Ohio History Journal

WILLIAM     H. WEST.     BY WILLIAM Z. DAVIS.   [The following is an address in memory of Judge William H. West, delivered by Hon. William Z. Davis, of the Ohio Supreme Court, at the meeting of the Ohio Bar Association, Cedar Point, July 12, 1911.]

This writing is not a biography but an appreciation of one of the most notable members of the Ohio Bar in his generation. As a counsellor, as a trial lawyer and advocate, in the halls of 404

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William H. West.              405

 

legislation, as attorney general, as judge of the supreme court,

when constructing a constitution for the state, on the political

platform, everywhere and in whatever capacity he was tried he

was a large figure.

William H. West was born at Millsborough, Washington

county, Pennsylvania, February 9, 1824, and closed his earthly

career at Bellefontaine, Ohio, on March 14, 1911. Although he

apparently never possessed a rugged and muscular body, his was

always, almost from the beginning, a strenuous life. He was

born with a dominance of intellect and an intensity in its action,

which, like electricity, burned and scintillated and flashed in

face and form as no merely animal force could have done. This,

I take it, was the key to his character and to his remarkable suc-

cess in varied forms, under adverse circumstances and through-

out an unusually long life. Very early he learned the lessons of

self-help and in the struggles and privations of the second stage

of pioneer life in eastern Ohio, he laid the foundations of his

subsequent ripe scholarship in the country schools of that day.

He was thus prepared for the wider outlook of Jefferson College,

Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1846.

Like many other men who have struggled upward through

narrow circumstances he devoted himself temporarily to teaching

and waited for his opportunity. He was a teacher in an academy

in Kentucky for a couple of years, during which time, as I

learned from his own lips, he became acquainted with James

G. Blaine, who was born near his own birthplace, but whom he had

never met until that time. This was the beginning of a life-

long friendship between these distinguished men. Later he

spent some time as a tutor in the college from which he had

graduated and yet later as a professor at Hampden-Sidney Col-

lege, at Prince Edward, Virginia. This was the preparatory

period of his eventful life.

John E. West, Esq., Judge West's son, relates that Judge

William Lawrence was a distant relative of Judge West and

that while on a horseback journey through Licking county he

visited West and persuaded him to go to Bellefontaine as a place

which offered good opportunities for young men. West there-

fore settled in Bellefontaine, about 1850, and became student of

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406       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

law in the office of Judge Lawrence, and in due time he became

a partner of his preceptor. The decade from 1850 to 1860 was

full of exciting debate and stirring events, presaging the dire

conflict of 1861 to 1865. At thirty years of age he was an

ardent leader in the formation of the Republican Party and was

an active participant in the stormy debates which preceded the

great Civil War. He served with distinguished ability in both

houses of the Ohio General Assembly and was a delegate to the

convention at Chicago which nominated Abraham Lincoln for

the presidency. It was in 1863, during the historic political cam-

paign in which John Brough and Clement L. Vallandingham

contested for the governorship of this intensely loyal state, and

Judge West was a candidate for the state senate, that the writer

of this memorial then an invalid soldier just home from the

campaign around Vicksburgh, became acquainted with him and

became deeply impressed with his pure and conscientious

patriotism, his high ideals and his unusual ability as a popular

orator. Of all the political orators in Ohio of his time, and I

have heard all of them of any distinction from Corwin down to

the present time, no one, in my judgment was superior to him.

General William H. Gibson had more of that wonderful, inde-

finable quality which we call magnetism; but West's most elo-

quent efforts were so underlaid and knit together with inexorable

logic that they were not easily forgotten and made the more

lasting impression. It was a liberal education to hear him in

those days when all that was best in the orator was enlisted in

his cause.

At the close of the war he was elected attorney general of

Ohio, an office which up to that time had usually been filled by

lawyers of commanding ability, and his two terms of service in

that capacity laid a substantial foundation for his high reputa-

tion as a lawyer; so that when he came later to the bench of

the Supreme Court of Ohio there were great expectations in

regard to his usefulness in that position, expectations which

were not disappointed in the two years of his service as a judge.

For many years before and as long before as this writer became

acquainted with him he had been afflicted with defective vision.

He once said to me that he could only see objects directly in

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William H. West.                   407

 

front of him and that oculists told him that the lateral nerves

of his eyes were paralyzed. He compared his vision to looking

through a pinhole in a piece of cardboard. With this handicap

much of the best work of his life had been accomplished. The

arduous work of the Supreme Court in scanning records and

briefs, which at that time were not printed, as well as the addi-

tional perusal of authorities, completed the destruction of his

eyesight and he was compelled to resign his high office. With

many men here would have been the close of a career; but he

courageously took up the arduous tasks of the trial lawyer as

well as the equally responsible and difficult duties of a consulting

counsel. Not a few members of this Association personally know

how formidable an opponent he was at this period of his life.

To the casual observer there was no appearance of defective

vision. At least some of you remember the keen, alert, penetrat-

ing and inquiring expression of the eyes with which he would

look upon you; and yet it was all in darkness to him. Doubtless

you remember the familiar attitude in the courtroom as he sat

with head bowed upon his hands clasped upon his cane in front of

him, and with cloak thrown over his shoulders until something

suddenly called for action, when a smile would light up his pale

features, a crisp sarcasm would flash like a rapier in sunlight

and the battle would be on. How often we have seen him sit-

ting before a jury or on the stump, pouring forth streams of

passionate oratory and how few of his charmed listeners have

realized that he assumed this position through no disrespect to

his audience but to avoid getting his back to those before him

in the enthusiasm of his delivery.

Yet, notwithstanding physical weakness and oftentimes pain

and with total lack of vision it was with surprise and marvel

that observers noted the accuracy of his memory, the thorough-

ness of his preparation and the effectiveness with which he

brought all the resources of past experience and present investi-

gation to bear on the case in hand.*

 

* During this period of his life he was a delegate to the convention

to revise and amend the Constitution of Ohio, which met in May, 1873,

and adjourned in May, 1874. He was one of the most prominent of

the many distinguished men in that convention.

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408      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

It was in the high tide of his career after he had left the

bench, that he was nominated by the Republican Party as its

candidate for governor. It was August 1, 1877, only a short

time after the bitter and exciting presidential contest between

Hayes and Tilden, and it was at Cleveland, at the very time that

the most colossal and threatening railroad strike ever known

was in progress. The public mind was in a state of unrest and

excitement. The party was agitated by factional struggles and

grave differences upon subjects which have passed into history,

like the resumption of specie payments and the demonetization

of silver, and upon grave questions which are still with us, such

as the relations of capital and labor and the growth of corporate

power. A number of able men were being considered as the

choice of the Republican Party to carry its standard to victory

or defeat, and among them was Judge Alphonso Taft, who was

subsequently defeated for the nomination at Cincinnati by Hon.

Charles Foster. It was a convention conspicuous for the pres-

ence of able and distinguished men. General Garfield was the

permanent chairman and on taking the chair delivered a speech

of characteristic eloquence and statesmanlike suggestion. Under

such circumstances Judge West was nominated. He was brought

into the convention and made a short speech which was well

received and made a good impression. The convention adjourned

late in the afternoon. It had been arranged to have a ratifica-

tion in the public square. A mass meeting of the strikers and

their sympathizers was held in the same place and many of these

still lingered about when the crowd assembled for the Republi-

can ratification meeting. Hon. Stanley Matthews, afterwards a

justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, then a United

States senator from Ohio, was the first speaker and it was not

long until he was in the midst of a running fire of interruptions

in which the presence of a number of the turbulent spirits of

the strikers meeting was indicated and which continued through-

out his speech. While this was going on, Judge West was led

upon the platform and took his seat. Meantime the character

of the audience had gradually changed and a great majority of

those present were of the substantial business people of Cleve-

land and Republicans from all over the state who were there

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William H. West.                    409

 

to attend the convention.    When Judge West was introduced

he made the following speech, which I take verbatim from a

report of it in The Cleveland Leader of the next morning,

August 2nd:

 

"My Fellow Citizens:

I have not come to address you at any length. I have been re-

quested, stranger as I am in your midst, to appear on the stand that

you and I might become the better acquainted. It has pleased the Re-

publican Convention of Ohio, today, to place my name in nomination

for the highest office in the gift of the people of your state. (Applause.)

It shall be my pleasure, my pride and my duty so to deport myself

toward you, and toward your interests and toward the common in-

terests of the common country, as to merit and deserve your confidence

and support. (Applause.)  I probably should tell you who I am and

whence I came. I am no railroad officer, and never was, (a voice: "Glad

to hear it,") and never will be. (A voice: "Bravo.")

I hold no railroad bonds or railroad stocks, that my interests be

different from  those of any other man, and never did. (A voice:

"Bravo.")  I hold no untaxed Government bonds, and I never did,

and never expect to. (Laughter.) I hold no bank stock and never did,

and never expect to, (Applause) and, financially, I suspect I am about

as impartial between capital and labor as one without finances possibly

can be. (Applause, and a voice: "Will you uphold it?") I will uphold

all that I believe to be right and just between man, and discountenance

all that I believe in my conscience is wrong. (Applause.) It has been

a habit of my life, the education of my life, to be in sympathy more with

the industry of my country than with the capital of my country. (A

voice: "Bravo.") I chance to be the son of as humble a mechanic as

any that stands now before me. I chanced in my early life to receive my

early education at the forge, blowing the bellows and wielding the

sledge. (Applause.)

And now, my fellow citizens, I have no war to wage upon any

class, upon any race, upon any sect, upon any grade or upon any color,

save and except in so far as they do wrong in violation to the laws of

God and the laws of man. (Applause.)

I promised, however, to occupy but a moment of time, and I shall

keep my word, but I desire to say, my fellow citizens, to you a word

only upon a subject which I know is uppermost in the minds and in

the hearts of most of you. It is that the industry of our country shall

be so regarded as that labor shall at least receive that compensation

which shall be the support and sustenance of the laborer. (Applause.)

I do not know how it may certainly be brought about. I know the

difficulties; I know the embarrassments; I know how insurmountable

are the obstructions in the way of any equal or proper adjustment of.

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410        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

the relations between those who labor and those who furnish the means

and opportunities to labor. But if I had the power I would try one

experiment at least. I would prohibit the great railroad corporations, the

great thoroughfares of business and trade from so reducing their rates

by ruinous competition as to disable themselves from paying a just com-

pensation to their operators.  (Cries of good, and applause.)

I would go further and try the experiment--but I do not know

that it would succeed - I would arrange and fix a minimum of prices for

all who labor in the mines and upon the railroads, and then require

that all the net receipts and proceeds of the capital invested, the laborer

at the end of the year should, in addition to his fixed compensation re-

ceive a certain per cent. of the profits. (Applause and cries of "That

is the man.")

Then, if the profits were insufficient to compensate you as liberally

as you could otherwise desire, bear with your employers a portion of

the loss.  (A voice: "Certainly.")  But if their receipts be sufficient

to make a division, we would, in God's name, let the laborer, who is

worthy of his hire, share a portion of the profits. (Applause.)

And now, my fellow citizens, having fulfilled the promise, I shall

desist further, with this statement, that I will endeavor to meet you

again on some future occasion, when I shall have more time and op-

portunity to talk with you as friend to friend, for I am sure as you and

I become better acquainted we will not be very wide in our opinions

of right and wrong. (Applause.)

A good deal of dissent from     the substance of this address

was immediately manifest and it cannot be denied that some

of its phrasing was unfortunate under the circumstances.          I

speak from personal recollection as well as from the record,

for I was present and a witness of all these things; but I cannot

undertake to determine how much that speech contributed to

Judge West's defeat.    That it did do so to some extent is un-

deniable and at that time there were not a few who believed

it to be a large factor in the Republican disaster which followed.

Viewed alongside of some of the utterances in these days of

those who call themselves progressives and whom others call

insurrectionists or insurgents, it would seem to be quite mod-

erate and would hardly seem to justify the agitation which re-

sulted. I know of two rather well-known politicians from dif-

ferent parts of the state, who undertook the impossible task of

suppressing that speech from appearing in the newspapers. Of

course the effort failed.    Garfield, Cox, Monroe and several

other prominent men made speeches and the ratification meeting

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William H. West.                        411

 

closed and the incidents of the convention of 1877 passed into

history.

I was present at another of the memorable events of Judge

West's career: his presentation of his friend James G. Blaine

to the Republican National Convention at Chicago, in 1884, for

nomination for president of the United States. The occasion

lacked some of the dramatic features and inspiration which

aided Ingersoll in his famous effort at Cincinnati, in 1876, which

I also heard, but West's effort was probably the more effective

vote-getter. At any rate, his candidate won at the convention

only to lose on the home stretch at the election. It must have

been a great disappointment to Judge West, for it is understood

that if Blaine had been elected West was to have been a mem-

ber of the Cabinet as Attorney General.

The following is the Chicago convention speech, slightly

abridged:

"Gentlemen of the Convention:

"As a delegate in the Chicago convention of 1860, the proudest ser-

vice of my life was performed by voting for the nomination of that in-

spired emancipator, the first Republican President of the United States.

Four and twenty years of the grandest history in the annals of recorded

time have distinguished the ascendency of the Republican party. Skies

have lowered, and reverses have threatened. Our flag is still there,

waving above the mansion of the Presidency; not a stain on its folds,

not a cloud on its glory. Whether it shall maintain that grand ascendency

depends on the action of this great council. With bated breath a Nation

awaits the result. On it are fixed the eyes of twenty millions of Re-

publican freemen in the North. To it are stretched the imploring hands

of ten million of political bondmen of the South; while above, from

the portals of light, is looking down the spirit of the immortal martyr

who first bore it to victory, bidding us hail and God-speed.

"In six campaigns has that symbol of union, of freedom, of hu-

manity, and of progress, been borne in triumph-sometimes by that

silent man of destiny, the Wellington of American arms, Ulysses the

Great; last by that soldier statesman at whose untimely taking off a

Nation swelled the funeral cry and wept above great Garfield's grave.

Shall that banner triumph again?  Commit it to the bearing of that

great chief, the inspiration of whose illustrious character and great

name will fire the hearts of our young men, stir the blood of our man-

hood, and rekindle the fervor of the veteran; and the closing of the

seventh campaign will see that holy ensign spanning the sky like a bow

of promise.

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412        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

"Political conditions are changed since the accession of the Re-

publican party to power. The mighty issues of struggling freedom and

bleeding humanity, which convulsed the continent and rocked the Re-

public, rallied, united and inspired the forces of patriotism and philan-

thropy in one consolidated phalanx. These great issues have ceased their

contention; the subordinate issues resulting therefrom are settled and

buried away with the dead issues of the past.

"The odds of the solid south are against us. Not an electoral

gun can be expected from that section. If triumph come, the Republican

States of the North must furnish the conquering battalions from the

farm, the anvil, the loom; from the mine, the workshop, and the desk;

from the hut of the trapper on snowy Sierra, from the hut of the fisher-

man on the banks of the Hudson, must these forces be drawn. Does

not sound political wisdom dictate and demand that a leader shall be

given to them whom our people will follow, not as conscripts advancing

by funeral marches to certain defeat, but a grand, civic hero, whom they

will follow with all the enthusiasm of volunteers, as they sweep on and

onward to certain victory?

"In this contention of forces for political dominion, to whom as

candidate shall we intrust the bearing of our battle-flag? Citizens, I

am not here to--and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if

I do-abate the tithe of a hair from the just fame, integrity and public

honor of Chester A. Arthur, our President. I abate not one tithe from

the just fame and public integrity of George F. Edmunds, of Joseph

R. Hawley, of John Sherman, of that grand old Black Eagle of Illinois.

And I am proud to know that these distinguished Senators whom I have

named have borne like testimony to the public life, the public character,

and the public integrity of him whose confirmation, by their votes, ele-

vated him to the highest office, second in dignity to the office of the

President himself-the first premiership in the administration of James

A. Garfield. A man who was good enough for these great Senatorial

rivals to confirm in the high office of first Premier of the Republic, is

good enough for the support of a plain, flesh-and-blood God's people for

President.

"Who shall be our candidate? Not the representative of a par-

ticular interest or a particular class. Send a great apostle to the

country labeled 'the doctors' candidate,' 'the lawyers' candidate,' 'the

Wall street candidate,' and the hand of resurrection would not fathom

his November grave. Gentlemen, he must be a representative of Am-

erican manhood-a representative of that living Republicanism  that

demands the amplest industrial protection and opportunity whereby labor

shall be enabled to earn and eat the bread of independent employment,

relieved from mendicant competition with pauper Europe or pagan

Chinese. He must be a representative of that Republicanism that de-

mands the absolute political as well as personal emancipation and dis-

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William H. West.                      413

 

enthrallment of mankind; a representative of that Republicanism which

recognizes the stamp of American citizenship as the passport to every

right, privilege, dignity and consideration at home or abroad, whether

under the sky of Bismarck, under the palmetto, under the pelican, or on

the banks of the Mohawk-that Republicanism that cannot regard with

indifference a despotism which, under the flaunting lie of Sic semper

tyrannis, annihilates, by slaughter, popular majorities in the name of

democracy -a Republicanism which, while avoiding entangling alliances

with foreign powers, will accept insult and humiliation from no prince,

State, potentate or sovereignty on earth--as embodied and stated in

the platform of principles this day adopted in your convention. Gentle-

men, such a representative Republican, enthroned in the hearts and af-

fections of the people, is James G. Blaine, of Maine.

" * * * Gentlemen, three millions of Republicans believe that the

man to accomplish this, is the Ajax Telamon of our party, who made,

and whose life is, a conspicuous part of its glorious history. Through

all the conflicts of its progress, from the baptism of blood on the plains

of Kansas to the fall of the immortal Garfield, whenever humanity

needed succor, or freedom needed protection, or country a champion,

wherever blows fell thickest and fastest, there, in the forefront of the

battle, was seen to wave the white plume of James G. Blaine, our Henry

of Navarre. Nominate him, and the shouts of the September victory in

Maine will be re-echoed back by the thunders of the October victory in

Ohio. Nominate him, and the camp-fires and beacon-lights will illuminate

the continent from the Golden Gate to Cleopatra's Needle. Nominate

him, and the millions who are now in waiting will rally to swell the

column of victory that is sweeping on. In the name of a majority of

the delegates from the Republican States, and their glorious con-

stituencies who must fight this battle, I nominate James G. Blaine,

of Maine."

 

By this time, another generation of Ohio's remarkable men

were well advanced on the stage, McKinley, Foraker, Mark

Hanna, Charles Foster, and others, and henceforward he fig-

ured less in the public eye than heretofore.   Age and infirmity

were slowly creeping upon him. Ten years more of the mon-

otonous work-a-day life of law practice brought him to the day

when he went out at eighty years of age from        his law  office

never to return but once, although he lived for seven years

thereafter.

I will no doubt be pardoned for adding here an incident

which clearly shows the rank which he occupies in the estimate

of men qualified to judge of his real merits. A short time ago, I

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had occasion to suggest to an eminent statesman and constitu-

tional lawyer that he permit himself to be selected as a delegate

to the constitutional convention soon to be held in this state. I

quote but a single sentence from his reply: "As to the con-

stitutional convention, it has occurred to me that if Morrison

R. Waite, and Rufus King, and Governor Hoadly and William

H. West, and their colleagues of the last constitutional conven-

tion, embracing some of the ablest men our state has ever pro-

duced, could not make a constitution acceptable to the people

of Ohio, it is hardly worth while for anybody else to try." That

speaks louder for the reputation which he has left behind him

than pages of eulogy.

Aloof from the world, in the shelter of his own home, sur-

rounded by loved ones, venerable, infirm and sightless, his in-

domitable spirit struggled with hard problems of law and public

economy, of literature and science, almost to the very end of

life. He told me on the day of his last public appearance that

he feared that if he did not keep up the vigorous exercise of his

mind he might lapse into senile imbecility. Whatever there may

have been in this theory of his, he certainly presented a remark-

able example of clear thinking and vigorous expression almost

to the time of his exit. His stately courtesy and evident delight

in meeting the distinguished men who called upon him on that

day in 1905 when the Republican campaign opening was held

in Bellefontaine, was a pleasure to behold. He occupied a seat

on the platform with Governor Herrick, Vice President Fair-

banks and Senator Foraker, and made, I believe, the last speech

of his life, still recommending to the people the platform and

candidates of the Republican Party which he had helped to

organize.

So he lived and so he retired from public view. He had

outlived all the competitors of his early career at the bar; but

while he lingered for a few years he showed the faith of a really

great man in God and the Bible. In him was no fetish or super-

stition, but a firm conviction based on reason and spiritual in-

sight. At the last he sat for hours listening to the reading of

some favorite author, and then lay down to sleep the long sleep

that knows no waking until the Resurrection Morn.

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