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THE GREEN BAG
from what they were when originally in troduced, as modifications were required in order to bring conflicting views into harmonious action. During all these eigh teen years Mr. Bonaparte has, in the large majority of cases, been the person to devise a plan upon which everybody could agree. .And this was no easy task, for I am sure that any one who could always get the exec utive committee of the Baltimore Reform League to work effectively and without appreciable friction during this long period of time, has fully earned the diploma of a past grand master of harmony. Shortly after Mr. Bonaparte came to the Bar, he was brought into relations with Mr. Severn Teackle Wallis, who had then been for many years and continued to be until his death in 1894, one of the two acknow ledged leaders of our Bar as well as the most brilliant orator, conspicuous reform leader, and best-known citizen of Maryland. Mr. Wallis said of him to me, and on more than one occasion to others in my hearing, that he presented a more remarkable combina tion of perfect self-confidence and naive diffidence than he had ever met with in the
same person. The result of thirty years' close observation of Mr. Bonaparte has con vinced me that Mr. Wallis's diagnosis was correct. The self-confidence is always ex hibited when he is advocating a cause or a principle that he believes to [be just and of vital consequence, and when he is defending the rights of others which he considers un justly assailed — in doing this he is absolutely fearless and never has been in any wise a respecter of persons. The naive diffidence is shown in his abso lute lack of self-assertion in all matters re lating to his personal advancement or profit. In an oration on John Marshall as Lawyer and Judge, delivered before the Bar of Mary land on "John Marshall Day," Mr. Bona parte quoted the following sentences from Horace Binney's eulogy on the great Chief Justice. "Office, power, and public honors, he never sought. They sought him, and never found him prepared to welcome them, except as a sense of duty commanded." The same words might be as truly spoken of himself. BALTIMORE, MD., June, 1905.
