— affectionately called him, was its leading lawyer. His office adjoined the Court House, and one of his functions was as agent for lawyers in San Francisco and other legal centers of the State, to keep for them watch and ward of their calendar cases and at tend to any necessary interlocutory motions. Being an Irishman by descent and an earnest American patriot, it was natural that he took early interest in politics and that he was on the Republican side. In his thirty-second year his County sent him to the State legislature, where he so made his mark that his constituents named him for Congress, but he was twice unsuccessful. He was, however, a believer in the Robert Bruce apothegm which a poet has rendered for juveniles by a song, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." A third trial proved successful, as did a fourth and a fifth canvass. One term being under the administration of President Harrison, who, when a vacancy occurred in the ninth Federal judicial district (in California) by the death of that intrepid Circuit-Judge Lorenzo Sawyer, appointed him to that high office. His juridical opinions, pronounced as appeal judge during the five years of his non-interrupted term, are to be found in the "Federal Reporter," beginning at about volume forty-nine. When examined they will show succinctness of style, breadth of argument and precision of comment that will induce any layman even who reads them to exclaim, in the language of Ben Franklin's Quaker litigant, "Well, if this is not good common law it is good enough common sense."
Mr. McKenna's congressional career proved to be the stepping stone to his present office for, serving on the same committee with a congressman named McKinley, from Ohio, a strong friendship arose between them with mutual respect and esteem, especially as to McKenna's legal fence in committee room. So that when the whirligig of politics placed the Ohio comrade in the White House, being called upon by political exigencies to provide California with a Cabinet place, the President bethought him of his old associate, McKenna, who had won new legal laurels on the bench, and conferred upon him his present office; affording the Executive an opportunity to put another good Republican lawyer in the vacated judicial place and, in the event of Justice Field retiring on a pension, placing the attorney general on the Supreme bench, following the precedent set by President Jackson in taking ex-Attorney-General Roger B. Taney from a Cabinet post and placing him on the Federal bench. While legal abilities often lead their possessor into political office, it is not often that political office leads toward a juridical position.
While circuit judge at San Francisco, Judge McKenna displayed tact as well as skill in construing treaties and expounding international law, when many controversies arose respecting the treatment of Chinese emigrés arid their status of residency, there by demonstrating his eminent fitness for his present post, which will contemplate many treaty questions and international legal inquiries touching the neutrality laws, the bearing of the Greek blockade upon American commerce and construction of tariff complications or reciprocal treaties, or in transcontinental railway and corporate trust questions. Any lawyer, who shall even listlessly turn the leaves of the many volumes of opinions of attorney generals in the libraries of the Federal departments, can understand and appreciate how delicate and far-reaching are the questions which come before an attorney general. He is also senior adviser to a hundred Federal district attorneys. With previous legislative, executive and judicial experience preceding his as sumption of his present office, Attorney-General McKenna's career, be it short or long, may be expected to add fresh luster to that already imparted to it by a Parsons, a Wirt, a Crittenden, a Johnson, a Cushing, a Black, and an Evarts.
