought glory to their Alma Mater — E. B. Krutschnitt, Presi- dent of the Louisiana Constitutional Con- vention of 1888; Wade H. Ellis, At- torney-General of Ohio, later Assistant Attorney-General of the United States; CONGRESSMAN HAVES

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professor of law at tlif University of Vir- ginia, who ga f so many years of tireless effort to our own University as professor and as Dean of the Law Scliool. Among the alumni of Washmgton and Lee ha c been many Governors, and of them, four — William A. McCorkle, of West Virginia; Charles T. O ' Ferraii, of Virginia; L. V. Stephens, of Missouri, and Murphy J. Foster, of Louisiana, served simultaneously. The three first V ' J i W named received their legal training here, V B| i k while Governor Foster, of Louisiana. V B K oriiy tl € academic school. J H H B 1-1. Hall the alumnus to I ' .onored with a governorship, the Louisiana Democrats having chosen him in a recent [irimarv as the next occupant of the guber- II, lion. il ( li.ur. In Its list ol Judges of Superior Courts of the arious states few law schools equal Washington and Lee. Joseph Rucker Lamar, apointed Irom the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme Court of Georgia to the highest tribunal in the world, heads the roll of living Judges. Hon. Seth Shepard, Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia; J. Harvey McLeary. formerly Attorney-General of Texas, then Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Montana, and now Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Porto Rico; Judges John R. Tyson, of .Alabama; J. P. Hobson, of Kentucky; M. M. Neill, of Tennessee; S. L. Mestre at, ol Pennsybania; Frank H. Rudkin, of Washington; S. G. Whittle, of Virginia. Luther L. Hall and H. L. Dufour, of Louisiana, and A. Flunter Boyd, of Maryland; have gone out of the Washington and Lee Law School to adorn the highest seats of the American bench. The legislative halls of the nation have time and again numbered among their members graduates of this institution. Forty-two representatives, at least, from lourteen states have been Washington and Lee men, of whom about half were graduates ol the Law Department. In the present House are Fergusson, of New Mexico, first repre- sentative from the new slate; Da is, of West Virginia; Flood and Hay, of Virginia, and Slayden, of Texas, from the law school, with Mays, of Morida, from the Academic Department. James F. Lppes, D. Gardner Tyler and 1 larry St. George Tucker are CONGRESSMAN SLA ' iDli.N 20

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were and are men ol small incomes, simple li.ihits. and well-furmslied rnmds, secure of their posilioiis, honored in ihelr communities, and satisfied with the scholar ' s kingdom. Is there not more, perha])s, in contact with men at peace with them- selves and the world than in membership in a great university where the instructor desires to become an assistant professor, the assistant professor an adjunct professor, the adjunct professor to head a department, .md the [iresident to secure five millions more endowment than did his predecessor Commenting on tliis ie the New ork Evening Post agrees with most of the Republic ' s findings, but adds that the record, being exceptional, must have come from exceptional conditions, and draws the conclusion thai the exceptional conditions were the traditions and setting of the College, stating its deduction as follows: In the first place it would be hard to find another small college with such a tradition and setting. When General Lee, after Appomattox, rode his famous Trav- eller over the mountains to Lexington and became president of Washington College, it was to a town already distinguished .IS the home of Stonewall ' Jackson and the site ol the Virginia Military Institute. Many distinguished soldiers and citizens had lived there or nearby, and the College itself had grown out of a benefaction of George Washington. After the Idol of the Confederacy, there came to Lexington the colonels and captains of his defeated legions, men of un- usual character, fortified by years of war- fare and suffering, who sought to complete their interrupted education. 1 o them succeeded, after General Lee ' s death. outh also ol unusual character, for it required sacrifice, courage, and ambition to obtain a college education in the South in the late sixties and seventies. 1 hey found at Lexington an unusual spnit and inspiring association, as well as teachers to admire and profit by. Hence it is not altogether unnatural that the graduates of this period speedily became leaders in their communities. The really educated men were rare, and these had also acquired the pioneering spirit in the Virginia I lills. and found their way readily to Oregon, to Oklahoma, to New ' ork. to New Orleans, all over the New South. CONGKI-.S MAN l)A I.s