larity a number of men actively engaged in politics, combining personal integrity with a high order of -practical capacity for political service. Of these the most striking group historically is the Albany Regency. Parker was in close and intimate relations with the Albany Regency of latter days, and was a warm friend of President Cleveland. Early in 1895, he was summoned by a telegram to Washington, where President Cleveland of fered him the post of First Assistant Post master-General of the United States. The salary was five thousand dollars. Parker thought the matter over, and although his salary as Surrogate was only three thousand dollars, he promptly declined the place, as he feared that to withdraw from the active life of his own county would mean the loss of his practice, which gave every promise of being established within a very few years. Somewhat surprised and a little disap pointed, Mr. Cleveland sent for Mr. Vilas, the Postmaster-General, saying, "Vilas, Parker says he has a three thousand dollar salary as Surrogate of Ulster County and is building up a law practice, and he can't afford to take a five thousand dollar place. "That's strange," said Vilas. "Why, I left a twenty-thousand dollar practice to take an eight thousand dollar place in the Cabinet." "Yes," retorted Parker; "and if I had been making twenty thousand dollars a year for ten years, I should not mind taking a five thousand dollar place in Washington. Later in the same year, the offer was authoritatively made to Parker of the Demo cratic nomination for Lieutenant-Governor of New York, but this, too, he declined. The time was at hand when Parker should definitely retire from politics, although he was not yet half through his thirties. On the urgent solicitation of the Democratic lead ers, Parker consented, in the autumn of 1885, to act as chairman of the Democratic Execu tive Committee in the State campaign. That campaign is still spoken of as one of the
most efficient and successful campaigns of the past generation. With practically no campaign funds, Parker fought an uphill fight wherein few hoped for success, and ended the campaign with a decisive victory. Here his political service came to an end, for in December of the same year, 1885, he was appointed to a vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court. In the following year, he was elected to a full term, the Republicans paying him the compliment of running no candidate. He was only thirty-five years old. In 1892 Judge Parker was appointed to sit in what was then the General Term of the Supreme Court, a court composed of three or four judges sitting en bane to review the judgments of their brethren on the Cir cuits. Owing to the amount and importance of the business in New York County, addi tional judges were sent to the General Term there, and Judge Parker has become known to the metropolitan bar chiefly through his service as a member of the General Term from 1892 until the Court's abolition by the new Constitution of 1894. The present Ap pellate Division of the Supreme Court suc ceeded to the jurisidiction of the old General Term, and when Judge Barrett was disabled by illness from sitting in the Appellate Divi sion, and a judge had to be sent from up the State to take his place, it was the justices of the Appellate Division themselves at whose request Judge Parker was again as signed to the onerous duties of the First Department. In 1897 he was elected ChiefJudge of the Court of Appeals by a majority of over sixty thousand. The State had given a Republican majority of over two hundred and fifty thousand a year before. I propose to confine myself to Judge Parker's judicial career since assuming his present office. Every lawyer knows that it is a very diffi cult thing to discover in the reported opin ions of a single judge any fundamental and characteristic qualities running through
