New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-01-31
4 CHAPTER FOB MIR. FIELD.

An appropriate supplement to the Field ana
BOwles correspondence will be found in a
chapter from the history of Erie litigation
which we publish this morning. If Mr. Field
will read that narrative of years lawsuits
he will understand better than he seems to
understand now why his connection with
Messrs. Fisk and Gould has been so sharply
criticised. 1t is not because his clients are
believed TO be bad men, nor because they
have in legal sense q bad cause, but because
they are believed to pursue their schemes
by nefarious means, and Ito quote
the language of recent judicial de-
cisOn) because their "course of pro-
"ceeding has resulted in deep and abiding
"reproach upon the administration Of justice"
No candid lawyer will pretend that the devices
by which the Ramsay suits were suppressed,
the English shares sequestrated, the attempts
of tho preferred stockholders to bring their
cases to trial met by evasive pleas and illegal
iniunctons, were legitimate professional ex-
pedients Very few believe that tho Erie
Company, even with the assistance Of Mr..
Fields astuteness, could 80 steadily prevent
the fair trial of any suit against them on its
own merits and put in the way of their ad-
versaries 80 many obstacles, not to getting
bench had been corruptly influenced in the
Erie interest and when Mr.. Field appears
even occasionally as agent Of these practices,
it is natural that many of his old admirers
should look on in sorrow and surprise We
shall not ask our readers to take the opinion
of a layman on this matter; but we
shall quote the opinion of Judge Rosekrans
of the Supreme Court, given from the
bench q short time ago in the decision
of one Of the Thompson suits. Almost every
effort of the stockholders for relief has been
met, said the Judge, "by orders to stay pro-
"ceedings and an order of injunction procured
"by euasion and subterfuge" The course OF the
defense was stigmatized as "evasive" "imper
"tinent," "untruthful," "tricky," and "scan-
"dalous" The insertion of certain matters in
an affidavit drawn up by the Erie counsel was
vigorously denounced by Judge Rosekrans as
"unprofessional and improper" and the clerk
was ordered to expunge it from the records of
the court. This condemnation, it will be re-
membered, was applied rather to the lawyers
than the clients.
Mr.. D. D. Field, in his correspondence with
Mr.. BOwles, says that he had nothing to do
with this suit, which was entirely i'll the
hands of one of his partners and other counsel.
Technically we are satisfied that his statement
is correct. The lawyers in that case were
Dudley Field (the SOM and his partner, T. G.
Sherman. Messrs. Field g. Shearman are the
standing counsel of the Erie Company, and
Mr.. d. d. Field, the father is associated with
them by special retainers In the Thompson
suit he did not appear. That suit, however,
was only one out of many which bear a close
resemblance to each other, and the language
of Judge Rosekrans applies quite as well to
the whole history of Erie litigation as it does
| to that particular case. Father and son are
! habitualy together in these proceedings, and
share between them the credit or the diseredit
which attaches to their management
1t is not worth while to inquire pre-
cisely how much responsibility belongs to
| the father and how much to the son
In the controversy which suggested these
remarks both took part, and each has by i'm
plicatiOn, if not in direct terms, accepted the
views of the duties and privileges of counsel
| set forth by the other. We have no purpose
of assailing either Of them personally; we
should be glad indeed to praise them but we
| look upon them as the exponents of mischiev-
GUS and mistak en- principle which calls for
| the decided apprehension Of the bar and
the press. Mr.. Dudley Field, for example,
saws in his first letter to Mr.. Bowles: =" defy
anybody to point to a single instance where
owe have exercised any influence upon or
"received any favor or any order which we
chad not right to consider justified oy the
claw and the facts from any Judge" But in
tbs Drew and Vanderbilt suits it was put in
evidence, and, so far as We can learn, there
WAS no rebutting testimony on this point
that Mr.. Dudley Field offered John
r. Haskin $1,000 to persuade his
friend Judge Barnard to modify Ger
tain Injunction, To be sure. Mr. Fields