562
THE GREEN BAG
Arts in 1871 and the degree of Master of Arts in 1872. At this time for about a year he was assistant professor of Latin in the University, and during the same period, animated by an eager desire for knowledge in every field, he took a night course in physiology and in the demonstration of anatomy in the medical department of that institution. In the fall of 1872 he entered the Columbia Law School at New York City and studied under that learned and accom plished lawyer and famous teacher, Theodore Dwight, taking both the junior and senior courses. Not satisfied with the very con siderable advantages which he had thus enjoyed in the way of a liberal education, after traveling in Europe extensively during the summer of 1873, in the following October he matriculated at the University of Leipsic for the purpose of studying German and taking a course in Roman Law and political economy, which he there pursued. The next year he went to Paris and there took a course of lectures on literature in the Sorbonne and in the Civil Law in L'ecole du Droit. In the fall of 1874 he was admitted to practice at the Bar at Nashville. He was in extensive practice there until 1890, when he was especially appointed by the governor to serve upon the supreme bench of his state and continued by successive appoint ments in this capacity for several years. So acceptable was his public service in this high position, both to the Bar and to the people, that when Judge Horace H. Lurton, then chief justice of that court, resigned to accept an appointment as Circuit Judge of the United States for the 6th Judicial Circuit, Governor Turney tendered to Judge Dickinson, March 23rd 1892, an appoint ment to a seat upon the supreme bench of the state. Judge Dickinson did not take this position, but resumed practice at Nash ville, where he remained until February 6th, 1895, when he was commissioned Assistant Attorney-General of the United States. He served in this important position with marked distinction and ability to the end
of Mr. Cleveland's term, first with Richard Olney, as attorney-general, and afterwards with his successor Judge Judson Harmon of Cincinnati. He enjoyed, in the highest degree, the confidence and esteem of these two distinguished men. Upon his resigna tion from this office he entered the legal department of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, as attorney for Tennes see and Northern Alabama, and also resumed general practice. About the same time he became an instructor in the Law School of Vanderbilt University, situated at Nashville, and continued to teach there until his re moval to Chicago. On November 1st, 1899, he succeeded Judge James Fentress as General Solicitor of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, and on the retirement of Mr. B. F. Ayer, one of the most eminent lawyers at the Chicago Bar, from the position of General Counsel for that company, a few years later, Judge Dickinson was appointed to succeed him, con tinuing also the duties which had been there tofore imposed upon the general solicitor. He has since occupied this position with, however, some participation in general practice in special and important cases. While Judge Dickinson has never been a candidate for office, in Tennessee he always took an active part in politics. He was especially active during the contest in that state growing out of the state debt, always standing firmly against any suggestion of repudiation or anything less than the dis charge, with the utmost fidelity, of every obligation of the state to its creditors, and, in 1882, was chairman of the so-called State Credit Wing of the Democratic Party. On two different occasions he was chair man of the committee of fifty of the Reform Association of Nashville, which in two pro longed and severe contests completely over threw a ring of politicians that had seemed to be firmly entrenched in power in that community. Judge Dickinson has had a very extended experience at the Bar and has been con
