mitted was composed of W. H. Swiggart, as Chairman, Mr. C. P. McKinney, L. D. Smith, Robert Burrow, E. A. Price and John T. Lellyett; I had a letter from the Chairman telling me he had had some conference with Mr. Biggs, and he intended to prepare the report and send it to the other members. Unfortunately Mr. Biggs has been sick for some weeks past and for that reason, no report was prepared. I take it, however, the matters which were referred to that committee have now really been referred to the committee on Judicial Administration and Remedial Procedure.

Mr. John C. Brown: I want to make a report for the Committee on Obituaries and Memorials:

Mr. President and Gentlemen:

The following members have died during the past year:
Hon. R. E. L. Mountcastle, of Knoxville.

W. H. Dietz, of Kingston.

Judge Joseph W. Sneed, of Knoxville.

Judge James C. Bradford, of Nashville.

We submit the appended memorials.

Committee on Obituaries and Memorials.
JOHN C. BROWN, Chairman.

IN MEMORIAM

JUDGE JAMES C. BRADFORD.

James C. Bradford, of English and Irish birth, was a native of Jefferson County, Mississippi, that state which produced Walthall, L. Q. C. Lamar and other great legal minds, having been born on the plantation of his father, Thomas Bradford, 61 years ago. From the farm he rose to the top rung of the ladder of his profession. The elder Bradford was a planter and entrusted a business commission to his son, though a mere lad, which he despatched with fidelity. Thus was the child the father of the man. During the war the Bradfords moved to Texas, near the Brazos River. Soon one of the saddest blows of life befell the young man, the loss of his father. But the omniscient God spared him a noble mother, who doubtless watched him with

tender care. All his early education was given by her. He went to a country school in Texas. At one time he clerked in a drug store and studied law at the same time. Blackstone evidently interested him more than Aesculapius, for his employer told him he was the poorest clerk he had ever had. "If you ever get to be a lawyer, let me know," he said. Mr. Bradford sent him one of his best briefs. He lived in Arkansas at one time and was a tutor in a relative's family in Louisiana, saved $100 and came to Nashville with that amount. His mother was with him much of the time. Mr. Bradford wrote personal reminiscences of those early days and a perusal of them, which has been vouchsafed us, is most interesting. An ancestor was the youngest revolutionary officer in Washington's army. In fact, his ancestry were wellto-do and prominent in the affairs of infant America. In these reminiscences Mr. Bradford affectionately refers to the plantation home of his boyhood, Holly Hill, and of the great profusion and beauty of its flowers, of which his parents were most fond. He has also drawn a pen picture, for he was a gifted writer, of the brilliant ante-bellum South, with its hospitality, fox hunting, culture and society. Mr. Bradford in his review of that period, in speaking of the slave owners says: "As a rule they were kind, and did not drive or overwork their slaves." Christmas week on the plantation is described with great beauty. The presidential election of 1860 is vividly recounted and John Bell, for whom my own father, Gov. John C. Brown, stumped the state from Carter to Shelby, is paid a glowing tribute. The journey of the Bradford family to Texas overland was painful and dangerous and Mr. Bradford's description of it is full of suffering and trouble. It is akin to the perilous water trip of Donelson, the father of old Hickory's future wife, on the Tennessee River.

He was admitted to practice in 1873 at the Nashville bar and formed a law partnership with Gen. G. P. Thurston, a federal officer, who had settled there. We have often heard that genial northern soldier recount his association with "Jim Bradford," as he called him. He rose rapidly to prominence at the bar and it was ever his chosen work, though he engaged in other pursuits at times. It seemed to him the lode-star, which drew deepest from his stores of knowledge and industry. To him his chosen profession was, as the present Attorney General of the

United States, who was a contemporary of Mr. Bradford, at the Nashville Bar, had often said when in Tennessee: "The law is a jealous mistress." He knew no life but labor, no thought but zeal, and no encomium but duty well performed. Standing as he is now in the shadows, before the Supreme Court above, we must admit his remarkable career at the bar, the leader in his own city, one of the ablest lawyers in the South. "There is a prince and great man fallen this day in Israel." "This was a man.'

When quite young he was chosen City Attorney and fulfilled the onerous duties of that office with satisfaction to the public interest. It must have been here that he acquired a taste for politics. Although never a candidate for office, he served on state and county committees and was a delegate to many conventions, devoting at all time his varied talents to the welfare of the South's salvation, the democratic party. He was often mentioned as a proper occupant for high offices and would have adorned any. In the celebrated convention held at the Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, which finally resulted in the nomination of Gen. Patterson as the candidate for governor, there was wild confusion and scenes of great disorder. It seemed that democracy would be rent in twain and the party of Jackson and Cleveland obliterated. In this emergency Mr. Bradford was selected by all factions to preside over the convention and he did so with great ability, healing the breach and bringing peace. Said a newspaper at that time:

"Hon. James C. Bradford is not only one of the biggest lawyers in Tennessee, but he is one of the most admired men in the state. As temporary chairman of the recent convention he made an enviable reputation for himself. His rulings were not only fair, but were so clearly and logically stated that they were easily followed to a conclusion in which all agreed to be just and right. It was soon observed that he cared more for his reputation as an honest man than he did for the ambition of either candidate for office. It is of such men only that chairman should be chosen and then justice will be done.

Our friend engaged in many famous legal battles; he was a hard fighter, but never hit below the belt; he was a ready debater and presented a proposition of law clearly and lucidly; it was more like the harmony of music than a dry legal statement.

Mr. Bradford had a fine command of the purest English and his delivery was easy and smooth, at times almost colloquial. In fact he had a practice in the Supreme Court of folding his arms over the reading desk on the bar table and talking to the bench. as if in conversation. But he often resorted to eloquence, of a sturdy sort, and brought his argument to a close with a splendid peroration. Perhaps I should quote from Col. H. M. Doak, clerk of the U. S. Court, at Nashville, his dear friend and mine, who wrote shortly after Mr. Bradford's death:

He never indulged in what is known as oratory. His method before court or jury was quiet, dispassionate statement, unornate, severe, critical, profoundly analytical closely logical-not the logic of the "schoolmen," or of the schools, nor yet of the logic books-only perfectly characterized by Dean Swift-but the logic of native reason and fact, without embellishment, and, most of all without "quiddits, "quillits," or logical "tricks," or subterfuge. Unless I except Jas. E. Bailey, I think he was the fairest in statement and argument I ever heard in court room.

Mr. Bradford was several times trustee and receiver of large concerns and brought them out of their entanglement with signal success. He also enjoyed a large corporation practice, which kept him greatly occupied. A few days before our friend's death, Dr. Kirkland, the Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, wrote him a letter offering to pay Mr. Bradford a fee in the Vanderbilt case, which was decided at the last term of the supreme court. His advice had been originally sought and the opinion he gave was sent to Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt in New York and was the basis of the litigation which ensued. Mr. Bradford's opinion was highly prized. He had a knack of quickly going to the core of a case by aid of that analytical brain, which was his. Perhaps one of the last of his important series of suits were those growing out of the Belle Meade property, owned by Gen. W. H. Jackson, and which was wrecked by the speculations of his son-in-law, Albert D. Marks. These cases were in the courts for years and Mr. Bradford was the Jackson attorney. He was also of counsel in the celebrated Furman Will case. He had perhaps the most lucrative practice of any lawyer at the bar and was at the time of his death vice-president and general counsel for the Nashville Railway and Light Com