Evening star., 1944-05-16

years of formal schooling, there
seemed small chance that he would
one day be Shakespearean scholar
and an authority on rare manu-
scripts. Bound down to the early
tedium of a stockboy and clerk, only
a seer could have projected him
standing before the United States
Supreme Court representing states
men and industrial giants.
Despite the Horatio Alger school
of biography, no man ever achieves
such success by hard work alone.
The formula always includes energy,
plus native ability, plus certain
breaks. In Mr.. Hogan's case,
early records of his life indicate,
he was endowed with a large meas
ure of energy and ambition. Ma
ture provided him with quick wit
and an extraordinarily retentive
The breaks came in a
most unexpected manner-a job in
that offered him the
opportunity for a legal education
and contact with powerful, wealthy
men.
Struggled in Early Life.
But although his later life was
spent in the company of the rich
and powerful, his early struggles
in him a lasting SYM
pathy for human beings-a SYM
pathy manifested by his constant
struggle against legal encroach-
ments on individual liberty.
Mr.. Hogan was born in Brook
lyn, N. Y, January IL. 1877, the
descendant of Irish immigrants who
came to the United States during
the 1840s and SOS. His parents were
Maurice E. and Mary McSweeney
Hogan. When a child of S, his
father died, leaving his mother to
three small children.
Young Frank was a sickly child
and when he was 7 his mother, be-
lieving he would have a better
chance to gain strength and health
away from the smoke laden air of a
great city, sent him to live with his
maternal grandmother and aunt in
Charleston, S. c., Mrs. Elizabeth
Byrnes.
His aunt in Charleston had a son
just younger than Frank, a lad
named James F. Byrnes. A few
years after Frank was sent to
Charleston, his mother followed
with the other children. She and
her sister, also a widow, took in
sewing to support their families.
Evidently the two sisters, despite
their poverty, found time to plant
the seeds of ambition in the minds
Of the two young lads. For the
Jimmy Byrnes with whom Frank
grew up as brother later served
with distinction in the United States
on the Supreme Court
bench and today as director Of the
ONCE Of War Mobilization, is the
principal assistant of the President.
After only fours years in public
and parochial schools, poverty
forced young Frank to start to work
at, IL, His first job was that of a
cash-boy in a dry-goods store. Sal
ary: 81 per week. A year later he be-
came telegraph messenger for the
South Carolina Railway. He earned
a little money, too, in off hours, TAX
ing subscriptions for newspapers and
books. His active mind in odd
moments enabled him, with the help
of Miss Marion Little, a company
stenographer, who taught him short
hand, to qualify as a clerk, first for
the railroad and later for brokerage
houses in Charleston and Savannah.
At 10 he was earning the munifcent
sum of $50 per month.
Gets Two Breaks.
During this period came two of
the breaks" that were to change
the course of Frank Hogan's life.
One was a chance acquaintance
with highly educated railroad
clerk, John Austin. The other was
the Spanish-American War.
The clerk, sensing young Hogan s
alert and eager mind, offered to
supply him with all the books he
provided that the donor
were allowed to select them. Frank
took up the offer with avidity. Soon
the boy was absorbing the golden
phrases of Shakespeare and the
other English classicists. The in
tensive and well-selected reading
course he followed under the tutor
ship Of the older clerk filled in the
wide gaps in his education and
awakened a love of literature which
lasted through life.
When the bugle sounded for VOL
unteers in the Spanish American
War in 1898. young Hogan promptly
answered. But he failed to qualify
physically. That, too, was break,
though he could not have seen 1t
then.
Aided Yellow Fever Fight.
BY 1899 yellow fever was raging
throughout Cuba, killing far more
soldiers than Spanish bullets. Ci-
william volunteers were asked to &c
to the island to aid in administra-
tive work in the quartermaster and
medical departments. Frank volun-
teered, and was employed as clerk
He served in Cuba until the Amer
ican troops were evacuated anc
then, as reward for his courage
in facing the yellow fever epidemic
he was given an appointment as 6
clerk in the War Department. H,
served first in the Office of the chic.
of the Quartermaster Corps anc
later in that of the Chief of Staff.
That was the important turning
point of his life. 1t opened al
sorts of vistas, including the op.
portunity for a legal education.
Installed in Washington with hi,
mother and a young wife. Mary
Cecile Adair, whom he married ir
Savannah in 1899, Mr.. Hogan, with
certain job and fixed income
matriculated in the Georgetown
University Law School,
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