ment were entitled to compensation. Amongst the earliest cases in which he wrote the opinion of the court was one Monroe v. May (9 Kas., 466) which settled the rights of married women to money possessed by them prior to marriage,or earned by them afterward, and also fixed their ininterest in the homestead. His strong bias toward ameliorating the legal status of women, at a period when there was still much prejudice existing against their entering fields of action hitherto monopolized by men, is displayed in Wright v. Noell (16 Kas., 601), where his opinion prevailed, after much discussion and hesitation on the part of the other judges, that a woman is eligible in Kansas to hold the office of county superintendent of public instruction. Many lawyers and laymen felt at the time that this was a step in the wrong direction, but there are few good. citizens who do not now heartily coincide with the views expressed. His interest in, and influence upon the law of domestic relations as administered in Kansas, may be gathered from Chapsky v. Wood (26 Kas., 650) and In re Bullen (26 Kas., 781); these are both worthy the attention of those interested in the law of parent and child. When the Constitutionality of the adoptionof the prohibitory amendment to the Constitution of Kansas came in question Justice Brewer wrote the opinion of the court, holding that the amendment was properly adopted (Prohibitory Amendment Cases, 24 Kas., 700); and when the validity of the statutes enacted under the provisions of this amendment was attacked it was his pen that wrote the decision sustaining them (Intoxicating Liquor Cases, 25 Kas., 751). If space permitted many other decisions, quite as important as the ones mentioned, might be referred to.

When Justice Brewer ascended the Federal Circuit Bench, the Eighth Circuit comprised seven states, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and Arkansas. To these were added, before his promotion,

the states of North and South Dakota and Wyoming. In each of these States there were at least two terms of the circuit court held in each year and in some, such as Missouri, for example, there were as many as ten (now there are twelve). It is not necessay to enlarge upon the arduous nature of the task he was called on to perform or the scrupulous and diligent manner with which he performed it. His habits of industry and his love for judicial work were amply supplied with materials for their fullest exercise and, under his conception of the duties of his office, the strain put upon him finally, in the spring of 1889, began to undermine even his vigorous and elastic constitution. He did not easily accept this fact and it was not until threatened with a dangerous illness that he was persuaded to abandon the Bench for a season and to seek health and strength in the region where he had once pursued the phantom of wealth, the mountains of Colorado. Though in a condition of health that excited the apprehension of all who knew and loved him, his recuperative powers and the cheerful and hopeful spirit with which he encountered disease, assisted the salubrity of the mountain air in producing a rapid and permanent recovery. When convalescent he took a trip to the Pacific Coast, arriving in San Francisco during the excitement that followed the killing of Terry by Deputy Marshal Neagle, and sitting on the Bench with his uncle, Justice Field, the morning following the day on which the attack of Terry was made. Notwithstanding the unpleasant shock of this event, Justice Brewer's health was further benefited by the trip and when he finally returned to his labors in the fall no trace of his struggle with disease remained.

It is difficult to select from the great number of important cases decided by Justice Brewer on the Circuit Court Bench, involving questions in nearly every branch of jurisprudence, a few that are characteristic of all, or

that present any adequate embodiment of his influence upon the administration of justice. Without attempting an adequate selection, it will suffice to refer to State v. Wolruff (26 Fed. Rep., 178), in which he followed the views expressed in his dissenting opinion in State v. Mugler, above referred to; to United States v. Maxwell Land Grant Company, a decision (afterward sustained by the Supreme Court) which asserted the validity of the largest land grant ever confirmed in this country; to Railway Company v. Railroad Commissioners, in which the Railroad Commissioners of Iowa were enjoined from putting in force a tariff of rates so low as not to furnish the railroad companies with means enough to pay the expenses of running the roads and paying fixed charges. This is the first time that such an injunction was ever granted. The opinion judicially limited the power of the State over the fares and freights charged by the railroad companies. The principle of this decission has been sustained by the Supreme Court since Justice Brewer came to that Bench. In the noted Wabash foreclosure case, there were many issues and an immense volume of business to be disposed of, necessitating the delivery of many opinions on intricate questions arising out of the several rights of all the various parties who might be interested in a railway. Another important case was McElroy v. Kansas City in which the significance of that section of the Missouri Constitution, requiring compensation for property damaged as well as property taken, was discussed and decided.

These few cases may illustrate the multitude of controversies, frequently of great local importance, and involving nearly every branch of the law, that arose before Justice Brewer while he was on the Circuit Bench.

Justice Brewer's conduct upon the Bench was and is guided by an exalted standard. In his remarks at the banquet of the Kansas City Bar Association before alluded

to, he thus expresses his conception of the judicial office: "Only the vestal virgins might attend the sacred fires in the ancient temples. Only he whose life is free from stain, who has the courage and patience of conviction and the wisdom to know, can ever become the ideal judge. So we bend in reverence and honor before Story, whose learning was so vast that it was not inaptly said that all learning was his; before Marshall whose life was so simple and pure that he could truthfully be described as 'a man without guile'; before Mansfield, who, looking into the face of an angry mob surging up against Westminster Hall,had the courage to scorn its demand and declare, 'I wish popularity, but it is that popularity which follows and not that which runs after; it is that which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends by noble means.'" These sentiments might seem like mere rhetoric in the mouth of one whose public life little conforms to their high promptings; in the mouth of Justice Brewer they sound sincere and portray to all who know him the man himself.

Commenting on Justice Brewer's characteristics in the memoir mentioned above Judge Horton says: "He possesses quick perceptive faculties and works with great facility and ease. He has discharged all the duties of his various judicial positions with untiring industry, acknowledged ability and recognized impartiality. He has great executive ability and is very energetic in the dispatch of business. He is a cultivated, courteous and christian gentleman with all that these terms imply. He has social qualities of a high order, being genial, companionable and an expert story teller. He is possessed of a vigorous constitution, is in excellent health and capable of performing the severest literary or judicial labor. As a scholar, as a lawyer and as a jurist he ranks among the very ablest in the great West. If he carries with him to Washington his Kansas habits of early rising, he will

surprise his associates upon the Bench, as he is often found in his library reading court papers or preparing an opinion in an important case, as early as 6 A. M." Whether astonishing or not to his associates, Justice Brewer still maintains his Kansas habits in Washington. He usually rises at dawn and may be found engaged in his study, surrounded with law books and documents long before sunrise. This custom suitable alone to robust and vigorous constitutions, so far from being insalutary to him, seems a necessary outgrowth of his abounding and almost boyish health and spirits and his love for his work. At the comparatively early age of fifty-three, with every faculty of mind and body in the fullest vigor, with wide judicial experience, scholarly attainments, talents of a high order, a reputation unsoiled by even a suspicion of evil and a most lovable disposition, Justice Brewer is equipped for a career on the Supreme Bench second to none who have ever occupied that exalted station. If genius, dignity, amiability and learning are worthy of admiration and honor, Justice Brewer's fame is secure in his own generation and in those that are to follow.

Shortly after settling in Kansas, the future jurist met a young lady from Burlington, Vermont, Miss Louisa R. Landon, then visiting her sister in Leavenworth. This circumstance, like so many other incidents of his life, proved a most fortunate one, for the Green Mountain girl became his wife and helpmeet. Their married life has been singularly felicitous. No youth in the first ardor of "love's young dream" could speak of his sweetheart more tenderly and appreciatively than does this middle aged Justice of his wife. In responding to a toast. at the Forefathers' banquet of the Kansas City Congregational Club, December 23, 1889, he referred to his wife's part in his success in life with the most affectionate appreciation and closed his allusions to this subject by saying: "To-day there opens before him [the speaker], the