Clarence Darrow

Clarence Seward Darrow was born on April 18, 1857, in Farmdale, near Kinsman, in Trumbull County, OhioOhioOhio is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital is Columbus. It joined the Union in 1803 as the 17th state, the first carved from the Northwest Territory, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 11,799,448.Open the full entry; his mother was Emily Eddy, and he had five brothers and two sisters. His mother died of cancer in 1872, the year he spent at Allegheny College.⁠[1][2]

From 1873 to 1876 he taught school in Kinsman while studying law on his own; in 1877 he spent a year in the law department of the University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a university founded in Detroit in 1817 that moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1837; it is governed by a statewide-elected Board of Regents and also has campuses in Dearborn and Flint.Open the full entry before leaving because of the cost, and in 1878 he worked in a law office in Youngstown, Ohio, reading law under a lawyer’s direction. In 1879, at the age of 22, he was admitted to the Ohio bar.⁠[1][3]

He practiced first in Youngstown, moved to Andover, Ohio, in the early 1880s, and in 1884 moved to Ashtabula, where he became part-time city solicitor. In 1887, at 30, he moved with his family to Chicago, where he joined the efforts to free the anarchists charged after the Haymarket affair of 1886.⁠[1][2]

In 1889 Chicago mayor DeWitt Cregier appointed him Special Assessment Attorney, and he went on to become Assistant Corporation Counsel and then Corporation Counsel; BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry connects his appointment as corporation counsel with his friendship with John Peter Altgeld. In 1891 he took a part-time post in the legal department of the Chicago & North Western Railway, later serving as its general attorney before leaving to take up labor defense.⁠[1][2]

In 1893 he formed the firm Collins, Goodrich, Darrow & Vincent and pressed IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is a state of the United States that borders Lake Michigan and the states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa; its capital is Springfield and its largest city is Chicago. It was admitted to the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 12,812,508.Open the full entry governor Altgeld to pardon the remaining Haymarket defendants, which Altgeld did in June 1893. At various times he was a law partner of Altgeld and of the poet Edgar Lee Masters.⁠[1][2]

After the Pullman Strike of 1894 he defended Eugene V. DebsEugene V. DebsEugene V. Debs (1855–1926) was an American labor leader and socialist politician who founded the American Railway Union in 1893, led the Pullman Strike of 1894 and ran for president of the United States five times between 1900 and 1920. Convicted under the Espionage Act in 1918 for an antiwar speech, he was released in 1921 when Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence.Open the full entry and other leaders of the American Railway Union. A federal court found them in contempt, and the Supreme Court of the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry upheld the ruling; in 1895 the separate conspiracy case against them ended when the prosecution dropped it after a juror fell ill.⁠[1][2][3]

In 1898 he represented woodworkers in Oshkosh, WisconsinWisconsinWisconsin is a state in the north-central United States; its capital is Madison and its largest city is Milwaukee. Wisconsin was admitted to the Union on May 29, 1848, as the 30th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,893,718 residents.Open the full entry, and in 1902 he represented the striking anthracite coal miners of PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaPennsylvania (officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States; its capital is Harrisburg, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are its two great metropolitan areas. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 12, 1787, the second state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 13,002,700.Open the full entry before the arbitration commission, exposing harsh mine conditions and child labor. In November 1902 he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, where he served one term.⁠[3][2][1]

In 1906–1907 he defended William D. Haywood and other labor leaders in IdahoIdahoIdaho is a state in the northwestern United States, often classed as a Mountain state and also considered part of the Pacific Northwest; its capital and largest city is Boise. It was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 1,839,106.Open the full entry against charges of conspiring to assassinate former governor Frank Steunenberg; Haywood was acquitted in 1907, and the charges against Pettibone and Moyer were dropped.⁠[1][2]

In 1911 he defended the McNamara brothers, charged with dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building; they pleaded guilty during the trial and were spared the death penalty. He was then charged with attempted jury bribery: he was acquitted at the first trial in 1912, and the second ended in a mistrial on March 8, 1913, after the jury deadlocked 8–4 for conviction. A third charge was dropped on condition that he leave Los Angeles, and in 1913 he returned to Chicago and formed a partnership with Peter Sissman.⁠[1][3][2]

On May 21, 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Robert (Bobby) Franks in Chicago. He had both plead guilty and argued against the death penalty on the grounds of their youth; the judge sentenced them to prison rather than death.⁠[1][2]

In March 1925 the Tennessee legislature passed the Butler Act, signed by Governor Austin Peay, which made it unlawful to teach any doctrine denying the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible. The American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend a TennesseeTennesseeTennessee is a U.S. state in the southeast-central United States, with its capital at Nashville. It was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 6,910,840 residents.Open the full entry teacher in a test case, and John T. Scopes, a science teacher and football coach at the high school in Dayton, agreed to be the defendant and was indicted in late May 1925.⁠[4][5]

The trial ran from July 10 to 21, 1925, in Dayton, Tennessee, before Judge John T. Raulston. William Jennings BryanWilliam Jennings BryanWilliam Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) was an American politician and orator who represented Nebraska in the U.S. House, won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1896, 1900 and 1908 but lost each election, served as U.S. Secretary of State from 1913 to 1915, and was a prosecutor in the 1925 Scopes trial.Open the full entry served as special prosecutor, while Darrow led a defense team that included John Randolph Neal, Dudley Field Malone and Arthur Garfield Hays. Raulston ruled the expert testimony of scientists inadmissible and barred any test of the law’s constitutionality.⁠[4][5][6]

On July 20, 1925, with the proceedings moved to the courthouse lawn, Darrow called Bryan to testify as an expert on the Bible and examined him for about 90 minutes. On July 21 the jury found Scopes guilty after about 10 minutes of deliberation, and Raulston imposed the minimum fine of $100. In January 1927 the Tennessee Supreme Court held that the Butler Act did not violate the federal or state constitutions but voided the conviction because the state constitution required a jury to set any fine above $50. The law was repealed in 1967.⁠[4][5][1]

In 1925–1926 he defended Dr. Ossian Sweet and his co-defendants in Detroit, members of a Black family charged with murder after resisting a mob that tried to force them out of a white neighborhood; the first trial, in November 1925, ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked, and at the second, in April–May 1926, Henry Sweet was acquitted.⁠[1][2][3]

In May 1925 he became a founding member of the American League to Abolish Capital Punishment. On April 13, 1927, he announced his retirement from the practice of law, effective on his 70th birthday, April 18; on May 9, 1927, he was elected a director of the NAACP.⁠[1]

On February 5, 1932, Charles Scribner’s Sons published his autobiography, The Story of My Life, at $3.50, and it became a bestseller. That year he defended four white defendants in HawaiiHawaiiHawaii is a U.S. state consisting of a group of volcanic islands in the central Pacific Ocean; its capital is Honolulu, on the island of Oʻahu. Hawaii was admitted to the Union on August 21, 1959, as the 50th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 1,455,271.Open the full entry charged in the killing of Joseph Kahahawai; the jury convicted them of manslaughter and recommended leniency, and their sentence of ten years’ hard labor was commuted by the governor of Hawaii to one hour, after which they were freed.⁠[1]

On March 7, 1934, Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945, the only president elected four times; he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II and greatly expanded the federal government’s role through the New Deal.Open the full entry created the National Recovery Review Board and named him its chair. Over about four months the board held 57 hearings, reviewed 3,375 complaints and investigated 34 codes; its critical reports angered Hugh Johnson and the administration. On June 30, 1934, Roosevelt abolished the board by executive order.⁠[1]

He died at his home in Chicago on March 13, 1938, after about two months confined to bed, with his wife Ruby, his son Paul and his sister Jennie Moore present. On March 15 a memorial service was held at Bond Chapel at the University of Chicago, where Judge William Holly read the eulogy Darrow had written for Altgeld in 1902. He was cremated at Oakwoods Cemetery on March 19, and that day his ashes were scattered from the bridge at the Jackson Park lagoon; in 1957 the bridge was dedicated as the Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge.⁠[1][7][2]

He married Jessie Ohl on May 15, 1880; their son Paul, his only child, was born in 1883, and the couple divorced in 1897 after 19 years of marriage. On July 16, 1903, he married Ruby Hammerstrom, who died on July 6, 1957.⁠[1]

His writings include A Persian Pearl and Other Essays (1899), Resist Not Evil (1902), the semi-autobiographical novel Farmington (1904), the novel An Eye for an Eye (1905), Crime: Its Cause and Treatment (1922) and The Prohibition Mania (1927), written with Victor S. Yarros.⁠[1][2]

He supported the closed shop and unrestricted freedom of expression and opposed capital punishment, Prohibition, protective tariffs and the League of Nations; the University of Minnesota Law Library describes him as a committed agnostic who argued that social forces cause crime and attacked organized religion, and states that he never lost a client to the death penalty at trial.⁠[2][3]

Clarence Darrow Digital Collection: Official website: https://librarycollections.law.umn.edu/darrow (opens in a new window).⁠[7]