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THE GREEN BAG
profession. My own opinion is, that should each of the lawyers in this city, whose judg ments are entitled to any considerable de gree of weight, undertake to write down upon a piece of paper the ten best all-around trial lawyers at our Bar, Mr. Bonaparte's name would be found inscribed on a large majority of those papers. I am far from being alone in this estimate, for I have sub mitted it to other lawyers in whose judg ment upon professional matters generally I place the highest confidence, and they consider it a very conservative statement of what they believe to be the fact. And yet, although Mr. Bonaparte's stand ing at this Bar is as I have stated, and al though he has been engaged in practice here for over thirty years, it is an unde niable fact that his practice is not now, and never has been, a lucrative one. For this there are several reasons. In the first place, Mr. Bonaparte strongly entertains the old-fashioned and, as many in this so-called commercial age would doubtless consider it, antiquated view that there is a very broad distinction between a profession and a trade. He considers that the only legitimate and proper way in which a lawyer may actively seek new business, is by constantly devoting his very best efforts to the successful prosecution of that which has already been entrusted to him. He feels that the modern methods by which those engaged in mercantile pursuits are accustomed to increase the volume of their trade, such as advertising, traveling solici tors, rebates, special inducements, commis sions, and division of profits, while per fectly legitimate in the way of trade, are not in accordance with the dignity of the learned professions, and can not be resorted to with propriety by the members of those profes sions. He has, therefore, always declined the invitations he has at various times re ceived to invest capital in various business enterprises, with the understanding that as a consideration for so doing he would be retained as the regular counsel for the cor
porations. It is a well-known fact that by far the most lucrative practice now-a-days comes from the large corporations and those who own or control' them. To get and re tain this business ordinarily, two things are requisite — professional ability and influence. In the hour of trial, knowledge and ability are all-important, but in order ever to ar rive at the hour of trial in the cases which pay best, the lawyer who has nothing but ability must, in a majority of cases, share his profits with the man whose influence has brought him his job, whether that man be a partner who brings his influence into the firm as capital, or whether he be an out sider who receives his quid pro quo in some other form. Now Mr. Bonaparte has never been willing to purchase this influence, nor has he ever secured it in any other way. As a matter of fact, he has never been persona grata to organized capital, for various rea sons. He has no special prejudice against it nor any controversy with it. He fully recognizes its mighty power and the great good which that power can accomplish, and often does accomplish, for the community, but he will not bow down to it nor serve it, as a deity. He maintains that neither it nor those who control it, are entitled to any special privileges beyond other men before the law, because of its great power. He has frequently been called a doctrinaire. This word is defined by Webster as, "one who rigidly applies to political and other practical concerns, the abstract doctrines or principles of his own political philosophy." If in the above definition we should in place of the concluding words "his own philosophical system," substitute the words "the moral difference between right and wrong," it would be indeed, as far as it goes, a pretty accurate description of Mr. Bonaparte, for he is undoubtedly a doc trinaire in this sense. Now the so-called Captains of Industry, as a rule, are neither doctrinaires themselves of any kind, nor have they much use or liking for them. Judging from the recent disclosures con
