Greenbrier independent. [volume] (Lewisburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1980, 1896-04-30
The Venerable Justice Field.

Once year the story goes out that
Mr.. Justice Field is going to retire.
AS regularly the senior Associate
Justice announces that he has no
idea of doing any such thing. A
Justice of the United States Supreme
Court, who has served ten years and
who has reached the age of seventy
may retire on full pay. Mr.. Justice
Field has served thirty-three years,
and in few months will he eighty
years old. For ten years he has
been entitled to the benefit of the re-
firing act. Why hasn't he taken ad-
vantage of it? Well, he comes of
the toughest Of Connecticut stock land
the habit of work is strong upon him.
He enjoys the labor of the bench. -
There is another reason for the te-
nacity with which the Justice holds
on, if the gossip of the court circle
may he considered. In one year
more Mr.. Justice Field will take his
place in the history Of the court as
the Justice who sat upon the bench
longer than any other Associate JUS
tice. Mr.. Justice Story, of Massa-
chusetts, sat 81 years. In two more
years Mr.. Justice Field will have
sat longer than any Chief Justice in
tho history of the court. Chief JUS
tice Marshall sat thirty-five years.
Mr.. Justice Field proposes to pull
out the longevity peg and stick it in
at higher hole before he retires,
unless the greater Judge overrules.
1t is the belief Of the circle that the
venerable father of the court" will
attain his ambition. In the thirty
three years of his service Mr.. JUS
tice Field has seen four Chief JUS
tices and twenty-three Associate JUS
tiCeS on the bench. What span
this means will be better understood
when it is stated that since the foun-
dation of the court in 1889 there
have only been eight Chief Justices.
The fifty-first Associate Justice, Mr..
Peckham, took his seat few days
ago.
The distinction comes to Mr.. JUS
tice Field in the close of a career
which has been anything but mo-
notonous. The man who at eighty
feels fully capable of performing
the duties of a member of the
United States Supreme Court, sixty
i've years ago nursed cholera pa
tients In Smyrna, where he had
gone when a boy of fourteen, with
his sister, who was the wife of a
missionary. He sat at dinner end
saw a servant, who had been waiting
on the table, drop dead, while guests
fled shrieking "The plague! The
plague 7" He found himself in San
Francisco with one dollar and q di.
ploma emitting him to practice law
The dollar he multiplied by the sale
Of sixty newspapers he had brought
with him from New York. When
the vigilance committee reorganized
the mining camp of Marysville the
members elected the young lawyer
from the States alcalde, and it was
thenceforward his duty to settle by
judgment the Disputes which up tc
that time had been appealed to the
pistol and knife. The alcalde served
so well that he was sent to the Cali.
fornia Legislature, and there he chal.
lenged man who had insulted him
to fight duel. The man who car.
ried the challenge was BrOderick
afterward killed by Terry in a duel
but not until had saved the life Of
Field in San Francisco hotel. A
foreigner with some grievance sud
denly threw back his cloak anG
raised a pistol to shoot Field. Brode
rick threw himself between them
and Pushed Field through the dool
into the street.
1t is stranger than fiction that tn,
life of Field has been so entertwineC
with the lives Of men who met vic
lent deaths and that he has com,
through without scratch. A
charmed life he has certainly led
In 1857 he was elected Justice o.
the Supreme Court Of California