John Brooks Leavitt
Encyclopedia
John Brooks Leavitt was a New York City
attorney, author and reformer. As member of the "Good Government" movement, Leavitt crusaded against Tammany Hall
municipal corruption, demanding in 1897 the indictment of United States Senator Thomas C. Platt
on charges of extorting bribes from the New York Life Insurance Company
in return for favors to the insurance giant. "We have positive evidence, which as soon as New York has an honest District Attorney
," Leavitt told a crowd of 2,000 gathered at Long Acre Square on Broadway, "will be laid before him, and we then shall be able to obtain an indictment and send the arch-boss to the jail which yawns for him."
, where his father John McDowell Leavitt
was practicing law, and his wife Bethia (Brooks) Leavitt. Leavitt subsequently attended high school in Zanesville, Ohio
, where his father acted as minister of an Episcopal church after leaving his law practice. In 1868 Leavitt graduated from Kenyon College
, and four years later he graduated with a master's degree. Leavitt then enrolled at the Columbia University School of Law, where he graduated in 1871.
Following his graduation from Columbia, Leavitt began clerking in a New York City law office, and shortly after hung out his shingle as sole practitioner. Leavitt's practice was meager, but gradually he found clients, usually cases he took when he felt a client had been shortchanged. An early client was a clergyman who was accused of . In a subsequent case tied to election fraud, Leavitt filed suit against the New York State Secretary of State, the state's Attorney General and other state officers for contempt of court. The state officers sued by Leavitt were heavily fined by the court for their offense.
From the beginning of his career, Leavitt was outspoken. Among his targets through the years were the telephone monopoly, fellow attorneys who abused the contingency fee system, the laws regarding the criminally insane, and the need for ballot reform in New York State.
Early on, Leavitt laid out his philosophy in simple language. "The conservatism which preaches the improvement of the individual as the sole cure for social ills," Leavitt wrote in 1902, "will never improve the world." Leavitt then launched an attack on corruption in all forms – especially corporate. "If an illustration is needed it is to be found in the conduct of directors of corporations, who, when acting as a body, countenance theft, bribery, extortion, tyranny, lawlessness, trickery and fraud, which as individuals each man would abhor.... The old common-law saying that corporations have no souls is false. Corporations have souls. Governments have souls. Society has a soul."
In another of Leavitt's articles, he cut to the chase. In writing on the church (Leavitt's client was a high churchman accused of malfeasance), Leavitt addressed the temptation to follow conventional wisdom. In his essay The Attitude of the Church Towards Things Not Seen, the New York attorney noted that while church members believed miracles which happened two millennia ago, and which they had not seen, they were skeptical of current events they had seen. "Sheep follow the shepherd," Leavitt wrote. "Many laymen echo their minister."
In 1910, Leavitt spoke to the graduating class of 18 women at the Woman's Law Class of New York University
. "I regret to say that many of the criminal lawyers of this city," Leavitt told the newly-minted attorneys, "do not reflect much credit on the profession, for far too often are they criminal in both senses of the word." If the jury system were removed, Leavitt told the 18 women who were among the first of their sex to practice law in the city, "in twenty-five years you will have a corrupt judiciary."
Like many reformers, Leavitt rarely passed up an opportunity to convey his message, and he was a frequent contributor of letters to the editor of The New York Times
and other New York City newspapers. The New York attorney was a contributor to the book Everyday Ethics, a collection of essays on professional ethics published by the Yale University Press in New Haven.
Among the progressives of the era, even during the era of President Theodore Roosevelt
, there was widespread skepticism that things would change for the better. In a letter to John Brooks Leavitt of January 26, 1900, for instance, E. L. Godkin told the New York attorney that barring extraordinary events, he was happily removing himself from public service in the face of the greed and corruption of elected officials. "At the time in question I was under the delusion," Godkin wrote to the reformer Leavitt, "from which I have recovered, that deliverance might come for this City from our respectable classes.... Thank God I am out of it. Such a condition of things among the instructed classes needs at least a generation to be reformed."
Leavitt held no political offices, and expressed gratitude that he felt compelled towards none. (For many years, Leavitt was a member of the Citizens Union
party, headquartered at 34 Union Square in lower Manhattan. Nor did he serve on any corporate boards of directors. In 1893 he was persuaded to run for Assemblyman on the 'Good Government' reform ticket, but failed to win election, which the crusading lawyer said came as a relief. Leavitt served on committees for reform of the Bar Association, where he proposed novel plans including reconstituting the United States Circuit Court of Appeals with a different composition of federal judges.
, the American Bar Association
and the reform-minded Civil Service League. Leavitt was a long-serving member of the New York Bar Association's Committee on Unlawful Practice of the Law, as well as the Committee on the Prevention of Unnecessary Litigation. He regularly contributed articles to The Counsellor, the New York Law School Law Journal, where he was listed as contributor.
Leavitt kept a law office at 30 Broad Street in downtown Manhattan. He was considered a Mugwump
Republican. Until the end of his life Leavitt served in various volunteer capacities with the Protestant Episcopal Church
for the diocese of New York, and was the longtime Senior Warden
at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in Manhattan's East Village
.
Leavitt was a founding director in 1891 of the East Side House, a settlement house on the East Side of Manhattan endowed by Charles B. Webster of R. H. Macy & Co.
The House was designed to form a 'self-supporting club which should keep the workingmen off the streets and out of the saloons."
Leavitt was active in the Alumni Associations of Columbia College and Kenyon College, which conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on him in 1896. He continued to write widely for periodicals and magazines, and often spoke to gatherings on the subject of municipal and corporate corruption. Leavitt was married in 1879 at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
, to Mary Keith, daughter of Rev. Ormes B. Keith of Philadelphia, and great-niece of Elias Boudinot
, president of the United States Congress
at the close of the Revolutionary War
. Mary (Keith) Leavitt died at the couple's home at 1 Lexington Avenue
at Gramercy Park
in Lower Manhattan
on July 3, 1916, at age 59.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
attorney, author and reformer. As member of the "Good Government" movement, Leavitt crusaded against Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
municipal corruption, demanding in 1897 the indictment of United States Senator Thomas C. Platt
Thomas C. Platt
Thomas Collier Platt was a two-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a three-term U.S. Senator from New York in the years 1881 and 1897-1909 — is best known as the "political boss" of the Republican Party in New York State in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century...
on charges of extorting bribes from the New York Life Insurance Company
New York Life Insurance Company
The New York Life Insurance Company is one of the largest mutual life-insurance companies in the United States, and one of the largest life insurers in the world, with about $287 billion in total assets under management, and more than $15 billion in surplus and AVR...
in return for favors to the insurance giant. "We have positive evidence, which as soon as New York has an honest District Attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
," Leavitt told a crowd of 2,000 gathered at Long Acre Square on Broadway, "will be laid before him, and we then shall be able to obtain an indictment and send the arch-boss to the jail which yawns for him."
Early life and career beginnings
John Brooks Leavitt was born September 30, 1849, at Cincinnati, OhioCincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
, where his father John McDowell Leavitt
John McDowell Leavitt
Rev. Dr. John McDowell Leavitt, D.D., LL.D. was an early Ohio lawyer, Episcopal clergyman, poet, novelist, editor and professor. Leavitt served as the second President of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and as President of St...
was practicing law, and his wife Bethia (Brooks) Leavitt. Leavitt subsequently attended high school in Zanesville, Ohio
Zanesville, Ohio
Zanesville is a city in and the county seat of Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. The population was 25,586 at the 2000 census.Zanesville was named after Ebenezer Zane, who had constructed Zane's Trace, a pioneer road through present-day Ohio...
, where his father acted as minister of an Episcopal church after leaving his law practice. In 1868 Leavitt graduated from Kenyon College
Kenyon College
Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private college in Ohio...
, and four years later he graduated with a master's degree. Leavitt then enrolled at the Columbia University School of Law, where he graduated in 1871.
Following his graduation from Columbia, Leavitt began clerking in a New York City law office, and shortly after hung out his shingle as sole practitioner. Leavitt's practice was meager, but gradually he found clients, usually cases he took when he felt a client had been shortchanged. An early client was a clergyman who was accused of . In a subsequent case tied to election fraud, Leavitt filed suit against the New York State Secretary of State, the state's Attorney General and other state officers for contempt of court. The state officers sued by Leavitt were heavily fined by the court for their offense.
From the beginning of his career, Leavitt was outspoken. Among his targets through the years were the telephone monopoly, fellow attorneys who abused the contingency fee system, the laws regarding the criminally insane, and the need for ballot reform in New York State.
Early on, Leavitt laid out his philosophy in simple language. "The conservatism which preaches the improvement of the individual as the sole cure for social ills," Leavitt wrote in 1902, "will never improve the world." Leavitt then launched an attack on corruption in all forms – especially corporate. "If an illustration is needed it is to be found in the conduct of directors of corporations, who, when acting as a body, countenance theft, bribery, extortion, tyranny, lawlessness, trickery and fraud, which as individuals each man would abhor.... The old common-law saying that corporations have no souls is false. Corporations have souls. Governments have souls. Society has a soul."
In another of Leavitt's articles, he cut to the chase. In writing on the church (Leavitt's client was a high churchman accused of malfeasance), Leavitt addressed the temptation to follow conventional wisdom. In his essay The Attitude of the Church Towards Things Not Seen, the New York attorney noted that while church members believed miracles which happened two millennia ago, and which they had not seen, they were skeptical of current events they had seen. "Sheep follow the shepherd," Leavitt wrote. "Many laymen echo their minister."
Outspoken crusader
Leavitt rarely missed an opportunity to put across his message. Speaking to the graduating class of his alma mater Kenyon College in 1896, for instance, Leavitt titled his commencement speech "The Civic Duties of College Graduates." Two years later, Leavitt delivered an address he called "American Institutions and Political Machines". Nor did Leavitt always take up the most popular causes. In one of his polemics, entitled To What Extent Should Insane Persons Be Amenable to Criminal Law?, Leavitt examined the issue of mental illness and legal culpability. (At the time Leavitt served as the chairman of the committee on Criminal Procedure of New York State Bar Association. Afterwards, Leavitt chaired the Bar Association's Committee on Commitment and Discharge of the Criminal Insane.http://books.google.com/books?id=rH0QAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR17&dq=%22john+brooks+leavitt%22&lr=&ei=GxY2SdPRGIvqkwTj8N1Q) Leavitt became a pioneer of New York State laws relating to the criminal culpability of those adjudged mentally ill.In 1910, Leavitt spoke to the graduating class of 18 women at the Woman's Law Class of New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. "I regret to say that many of the criminal lawyers of this city," Leavitt told the newly-minted attorneys, "do not reflect much credit on the profession, for far too often are they criminal in both senses of the word." If the jury system were removed, Leavitt told the 18 women who were among the first of their sex to practice law in the city, "in twenty-five years you will have a corrupt judiciary."
Like many reformers, Leavitt rarely passed up an opportunity to convey his message, and he was a frequent contributor of letters to the editor of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and other New York City newspapers. The New York attorney was a contributor to the book Everyday Ethics, a collection of essays on professional ethics published by the Yale University Press in New Haven.
Among the progressives of the era, even during the era of President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, there was widespread skepticism that things would change for the better. In a letter to John Brooks Leavitt of January 26, 1900, for instance, E. L. Godkin told the New York attorney that barring extraordinary events, he was happily removing himself from public service in the face of the greed and corruption of elected officials. "At the time in question I was under the delusion," Godkin wrote to the reformer Leavitt, "from which I have recovered, that deliverance might come for this City from our respectable classes.... Thank God I am out of it. Such a condition of things among the instructed classes needs at least a generation to be reformed."
Leavitt held no political offices, and expressed gratitude that he felt compelled towards none. (For many years, Leavitt was a member of the Citizens Union
Citizens Union
Citizens Union is one of the United States' first good government groups. Founded in 1897 as a political party, the group was reconstituted in 1908 as a non-partisan member organization with the broad mission of serving "as a watchdog for the public interest and an advocate for the common...
party, headquartered at 34 Union Square in lower Manhattan. Nor did he serve on any corporate boards of directors. In 1893 he was persuaded to run for Assemblyman on the 'Good Government' reform ticket, but failed to win election, which the crusading lawyer said came as a relief. Leavitt served on committees for reform of the Bar Association, where he proposed novel plans including reconstituting the United States Circuit Court of Appeals with a different composition of federal judges.
Later life and legacy
John Brooks Leavitt was a member of the University Club, the Social Reform Club, the New York City League of Reform, the National Civil Service Reform League, the Barnard Club, Onteora Club, the Bar Association of New York City, the New York State Bar AssociationNew York State Bar Association
The New York State Bar Association , with 77,000 members, is the largest voluntary bar association in the United States.-History:The State Bar was founded with a constitution that dates to 1877...
, the American Bar Association
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
and the reform-minded Civil Service League. Leavitt was a long-serving member of the New York Bar Association's Committee on Unlawful Practice of the Law, as well as the Committee on the Prevention of Unnecessary Litigation. He regularly contributed articles to The Counsellor, the New York Law School Law Journal, where he was listed as contributor.
Leavitt kept a law office at 30 Broad Street in downtown Manhattan. He was considered a Mugwump
Mugwump
The Mugwumps were Republican political activists who bolted from the United States Republican Party by supporting Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in the United States presidential election of 1884. They switched parties because they rejected the financial corruption associated with Republican...
Republican. Until the end of his life Leavitt served in various volunteer capacities with the Protestant Episcopal Church
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
for the diocese of New York, and was the longtime Senior Warden
Churchwarden
A churchwarden is a lay official in a parish church or congregation of the Anglican Communion, usually working as a part-time volunteer. Holders of these positions are ex officio members of the parish board, usually called a vestry, parish council, parochial church council, or in the case of a...
at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in Manhattan's East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
.
Leavitt was a founding director in 1891 of the East Side House, a settlement house on the East Side of Manhattan endowed by Charles B. Webster of R. H. Macy & Co.
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
The House was designed to form a 'self-supporting club which should keep the workingmen off the streets and out of the saloons."
Leavitt was active in the Alumni Associations of Columbia College and Kenyon College, which conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on him in 1896. He continued to write widely for periodicals and magazines, and often spoke to gatherings on the subject of municipal and corporate corruption. Leavitt was married in 1879 at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...
, to Mary Keith, daughter of Rev. Ormes B. Keith of Philadelphia, and great-niece of Elias Boudinot
Elias Boudinot
Elias Boudinot was a lawyer and statesman from Elizabeth, New Jersey who was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a U.S. Congressman for New Jersey...
, president of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
at the close of the Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
. Mary (Keith) Leavitt died at the couple's home at 1 Lexington Avenue
Lexington Avenue (Manhattan)
Lexington Avenue, often colloquially abbreviated by New Yorkers as "Lex," is an avenue on the East Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City that carries southbound one-way traffic from East 131st Street to Gramercy Park at East 21st Street...
at Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park is a small, fenced-in private park in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park is at the core of both the neighborhood referred to as either Gramercy or Gramercy Park and the Gramercy Park Historic District...
in Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
on July 3, 1916, at age 59.
External links
Further reading
- A Code of Negligence: Being the Law of the State of New York In Respect of Negligence and Kindred Subjects As Declared by Its Court of Last Resort, John Brooks Leavitt, LL.D., Matthew Bender, Albany, N.Y., 1903
- An Open Letter to the Hon. David Dudley Field, LL. D., Upon the Subject of the Adoption of His Civil Code, John Brooks Leavitt, Evening Post Job Printing Office. New York, 1886
See also
- John Leavitt (Ohio settler)John Leavitt (Ohio settler)Capt. John Wheeler Leavitt , born in Suffield, Connecticut, was an early settler of Ohio's Western Reserve lands, where members of his family had bought large tracts from the state of Connecticut, and where Capt. Leavitt became an early innkeeper, politician and landowner in Warren, Trumbull...
- Humphrey Howe Leavitt
- John McDowell LeavittJohn McDowell LeavittRev. Dr. John McDowell Leavitt, D.D., LL.D. was an early Ohio lawyer, Episcopal clergyman, poet, novelist, editor and professor. Leavitt served as the second President of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and as President of St...