Vol. X.
No. 3.
BOSTON.
March, 1898.
ATTORNEY- GENERAL GRIGGS. THE new Federal Attorney-General has been receiving congratulations from all portions of his native State, because for the first time in its history New Jersey has been honored by securing one of its lawyers as the head of the Federal Department of Justice. Hitherto that State had found three of its statesmen in the cabinets as secretaries of the Navy, and one other as secretary of State; of whom all but one were members of its bar. Contemporaneously with this accession of John William Griggs to the Attorney-Gen eralship, there also came congratulations to his predecessor, Joseph McKenna, who had been raised to the Supreme Bench. These latter congratulations had been all the more welcome, because organized opposition to Judge McKenna's confirmation by the Sen ate had arisen from a political organization called the American Protestant Association ( known in colloquial and newspaper par lance as the A. P. A. ), on the ground that a Roman Catholic ought not to sit on the Supreme Bench, because as was claimed he owed superior allegiance to the Papal head of his Apostolic Church; these opponents forgetting that Roger B. Taney, also of that religious faith, had served as Chief-Justice during a quarter of this century with the ut most impartiality and loyalty to his country. Judge McKenna had also been opposed by members of his old California Bar on the extraordinary allegation that he was not adapted, either by learning or temperament, for a judicial position. These opponents also lapsing into forgetfulness that he had prior to having been made Attorney-General
served as a District Federal judge in Cali fornia. In the number of the Green Bag for the month of July, 1897 a sketch of the legal career of Joseph McKenna had ap peared, which, as has been learned, was read in the Senate as answer to the aforesaid criticism of lawyers. Attorney-General Griggs was confirmed as soon as his nomination reached the Senate; for his home neighbor, Vice-President Hobart, was there to testify to his legal experi ence in the litigious city of Paterson wherein both were residents; and Senator William J. Sewall of the Camden Bar could further bear witness to the legal standing of the nominee. Although the new incumbent came from the hot bed of politics into the observation of President McKinley, the senators and the public, resigning the office of governor of his State to accept the new legal position; and previously having actively figured in its two houses of legislation — such a career when examined denies those famous lines of Goldsmith in his poem of " Retaliation" — narrowed his mind And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. Although Mr. Griggs had been — as were his greatest predecessors, Wirt, Taney, Crit tenden, Cushing, Black and Evarts — very active and potent in politics, he had retained active sympathy, and, until taking the guber natorial chair, practical participation in his profession. The new Attorney-General was born on the eve of the half-century in the conserva tive county of Sussex as a farmer's son. There he acquired that love and study of 89
