Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-02-11

enthusiastically in his profession, and he
has taken occasion to pay eloquent tribute
to it in an address before the American Bar
Association. He said:
I'VE love the law because, among all the
learned professions, 1t is the only one that
involves the study and the pursuit of a
careful and exact science.
Theoiogy was once considered an I'M
mutabe science, but how it has changed
from age to age!
"And then as to medicine? How it's the
cries succeed each other in rapid revolu-
ton, so that what We're good methods and
healing doses and saving prescriptions
generation ago are now condemned. and all
the past is adjudged to be empirical.
Meanwhile, common law makes void the
past where the fault is and preserves the
rest, as 1t has been doing for centuries.
$50 long as the Supreme Court exists to
be attacked and defended; so long as the
public credit and good faith of this great
nation are in peril; so long as the right of
property, which lies at the root of all civil
government, is secuted and the three in
altenable rights to life, liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness. which the Declaration of
Independence proclaimed and the Constitu-
ton has guaranteed, are in jeopardy,
long will great public service be demanded
of the bar
Choosing n Place to Practice.
Equipped with his love of the law and
his thorough preparation in it, Choate be-
gan, in 1854, to look about for an opening.
He took plenty of time for the task as
might be expected of a scholarly man able
to command leisure. He took a trip
through the west, and it was not until 1856
thata he settled to practice in New York.
1t might have seemed the natural thing
for young Mr. Choate to hang out his shin
gle in Massachusetts, instead of emigrating
to New York. Although Mr. Choate does
not say so, it is probable that the presence
of his famous klnsman, Rufus Choate, then
in ha Of hic.,N a,,If 70 of 20
head of the Massachusetts bar had some
thing to do with it. Young Joseph had
ambltlons or his own, and he may have rea-
soned correctly that they would stand bet
ter chance of fufillment away from the dl-
rect comparison with Rufus Choates abil-
ties. Mr.. Choate has been able to succeed
in spite not only of advantages in wealth
and education, but in spite of a distinguish
ed relative well.
The famous relative was something of a
handicap at first. Lawyers and others in
New York said:
Rufus Choates young cousin has come
down here to practice. Let's go and see
how he compares with the old man."
They Hooked to Joe" Choate's first cases
and most of them were disappointed His
quiet manner, conversational arguments
and off-hand jokes were so entirely in con-
trast with the stirring eloquence of Rufus
Choate that the observers did not appre-
ciate its power at first~
Guess he hasn't much to bank on but
the family name" they said.
But there We're some who appreciated
the young attorneys possibilities, and one
of these was William M. Evarts. In 1859
he invited Mr.. Choate to join his firm. He
did so, and for the past twenty years has
been the practical head of the firm. though
the style of it is still Evarts, Choate &
Beaman.
His Way With aoJury.
1t was noticeable from the first that
young Choate won his cases. His way of
talking to the jury, as he would to ac-
quaintance he had stopped on the street,
his genial manner and his habit of illus
tratng his telling points with humorous or
sarcastic illusions, relieved the ordinary
tedium of a trial, and carried weight with
the jurors. y
From the first Choate has been great
jury lawyer His telling way of expressing
MS IDEAS makes them stick in the jurors
memory. At the same time, the aptness of
ms comparisons and the manner in which
tney go straight to the heart of a question
Nhen Cnoate said of a wealthy and some.
what hypocr1t1cal witness, who had pur-
CHASED house in Brooklyn on the further
side OF GREENWOOD cemetery, II suppose it
was the only way he could make sure of a
nome beyond the grave" the remark was
pound to remain with his hearers.
IN the Pacific railway case Coils P.
1untlngton set up the claim that he was
not responsible for the acts of his agents
on the Pacific coast But when Mr. Choate
aiiuoed TO the chief of these agents as
TINS Mark Hopkins, by whom he was rep
resented absolutely, completely and with
out any limitation whatever, so that you
might say that when Mr. Huntington took
saun on the Atlantic coast, Mr.. Hopkins