Читать книгу John E. Parsons - Paul DeForest Hicks - Страница 5

The Gilded Age (roughly 1870 to 1910) was a period of rapid economic growth in the U.S. that resulted in a great divide between the “haves” and “have-nots.” Today’s super-rich “one percent” and the growing income inequality in the country are often cited as evidence that we are in the midst of a second Gilded Age. Over-compensated CEOs, hedge-fund managers and Wall Street traders are seen as latter-day versions of the robber barons who manipulated the nation’s economy through speculation and corporate consolidations (widely known as “trusts”).

There were many successful speculators and heads of large trusts at the turn of the twentieth century, but books about that era have focused mainly on a small number of famous tycoons and the business sectors they dominated. Among the most notable were Andrew Carnegie (steel), Jay Gould (railroads), J. P. Morgan (finance) and John D. Rockefeller (oil). They were, however, only four of the 750 millionaires in New York City (3,500 nationwide) who were listed in the 1902 edition of Hearst’s World Almanac.

Adjusted for inflation, $1 million in 1902 was roughly equivalent to $25 million today, so those included on the World Almanac list were really multi-millionaires. Most of them were industrialists, merchants, financiers, real estate investors or heirs of large estates. However, the rising tide of income, especially in New York, had elevated a small number of leading attorneys to millionaire status. Among them was John E. Parsons, one of the most eminent lawyers of the Gilded Age.

Parsons was still actively practicing law at age seventy-nine in 1908 when the New York Times described him as “New Yorker born and bred, legal advisor to big corporations and estates, and as a lawyer, believed to have the finest practice in the country.” He was reputed to have received one of the largest fees ever earned by a lawyer when he drew up the charter of the Sugar Trust in 1887. Winning the “Sugar Trust” case, a landmark antitrust action decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1895, added significantly to his reputation as well as his income.

Many clients of Parsons were on the 1902 list of millionaires, including the Astors, Coopers, Dodges, Havemeyers, Hewitts and Lorillards. They were all pillars of New York society, led by Mrs. William Astor, who was widely recognized as the doyenne of the social elite (the famous “400”). Those who could trace their descent from the original Dutch settlers (including Parsons) were generally referred to as “Old Knickerbockers,” whose fashions and foibles were memorably depicted in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.

None of his clients benefitted more from his legal skills than Henry O. (Harry) Havemeyer, who was the driving force behind the Sugar Trust. As its general counsel for more than twenty-five years, Parsons dealt with some of the most important and contentious political and economic issues of the period. Whether he was trying cases, arguing appeals or dealing with legislative committees about trusts, tariffs, rebates, campaign finance and other Sugar Trust matters, Parsons remained a favorite subject of reporters and columnists.

Over his long career, the legal profession underwent enormous changes, yet Parsons adapted and continued his remarkable record of success well into his seventies. The business revolution not only gave birth to the modern corporation, it also spawned the modern corporate attorney. Along with other elite lawyers like Joseph H. Choate, William Nelson Cromwell, Elihu Root, John W. Sterling and Francis Lynde Stetson, Parsons was in the front rank of attorneys who, as counselors, managed to steer their clients clear of litigation whenever possible.

In a memorial tribute to Parsons, Choate wrote: “Mr. Parsons was the ablest and most accomplished all-round lawyer I have ever encountered … There is no branch of the law or equity in which he was not fully equipped, but outside of court too he was a great lawyer, and I believe one of the wisest, most sagacious, and safest legal advisers that we ever had.”

He also played a major role in strengthening New York’s legal profession, which suffered after the Civil War both from relaxation of rules for bar admission and from a lack of organization and leadership. Corrupt actions by judicial allies of the notorious Boss Tweed finally convinced leading lawyers to form the Bar Association of the City of New York in 1871. Parsons, one of the youngest members of the original executive committee, took on an extensive investigation of three Tweed judges, which led to the impeachment of two and resignation of the third.

Although he avoided partisan politics and never sought public office, Parsons was a long-time leader of the nonpartisan movement to eliminate corruption and achieve political reform in New York City. Describing himself to a New York Times reporter in 1910 as an “old-time Democrat,” he believed in “recognition of the rights of the State as against attempted usurpation by the Federal Government.”

In addition to serving for more than five decades on the board of Cooper Union, Parsons headed the boards of two pioneering hospitals. One was the New York Woman’s Hospital, founded in 1857 as the first hospital in America dedicated exclusively to treating female patients. He also led the board of what is now Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center from its founding in 1882 and guided it through its turbulent early years up to his death.

Despite his demanding legal, civic and charitable commitments, Parsons took great pleasure in his private life, spending as much time as possible with his devoted wife Mary and their children in New York City as well as at their country homes. His boyhood home on a large estate in Rye, New York, allowed him to satisfy his taste for rural life on weekends and short vacations. Also, as long-time summer residents of Lenox in the Berkshires, the Parsons were among the early “cottagers,” who came there in search of a healthy place for their children, far removed from urban problems.

The death of his merchant father in a shipwreck when Parsons was not yet ten instilled in him the discipline and self-reliance for which he was widely admired. At age eighty, Parsons’s strength of character enabled him to bear the stress of being tried, along with other directors of the Sugar Trust, for alleged criminal violations of the antitrust law.

The conclusion of Joseph Choate’s memorial tribute in the City Bar Yearbook expressed a widely held view of John E. Parsons: “It would be hard to find in the whole ranks of our profession a more upright and honorable example of true service than the whole history of his life affords, and his name deserves to be cherished forever in this Association, as one of the most zealous founders and most valuable members and servants.”