The San Francisco call., 1908-09-27

where down the line an Irish strain
was infused Thus between the covers
of the Miller book of Genesis is found
the secret of the Chicago lawyers high
sense of honor, of his dogged persever-
ance and his disdain of temporary de-
feat. of his keen edged intellect, of mis-
saving fund of humor. Indeed. every
trait Of his mind and character maN be
traced straight back to q germ in his
forebears. He took the germ and nur-
tured and developed it until there are
a hundred mental and moral corollaries,
each distinctive OF the type.
1t means much to the after life of
Mr. Miller that he was born and reared
in a small town where he came into
intimate contact with those about him
and where he. learned the value of
thoroughness in little things. He is
native of Louisville, st. Lawrence
county, N Y. and came into the world
May "a, 1847. He was graduated from
st. Lawrence university in 1859. The
sturdy mentality of the boy was shown
when he chose for his graduating ora
tion a deeply philosophical subject.
Once an aIumaus he became an in
structor in mathematics and the Latin
and Greek languages in his alma ma
ter. Mathematics sharpened his rea-
soning powers, and the language study
made him feel. as we'll as know, the
meaning of the words of his own tongue
Il
him well in his life work.
He spent his college vacations in the
office of his father, who was county
clerk. There legal terms and relation
ships grew as familiar to him as balls
and strikes to the lad on the bleachers.
He became acquainted with lawyers
who wanted to know things and abb
sorbed the whole technical jargon of
the courts. He read law at night dur
ing his teaching period and was ad-
mitted to the bar at Ogdensburg. NJ
Y, in 1870, when he was 23 years DID,
Four years later he went to Chicago
and began the professional career
which has brought him international
fame.
In the western metropolis his first
work was in the office of Herbert &C.
Quick. Mr.. Herbert was a gifted law
yer of the old fashioned type. His spe-
cialty in law was the care and settle
ment of trust estates. In that branch
he was almost unique in his day. It
was field of great responsibility. but
of no great publicity After a short
period of service young Miller became
the third member of the firm and the
trial lawyer of the trio. This work did
not bring him into the limelight before
the public but those who measured
swords with him in the courtroom
quickly discovered his capacity and in
dustry and the frictionless way he
went about things. 1t was in this pe-
riod the Riverside, Jackson Park and
Flagler cases came up and were dis
posed of.
During this quiet foundation laying
other lawyers observed his ready alb
sorption of facts and his remarkable
faculty of selecting the dominant. con-
trolling ones. He was like the minia-
ture painter who studies every detail
of the surface, but still more like the
etcher who seizes upon the salient,
magnificent lines at a glance.
This gift of selection was never more
strikingly illustrated than when he be-
came corporation counsel for the city
of Chicago in 1891, an Office he held
for two years. After survey of the
field before him he chose for special
effort three things which he thought
were for the greatest good of the city.
These he pressed forward with all the