Farley, R. J.

English

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Louisiana Law ReviewVolume 5 | Number 4May 1944JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS, by George ColemanOsborn, Louisiana State University Press, BatonRouge, 1943. Pp. ix, 501. $4.00.R. J. FarleyThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at LSU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Louisiana Law Review by an authorized editor of LSU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact kreed25@lsu.edu.Repository CitationR. J. Farley, JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS, by George Coleman Osborn, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1943. Pp. ix, 501.$4.00., 5 La. L. Rev. (1944)Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev/vol5/iss4/13BOOK REVIEWSdone by Jefferson to guarantee a free press in the Bill of Rights.It was Jefferson who argued for the inclusion of a free pressguaranty in the Constitution, holding as he did that without anexpressed guaranty the federal government might, through im-plied powers, seek to control the press. The author's comment"We must admit that time has shown the necessity of that guar-anty," is forceful and convincing in the light of present day de-velopments. Dr. Mott's booklet is a valuable contribution both tothe history of a free press and to the part that Thomas Jeffersonplayed in its establishment.CHAS. P. MANSHIP*JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS, by George Coleman Osborn, LouisianaState University Press, Baton Rouge, 1943. Pp. ix, 501. $4.00.To the older people of Mississippi generally the career of JohnSharp Williams is proof not only of nearly all the best copybookadages of their day pertaining to the reward of merit, but as wellof particular elaborations and applications, sometimes questionedby the later generation. Outstanding among the latter are suchassertions that a statesman can be elected to public office withoutdemagoguery by the present democratic political machinery andthat Mississippi can produce such a one, the peer of any producedby other states or nations. The fact that he was born in Memphisis pooh-poohed as insignificant, if mentioned by some outsider,since Memphis itself has always been a product of Mississippifrom the time it was Chickasaw Bluffs until it became the hobbyof Mr. Crump, another Mississippian, who has been cited, strange-ly enough, as disproving some of the same copybook adages. Be-sides, Williams did not spend much time in Memphis. He wasmerely born there. At the age of eight he went to live at CedarGrove Plantation near Yazoo City, Mississippi, the home of hismaternal ancestors, which was to continue to be his home for theremainder of his life.After tracing the ancestry of Williams from seventeenth cen-tury Virginia to his birth in 1854 in Memphis, Mr. Osborn followshis subject from his youth during the Civil War and the days ofreconstruction, through his cultural education at Kentucky Mil-itary Institute, Sewanee, Virginia, Heidelberg, Dijon and back to* Publisher, State-Times and Morning Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.1944]LOUISIANA LAW REVIEWVirginia for law. After a brief try at practice in Memphis and hismarriage to Elizabeth Dial Webb of Livingston, Alabama, Wil-liams returned to Cedar Grove Plantation, and a short while laterbegan the practice of law in Yazoo City. From the late spring of1890 Mr. Osborn dates his entry into public life as an unsuccessfulcandidate for Congress. Elected after a second try in 1892, Wil-liams moved thenceforward on the national scene. As a congress-man he attained the minority leadership of his party from 1903 to1908, when he was elected to the senate by the Mississippi legisla-ture after a popular campaign the preceding year against thenGovernor James K. Vardaman. This to Mississippians was a battleof the Titans. The echoes of the famous joint debate at Meridianon July 4, 1907, still reverberate when oldsters get to talking pol-itics and those who heard it can still give a round-by-round andblow-by-blow account with a few details added. Not only canthey, but they will whenever given half a chance! No account ofthe life of Williams would be complete without it and so our au-thor does not overlook this prime requirement. After an interven-ing period of two years spent in study and preparation, Williamswent from the House of Representatives to the Senate, where heremained from March 4, 1911, until his voluntary retirement uponthe accession of his successor March 4, 1923. He spent his decliningdays at Cedar Grove until his- death on September 27, 1932. Toappreciate the statesmanship of Williams it is necessary to recon-struct the national issues from "free silver" to the League of Na-tions, the transition from the representative of the minority to thesenator of the majority. This Mr. Osborn does effectively for thereader's understanding without sacrificing the interlineation ofhonor, honesty, wit, satire, intelligence, learning, perspicacity,whimsicality, gentleness, and just enough of weakness for hu-manity and lovability.Any work which serves to keep green the memory of so greatand interesting a man is worthwhile. Mr. Osborn has done whatappears to be a tremendous amount of research. It is footnotedand appropriately illustrated by photographs and cartoons of theday. It will, be quite valuable as a source-book. However, in thislies a possible adverse criticism and especially with reference tomodern biography. In his preface the author says that he "haschosen to rely heavily upon the Williams papers in order that thesubject may be portrayed as far as possible in his own words."One's own depiction of oneself is apt to be either too modest ortoo boastful and self-analysis is seldom accurate. The author also[Vol. VBOOK-REVIEWSquotes the hope of the New York Times expressed on September29, 1932, that "John Sharp Williams' whims, his learning, hisweakness, the touch of genius in him, his strong individuality andoriginality" would in time find "a competent, sympathetic but im-partial biographer." A little less of the circumscription of cer-tainty and documentation and more resort to apocrypha and imag-gination may have given a more colorful and paradoxically aneven more accurate portrayal. After all, Major Frederick Sullens,of the Jackson Daily News, to whom many of the footnotes point,has known and used this method delightfully for a long time!Otherwise, it is a well-constructed book.R. J. FARLEY*The Louisiana State University Law School is justly proudof the three alumni law partnerships whose members havefounded a marital as well as a professional association. The threefollowing book reviews attest the continued scholarly activity ofthese six graduates as well as their constant interest in the jour-nal and affairs of their alma mater.LIFE AND LAW, by Samuel Williston. Little, Brown and Com-pany, 1940.Every law student, every teacher of law, every practicinglawyer, in fact everyone interested in the life of a great Amer-ican, should keenly enjoy reading the autobiography of SamuelWilliston entitled Life and Law. As you would expect of thelife of a great legal scholar, writer, and teacher, it is not the storyof high adventure or of romance that one finds in the autobiog-raphy of a Cellini, or in the Confessions of a Saint Augustine.The whole book is almost wholly devoid of romance with theexception of a few paragraphs dealing with the courtship of theyoung lady who later became the author's wife, and of severalcasual references to the courtships of others. Everything elsein the book is concerned with law or persons associated with it.In fact, it is the story of the author's lifetime devotion to the fieldof law and of his fervent and almost romantic attachment to it,in spite of many intermittent and quite frequently long spellsof illness from his youth up to the time of the writing of this* Professor of Law, Tulane University.1944]

JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS, by George Coleman Osborn, Louisiana
State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1943. Pp. ix, 501. $4.00.

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JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS, by George Coleman Osborn, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1943. Pp. ix, 501. $4.00.

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