Kentucky Lawyer

Introduction

Introduction Someone has well said that the memory of its great men is a nation’s most cherished inheritance. The term “great” is not always properly used. Greatness is a relative thing, and when speaking of great men we are inclined to think only of public men who hold high office and who are immortalized in history books as national or state political leaders, or men of science or achievement in some field of endeavor that is mentioned in the press or periodicals of the day. But all too frequently true greatness goes unnoticed and unrecorded. American culture in its most intimate and significant sense is composed of the acts and epressions of local leaders in the everyday affairs of life. It is from these inconspicuous individuals that our nation derives much of its strength. They are the people who day after day in the little places of America meet the compleities of everyday life and the unglamorous business of just getting along, but in so doing preserve and strengthen the sinews of our democracy. It is with a hope of preserving a part of this delightful fineness of our traditional Americanism that I write about the Kentucky lawyer and pay tribute to a group of men whom I have known and admired etremely. When one undertakes to record some of his observa1  Mac Swinford tions and eperiences, he runs the risk of being accused of vanity; I hope that I shall not be so charged in this effort. The privilege of having the opportunity to observe at first hand these colorful and gifted men seems to place upon me an obligation to see to it that some of their contributions to our society, which might otherwise be lost to professional lore, are preserved. Do not understand me to say that the Kentucky lawyer or the members of the profession generally have been neglected by authors and historians. They have not. The guidance of lawyers to our government in its formation and preservation has received a full share of acknowledgment. Kentuckians especially have been well recognized in this respect. One cannot read American history without noting the important parts played by Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden, John G. Carlisle, John C. Breckinridge and numerous others, to say nothing of such men of national and world stature as Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Alben W. Barkley, Supreme Court Justices John M. Harlan and Stanley F. Reed, and Chief Justice of the United States, Fred M. Vinson. My concern in this book is primarily with the many lawyers in Kentucky who were and are capable of discharging a trust with honor and ability equal to that of the men mentioned above, but who, because of circumstance or purpose, have never become known beyond a local or statewide orbit. No comment In referring to Kentuckians, Harlan, Vinson and Reed, who became members of the Supreme Court of the Unit- ...