XVII

JOHN LAMBERT CADWALADER

AN APPRECIATION 1

JOHN LAMBERT CADWALADER had none of that kind of reputation which sometimes vaguely emerges from the glamour of public life; for he had held but one office and that for only a brief period many years ago. But his services to institutions for the dissemination among the people of knowledge and culture, his leadership in his profession, the influence of his interesting personality and high character, and the friendship and respect which he commanded among the foremost men of his time, justly entitle him to be regarded as an American citizen of high distinction.

Mr. Cadwalader was born at Trenton on November 17, 1836, and died in the city of New York on March 11, 1914, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His ancestors had from Colonial days been persons of consequence in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He graduated at Princeton College in 1856; and he was for many years one of its most active trustees. He attended the Harvard Law School; and after graduating there he practiced law in New York City until he became, in 1874, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States, in the administration of General Grant. After leaving the State Department in 1876 he made a journey of observation around the world, during which he visited many interesting places in the Orient not then readily accessible. Upon his return to New 1 Paper read at the opening of the Trenton Public Library, April 6, 1915.

York he resumed the practice of law. In 1869 he had been one of the small number of lawyers who united in founding the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, which grew out of a movement to elevate the judiciary of the state which had fallen into disrepute during the Tweed régime. Many years afterward he became the President of the Association—an honor generally regarded as denoting leadership at the Bar of New York.

That Mr. Cadwalader gained high repute as a lawyer was not due to exceptional erudition nor yet to uncommon powers of advocacy. It was still less due to his willingness to yield to the tendency of modern conditions which too often obscure high professional ideals by expecting from a lawyer that he shall also be a man of business or even have some share in his client's enterprises. But Mr. Cadwalader was one of the old type of lawyers who assisted their clients to a wise solution of their difficulties or, if a contest was inevitable, delighted to "strive mightily" for the protection of their rights. His ability to summarize and state to a court in terse and incisive phrase the substance of a controversy was surpassed by few, if any, lawyers of his time, while his instinctive sense of justice gave him a grasp of principle which made him less prone than most men to a reliance upon a "codeless myriad of precedents." No lawyer could more readily (I had almost said gayly) divest himself of the encumbrance of technicalities and penetrate to the heart of a situation. While he was practical, sympathetic and always helpful, he never resorted to indirection or other tortuous expedients. He was especially effective where seemingly irreconcilable differences were to be composed. In such matters he long occupied a unique position as an adviser; and with years and experience he

grew to be one of those rare individuals whom a community invests with the character of a sage.

But it is his unselfish and fruitful services to the public that compel us to pay signal honor to his memory. His reputation was closely linked with the New York Public Library, and at the time of his death he was President of its Board of Trustees. More, perhaps, than to any other man was it due to him that that institution was established on a foundation broad and permanent. This was the culmination of many years of useful service to the public libraries of the city. And those who seek in heredity the springs of human action will find peculiar interest in the fact that Mr. Cadwalader's great-grandfather, Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, for many years a Colonial Councillor of Pennsylvania, was one of the first board of directors of The Library Company of Philadelphia, founded in 1731 largely through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin, who describes it in his autobiography as the "mother of all North American subscription libraries," and in the further fact-of especial interest on this occasionthat this same Doctor Cadwalader, having been in 1746 the first Burgess of Trenton, himself established in that place, prior to 1750, a public library, some of the volumes of which are still extant. While these early essays in library work were for many years necessarily on a limited scale, they contained the germ of an idea, long since generally accepted, that it is necessary to afford to a self-governing people opportunities for enlightenment, if their institutions are long to endure. And it is of the greatest interest to contrast the pioneer efforts of Franklin and his coadjutors in 1731, with the foundation, nearly two centuries later, of the magnificent institution in New York which, in the opportunities extended to the public for learning and re

search, and in the convenient access to good literature afforded by the circulating department, promises soon to surpass any similar institution in the world.

Mr. Cadwalader had been a trustee of the Astor Library, and early saw the importance of finding some means of availing of a large bequest of Samuel J. Tilden, so that it could be used in bringing together the Lenox Library, the Astor Library and a large number of smaller libraries in one vast institution. Many legal difficulties had to be removed by legislation, which was largely devised by him. When that was obtained it still remained to weld together the existing libraries, many of which were loath to surrender their autonomy and independence. Due largely, however, to the constructive genius of Mr. Cadwalader and to his indomitable persistence, tactful wisdom and practical experience, a plan was carried through by which there was established upon an enduring foundation one of the greatest consultation and circulating libraries of modern times. The difficulties in reaching this result seemed at the outset insurmountable; and the solution of the problem, as the then President of the United States said at the public opening of the library building, "required genius and statesmanship."

The rare aptitude of Mr. Cadwalader for work of this character led to his services being much sought for in connection with other institutions of a public, though not of a political or governmental, character. At the time of his death he was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Zoölogical Society, all in the city of New York; while he was closely connected as trustee with the organization and management of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Carnegie

Endowment for International Peace. The duties of these trusteeships were never performed in a perfunctory manner; for he devoted much of his time to them, being always one of that minority upon whom the burden of such work usually falls and on whose enthusiasm successful results always depend. Of frail physique, the burden was heavy, but his was a spirit which would not suffer, to the day of his death, even a partial retirement from such activities as these.

Three universities, Pennsylvania, Princeton and Harvard, conferred upon Mr. Cadwalader the degree of LL.D. He was justly proud of this distinction; for while his achievements were of undoubted merit they were not of the kind which usually evoke academic honors from so many of our great universities.

Mr. Cadwalader was the intimate friend and constant companion of many of the most eminent men in the councils of the nation and in the world of science and art. Such Americans as his brother-in-law Dr. Weir Mitchell, Colonel Higginson, Frank Millet, Dr. Billings, J. Pierpont Morgan, Senator Root, James C. Carter, Dr. McBurney, Whitelaw Reid and Joseph H. Choate were some of those numbered among his companions; while at his hospitable home in the Scotch Highlands he gathered Englishmen distinguished in statesmanship, art and learning. Among these he was esteemed for his high character, his brilliant wit, the constancy of his friendship, his refined but cordial hospitality and his wise counsels. He had a genius for friendship, and was a believer in the saying that "life is to be fortified by many friendships." He had great vivacity in conversation; and his pointed comment and witty repartee constantly enlivened the circle of his friends. This is an aspect of his personality which only those who enjoyed his intimacy can well appre