Address By Hon. William J. Jackson
May it please the Court:
I desire to make a motion for the adjournment of this court, but
preliminary thereto I wish to say a few words, which I hope may be deemed
appropriate to this occasion and the circumstances under which this court
is now in session.
This day is an interesting one to the members of this bar and the people
of this county. We have just withdrawn forever from a forum that for more
than sixty years has stood in the midst of the people, as the visible
place or temple where the law has been administered, under which the
people have lived, and under its benign and protecting influence, have
prospered. It has been sacred to the people, because therein the
sovereignty of the law was asserted, a sovereignty that assumed the form
of organized law, which has always commanded, and still commands, the
fealty and respect of the citizens of Rock Island County.
In this beautiful edifice in which we are now assembled, we are to
continue the administration of public justice, to decide under the forms
of law and in a spirit of impartiality, so far as it can be done by human
agencies, the claims of contending litigants, and to preserve, protect,
and maintain the rights of the, state, and the individual rights and
interests of the people, collectively and respectively.
Almost sixty-four years have passed since the first session of this
circuit court, which, on the 28th day of April, 1834, was held at the
plain and unpretentious log and frame house of John Barrel, in the eastern
part of this city, Judge Richard M. Young presiding. The machinery of
justice, thus set in motion, was started under very humble circumstances.
The house of John Barrel contained no paneled ceilings, frescoed walls, or
marble wainscoting. There was harmony and uniformity of design, finish and
color, both in the interior and exterior, yet it was more in keeping with
nature, than art; yet the decrees of that court, from that plain forum,
were recognized and regarded by the people, the pushing, hardy, tolerant
and hopeful pioneers of that day, who had pushed ahead into this country,
then the far west, to found for themselves and the generations to come
after them, a local government.
The architectural style, beauty and finish of this edifice especially
interests the members of this bar. The years of the past have come and
gone; the administration of the law and the business of the courts has not
been done in marble halls, yet it has been well done. At no time have the
people considered it necessary to assume or take the administration of the
law out of the regular channels; they have always entrusted it to the
direction of the lawfully constituted authorities.
There is not, at this bar today, a lawyer that connects us with the
beginning of our judicial existence, but few links, however, intervene
between this assemblage today and the very beginning. This, however, can
only be said of the lawyers. We have with us today in this room, citizens
of advanced years, who were active citizens of this county in the years of
the beginning; who helped to lay, firm and deep, the foundation of law and
order in this county, and who can, and do, today, rejoice that the work
was so well done and has been so well maintained. To emphasize this
present thought, we would pray that in the conduct and heart of the future
people of this county, there shall dwell that sense of the dignity and
supremacy of the law that so signally characterized the fathers.
The log house of John Barrel was soon superseded by the brick court house,
to which we have this day bidden adieu, and while we contemplate the
grandeur of the present edifice, and consider the burden, voluntarily
imposed by the people to provide for its construction, we must not forget
that the pioneers of this county, according to their numbers and ability,
assumed an equal burden to provide the court house that we have just
abandoned, which, in the day of its completion, was the pride of this part
of the northwest.
The construction of this court house in which we are now met, is not the
result of a protracted effort, first suggested in the board of supervisors
in April, 1893, by Supervisor Joseph Fitzpatrick, the means to erect
provided by the people, by vote in 1894, the foundation stone laid in
October, 1895; and completed for dedication in March, 1897.
The necessity for a new court of justice was promptly recognized by the
honorable board of supervisors, although the building of a new structure
involved increased taxation, and added to existing burdens, yet the people
of this county, by their votes, declared that the time had come when the
character and dignity of the county, in connection with its executive and
judicial departments, demanded a temple of justice that would truly
represent the progress, culture and improved artistic taste of the
present. The people decreed; it has been done.
We look around, and beyond, and behold this edifice, beautiful in design,
symmetrical in proportion; in its architecture the designer lives, and
will continue to live to tell the onlooker how, in his brain, there was
planted that quality of art and artistic appreciation of form, color,
quality and proportion, that could conceive and plan this building, about
which there can be only one expression, "How beautiful!"
Not only does the building display the skill and artistic talent of the
designer, but also the skill of the more humble craftsman, who, by cunning
manipulation, mechanical conception and execution could, and has, so
worthily and successfully fashioned and built that which the artist in
beauty designed.
This court house stands as a monument to the good taste, broad and liberal
spirit of the board of supervisors of this county, who, notwithstanding
many adverse and discouraging criticisms, yet, believing that the people
of Rock Island County were worthy of a structure that should represent the
intelligence and energy of the people, had the courage and determination
to build this building. For the push, energy and official integrity that
has brought the work to so successful a termination, we will today award
to the board of supervisors that measure of credit, recognition and praise
that is their due.
We should not, at this time, when speaking of the means and forces that
insured the successful completion of the court house, forget the faithful
contractor, and the superintendent, who have so well performed their
labors, and won for themselves the recognition of their fellow citizens,
who will award to them the credit of having performed their work with
signal ability and merited tribute of praise.
The board of supervisors have ordered that on the 31st day of March, 1897,
the people should be invited into this public edifice, to cordially and
quietly enjoy and contemplate this public enterprise so auspiciously
completed; hence we are now surrounded with a busy, earnest throng of
citizens, who are this day, with music attending, treading the broad
aisles of this court house, enjoying the delight of its beauty, and
expressing by their attendance their interest in the work that was so
worthily conceived, and has been so successfully completed.
And now, in the presence of this court and the people, what shall be
further said on this occasion? We have built this house, doomed and
cupaloed, principally with iron, stone and marble, not only because we
wanted to build, but to build with such form and grace that it should
stand in the midst of the people as a public recognition of the supremacy
and majesty of the law; the law, not as a shifting and uncertain influence
to be changed by the casting of a die, but a controlling moral and
political force, that stands guard by day and by night, shielding and
protecting all classes alike; not only the house of luxury and refinement,
but an all powerful influence encircling and protecting the cabin of the
poor; a law so potent that it tempers the power of the executive, as well
as the will of the people; the limitations of the law being its safety,
its adaptation to all being its strength and beauty. The majesty of its
influence was well illustrated in the celebrated speech of Earl Chatham,
in the British Parliament, "The poorest man in his cottage may bid
defiance to all the forces of the Crown; it may be frail, its roof may
shake, the storm may enter it, but the King of England cannot enter
it,-all his power dares not cross the threshold of that ruined tenement."
When the citizen surveys this public structure, he can not only enjoy the
grandeur of its appearance, but the mental fact that it is the monument of
a free people, guided and inspired by wise and just laws, and intent upon
the enforcement of them; laws to be obeyed until repealed; and if, in the
course of time, experience demands a change to meet new conditions, then
shall the change be made, not by wilful disregard of existing enactments,
but by legal and constitutional methods, for only by such methods, and
under such conditions, shall the "government of the people, by the people,
and for the people," survive, and not perish from the earth.
I am loath to close my remarks without a few words to my associates at
this bar.
The sixty-four years of the judicial life of this court is behind us. Many
of us passed the summit; what we have done, or left undone, the world
knows. The personal and mental characteristics that have marked our lives
and actions during the years of the past will probably remain unchanged to
the end. If our lives have not been well rounded out by upright conduct
and moral force, the fault has been with ourselves. Happy for us if our
personal characters have so impressed our fellows that they are willing to
concede that our lives have been well spent.
But there are at this bar, at this time more than at any former period of
its history, many young men of varied talents, who will be the leaders of
the future. It is an interesting and important question to ask what will
be their position in this court, and what estimate their fellow citizens
will place upon them. Will they come and plead at this bar only for
personal glory, that men may praise their ingenuity and skill as lawyers?
Will they simply estimate their personal importance by their gains,
without reference to the means and instrumentalities used to command these
gains, or will the lawyers of the future at this bar be men whose highest
aim shall be so to discharge the varied and exacting duties of the
profession, and their personal duties to their fellow practitioners, that
inquiry will not be necessary to find out to what plane of public
estimation they have attained, but the constant, truthful, kind and even
tenor of their professional conduct shall lead men to a prompt, instant
and cordial recognition of their personal worth. I hope this may be the
standard of the lawyers of this county.
A word to the judges of this court. I speak after an experience of
thirty-six years; during those years I have had the honor to appear before
all the judges that have presided in the circuit and county courts.
Considering the arduous and delicate duties that a judge has o to perform,
restraining the impetuous lawyer, client or witness, instructing and
encouraging the timid and independent, deciding delicate and intricate
legal questions, affirmed by positive counsel and questioned by others-
equally positive; and yet, so deciding the questions involved that the
decision shall carry with it the respect of all,-duties of this kind would
appear to be so difficult that complaint would seem to be the rule; yet
this bar, and the people of this county have a right, and it is their duty
to accord to the judges now living and to the memory of those departed,
that the work of the judiciary has been well and faithfully done; and the
kindly and earnest expression of good feeling of the lawyers of this
county towards the judges is a just and proper tribute to the bench of the
courts of this county. If, in the future, another court house . shall
supplant the beautiful one in which we are now gathered, and it is then
said about the judiciary, as it can now be said, that the bench has been
an inspiration and kindly assistance to the bar, the years of the future
in that regard will be years of pleasant association and reciprocated
kindnesses.
'And now, if the court please, in view of the public interest now
manifested in this court house dedication, and to enable the judges,
lawyers and officers of this court to join with their fellow citizens in
this gathering of the people, I move that this court do now adjourn.
Early Settlements of Rock Island County
Source: Historic Rock Island County, pub. Kramer & Company, Rock Island, Illinois, 1908