In Memoriam Frank A. Hooker

OCTOBER 3, 1911

 Upon the convening of court for the October term 1911, on Tuesday, October 3d, the Honorable FRANK A. DEAN, of Charlotte, presented the following memorial, prepared by a committee of the Eaton County Bar Association, and moved the court to place it on the records of the court:

MEMORIAL.

The Honorable FRANK A. HOOKER, for 15 years judge of the fifth judicial circuit and for 18 years a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Michigan, departed this life at the city of Auburn, New York, on the 10th day of July, 1911.

Deeply appreciating, through long and intimate acquaintance, his sterling worth and irreproachable character, his eminence as a jurist and profound legal learning, we desire to express and record a sense of the public loss, and gratefully acknowledge his long and faithful services to the State.

He was born at Hartford, Conn., January 16, 1844, and at an early age moved with his parents to Ohio, in the public schools of which State he received his education. He sprang from sturdy New England stock, was ambitious and self-reliant, and owed his early education, the substructure of his future success, to his own untiring energies. He builded well and realized in after years the fruition of his early hopes. In 1865 he graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan, and in the following year moved to Charlotte, Michigan, where he was engaged in the active practice of the law until 1878.

Inexperienced, unassuming, and reserved, without money or aid of influential friends, but with a brave heart, lofty ideals, and a fixed purpose, he overcame all obstacles, and, by the force of an indomitable will, tireless energy, and faultless integrity, forced a well-deserved recognition of his worth as lawyer and man at a bar then distinguished for its brilliant advocates, the fame of some of whom, in later years, extended beyond the limits of the State. He faithfully and ably discharged the duties of prosecuting attorney of Eaton county for two terms. As a practitioner he exercised great care in the preparation of his cases for trial, was courteous to court and opposing counsel and ever cherished a high regard for the ethics of the profession.

In 1878 he became judge of the fifth judicial circuit of Michigan, which important public trust he discharged with marked ability and fidelity for a period of 15 years. During this period of his public service he presided at the trials of some of the most important civil and criminal cases recorded in our court annals and became widely and favorably known to the bench and bar of Michigan. He possessed those mental traits which go far to make an ideal trial judge.

He was impartial, fearless, courteous, fair minded, even tempered, of quick perception, with power of concentration, analytical and methodical, profound in legal learning, and lucid in his instructions to juries. Naturally reserved, he clothed the bench with a dignity that inspired the reverence of the bar. No private consideration ever moved his judgment.

His opinions, recorded in 73 volumes of the Michigan Reports, will remain perpetual memorials to his legal learning, untiring industry and devotion to public duty. He has left his impress on the law of the State and reared his own monument, more enduring than marble or brass.

His private life, his devotion to home and kindred, was an example to all. A generous soul was his, cloaked in a mantle of reserve. The burden of a great grief, the loss of a loving life companion, hastened his journey into the great unknown.
It is therefore hereby requested that this memorial be spread at length upon the records of this court.
FRANK A. DEAN.
JOSEPH B. HENDEE.
GEO. HUGGETT.

 Mr. H. E. SPALDING, of Detroit, presented the following memorial, adopted by the Association of the Bar of the City of Detroit, at a meeting held at Detroit, July 12, 1911, and requested that it be made of record in this court:

MEMORIAL.

It would be difficult for one to portray in any satisfactory terms the value of the life of a splendid citizen, lawyer, and jurist to his profession and his State. Justice FRANK A. HOOKER, of Michigan, who died July 10, 1911, at Auburn, New York, was such a man. One of those strong, constant characters that through a lifetime by its steady industry and never ceasing devotion to right-living and conscientious endeavor in civic, professional, and judicial duties had won honors which were crowned with unusual usefulness to this Commonwealth.

Unostentatious, industrious, learned in his profession, kind and considerate in his every action, conscientious, faithful to every trust imposed upon him, he was indeed a splendid judge, and in his death Michigan has met with a great loss.

Judge HOOKER was a descendant of that hardy race of New Englanders, whose lives and activities in the earlier days of the Republic imbued them with patriotic spirits and determined wills to do their full duty in life. That same blood, that same determined spirit, that same desire to fulfill in every respect his duties to his fellows and his State, possessed our deceased friend and brother throughout his whole career. All these desirable attributes combined in Justice HOOKER and made him strong in his profession and invaluable as a judge.

Judge HOOKER was born in Hartford, Conn., January 16, 1844, 67 years ago.

His father was a tradesman, and his son was brought up to work, learning the mason’s trade. His education was in the common schools and the law department of the University of Michigan, from which he graduated in 1865. He commenced practice in Bryan, Ohio, and in 1866 came to Michigan, locating at Charlotte, Michigan; was twice elected county superintendent of schools, was justice of the peace for several years, and at that time developed judicial ability. In 1872 was elected prosecuting attorney, and in 1878 was appointed circuit judge of the fifth judicial circuit, then composed of Eaton, Berrien, and Calhoun counties, and remained upon the circuit bench until elected in 1892 to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court occasioned by the resignation of Justice ALLEN B. MORSE.

His long judicial career and industry developed in him a strong and valuable judge. His great familiarity with the decisions of the court was of great value. In well written and well argued opinions, he has made for himself a splendid history, which will be read and cited in the determination of important legal controversies for many years to come. They will outlive many generations, and the name of HOOKER will be considered among the names of the splendid array of jurists who have become famous on the bench in this State.

Brethren, it is in this presence, surrounded by these reflections of splendid achievements, that we are standing today to spread upon our records some token of our esteem for the man who has laid aside the ermine and gone out from among us. Not dead, for he lives; lives in the achievements of a splendid life, lives in the monuments of a great life’s work.

Whereas, we, the members of the Association of the Bar of the City of Detroit, realizing our great loss, and the loss to this Commonwealth, in the death of Justice FRANK A. HOOKER, and desiring to acknowledge our appreciation of his life’s work, as a lawyer and a judge, and express our sympathy to his immediate family and to the State at large, as an association. Now, therefore,

Resolved, That in the death of Justice FRANK A. HOOKER, we realize and mourn the loss, with the whole State, of a splendid and efficient jurist, conscientious, painstaking, and an honorable member of our Supreme Court.

That in the many years of his service on the Supreme bench of Michigan, we recognize in his work and written opinions, a learned and splendid promulgation of the law which has helped to keep our State and its judiciary in the front rank of the courts of the States of the Union, and which is recognized for able and valuable legal opinions in construing and settling the law.

Resolved, That we express, and hereby convey, our sympathy to the immediate family and friends of our late deceased brother.

Resolved, That a committee of 16 members of the Detroit bar be appointed by the president of the association to attend the funeral of Judge HOOKER, and that they convey an engrossed copy of these resolutions to his family.

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be spread upon the records of the circuit court of Wayne county, the United States Circuit Court, and the Supreme Court of this State.
PHILIP T. VAN ZILE.
THOS. T. LEETE, JR.
WILLIAM L. CARPENTER.
CLAUDIUS B. GRANT.
ALFRED J. MURPHY.
FRANK E. ROBSON.

Mr. SPALDING further spoke as follows:
May it Please the Court:
No formal conventional expression can give any just and lively image of a life or any adequate conception of a character. Especially is this true of one whose personality was so justly poised and balanced and whose life was so little marked by extraordinary incident as that of Justice HOOKER.

It is much to be regretted that these resolutions could not be presented, as was planned, by Judge CARPENTER, for such a subject requires sympathetic insight, born of a long and intimate association.

We are accustomed, on such occasions, to overemphasize the outside of life, to dwell unduly on the concrete forms in which the living spirit wrought, though these things have importance. Judge HOOKER’S life work was done upon the bench. It stretched over 33 years—longer than that of any other judge who ever sat in this court. Three times he was elected circuit judge and three times a member of the Supreme Court. That work took up all his time and engrossed his faculties. It allowed little relaxation and did not permit the growth of other interests. How well it was done, with what quiet, unpretending efficiency, need not in this presence be recounted.

When those with whom and for whom he worked shall have followed him, he will necessarily be estimated by his recorded decisions, but they do not show the true measure of the man or his true value as a judge, for it was Judge HOOKER’s aim, not to write brilliant opinions, but to decide cases correctly and in accordance with sound legal principles.

Judicial independence and popular confidence in the judiciary are common in our mouths, though not always given equal emphasis in the same mouth. Some apparently consider that they are incompatible advantages and that the confidence is to be secured at the expense of the independence. Of all such “base and rotten policy”— whose followers betray their own real distrust of popular government— Judge HOOKER’S life and character are a complete refutation. No man ever had less of the arts of popularity. His manner, shy and constrained except with intimate friends, was often misconstrued. He lived apart and in that sought nor gained general acquaintance. He doubtless knew that certain legal views and doctrines are popular and others unpopular, but no effect of that consciousness can be traced in his decisions.

That Judge HOOKER could gain, and for more than a generation could keep, the confidence of the people of this State by the sober, regular, unfailing discharge of judicial duty without fear or favor either of the classes or of the masses, and by that alone, is a thing most honorable to him and to the people whom he served, and it is for the character and temper, which, even more than his ability, contributed to that result, that we loved and honored him living and venerate his memory now that he is gone.
“Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.”

 Remarks of the Honorable CLAUDIUS B. GRANT, of Detroit:
May it Please the Court:
While the resolutions presented by the bar express all that need be said, yet I ask your permission to pay a brief tribute to my former associate and friend.

It is certainly appropriate and wise that we, the members of the bar, ask your Honors to spread upon the records of this court a commendation of the services and character of the late Justice HOOKER, the former associate upon this bench of all your Honors save one. Such commendation is due to the memory of the deceased, and spread upon the records of this court, and to thus perpetuate, our commendation of an able jurist and a good citizen, as an incentive, not only to the present and future members of the bar, but to the entire body of our citizenship to lead lives of temperance, honesty, and purity. For 17 years I sat with his as a member of the court before which I now stand; and for 17 years I sat with him around the consultation table. I therefore know the man. A man’s character after death is just what he makes it in his life.

We oftentimes bury a man’s faults and preserve and laud his good deeds and characteristics. Judge HOOKER had no serious faults to bury. I can truthfully say here today that our deceased friend and brother had no past for himself or his friends to regret. I find nothing in his life for which to apologize, or to excuse or palliate. This can be said of but few men. The escutcheon he bore through a life of 67 years had no stain upon it. As a jurist his sole aim was to reach justice by the shortest cut— justice based upon reason, common sense, and the experience of centuries. In a marked degree he was uninfluenced by prejudice, passion, friendship, or enmity. While, in these days of unrest, the governors of some of our States assemble and attack the decisions of our Federal courts and appoint a committee to in some manner present to the highest tribunal in this country— the Supreme Court of the United States— their protest against those decisions, it is refreshing to here pay tribute to one who, amid similar attacks, walked in and out of this courtroom and before his fellow countrymen in dignified silence without protest or comment, leaving his calm, logical, and clearly-written opinions and his unsullied character to speak for themselves in answer to the attacks. He and I sometimes differed, as the Reports of this court will show. Oftentimes discussions reconciled our differences and led to a unanimous opinion. While Justice HOOKER was always open to argument, he was firm and unyielding when, after mature deliberation, he had reached a conclusion.

While I admired him as an honest and able jurist, I loved him as a friend and neighbor. He and I were rival candidates before the Republican convention in 1889 for nomination as Justice of the Supreme Court. I was the successful candidate. I had then never met Judge HOOKER. I first met him here in Lansing in January, 1890. He was so reserved and apparently so cool that I formed a wrong impression of his character. I thought at first that there must be some feeling in his mind over his defeat, but in 1892 he became a member of this court; I very soon became intimate with him and ascertained that I had entirely misjudged him, and that his reserve and modesty covered as warm a heart and genial a spirit as one can care to find. We were very intimate, and our visits to each other’s houses were for a time of almost weekly occurrence, and many were the happy hours that he and the faithful partner of his life and my wife and I spent in social intercourse around the whist table. That frequent intercourse continued until death brought sorrow into my own family circle and destroyed in great measure my desire for social intercourse. In those sorrows I found him a quiet, unobtrusive, sympathizing friend. He was fortunate in his ancestry, most fortunate, and happy in his domestic relations, fortunate in his life, and fortunate in his death. I speak advisedly when I say fortunate in his death, because he died without warning, with his body unenfeebled, and his mind unclouded by age. He needed no time to put his house in order; he kept it in order by a pure and blameless life. He escaped all the ills which unfortunately are the usual accompaniment of old age. He and Justice CAMPBFLL ended their lives in an ideal way. Our intercourse with him in this life is ended, but there is a life beyond. God grant that we may all so live that when our summons comes we may renew our intercourse with him in that eternal and unknown country, wisely veiled from our mortal vision.

 The Honorable EDWARD CAHILL, of Lansing, spoke as follows:
May it Please the Court:

I cannot let this occasion pass without adding a word to what has been said as to the worth of the man whose memory we are met to honor. It is especially fitting that the bar of Ingham county, of which I have the honor to be a member, should be heard on this occasion. Judge HOOKER spent practically all of his professional life almost in sight of the Capitol dome. The borders of his home county of Eaton reached close to the city limits of Lansing, and Lansing lawyers always felt quite as much at home before Judge HOOKER, when he was judge of the circuit, as they did in their own county.

My acquaintance with Judge HOOKER goes back of the time when he was circuit judge. I knew him when he was justice of the peace, and it speaks well for the intelligence of the citizens of Charlotte that they had the rare judgment to select for that humble but honorable and responsible office a man who had in him the making of a Justice of the Supreme Court. It is remembered of him, also, that he then justified the trust reposed in him, by giving to the duties of that office the same painstaking and conscientious attention which he later exhibited as he was advanced from the lowest to the highest grade of judicial service in the State.

I knew Judge HOOKER well as a circuit judge. If I were to single out one of his strong points as a nisi prius judge, I would emphasize his ability to dispatch business. I would not be understood as commending mere alertness— approaching pertness—which we sometimes see on the bench. Such a man may dispatch business, but is not a judge— Judge HOOKER was not that kind. He was a good listener and a patient one, but when he had heard both sides he was generally ready to decide, and he often did so with a promptness that left counsel on one side of the case agape with astonishment. Parties having litigation in his court rarely had occasion to complain of “the law’s delays.” He was not only prompt, but his sound knowledge of the law, his wide experience with men, and every-day affairs, and his unusual fund of common sense, generally led him to the right conclusion.

I want to say a word about Judge HOOKER as a friend and neighbor. For 19 years he went in and out among the people of this community in his modest, retiring way, making friends but no enemies. He did not make acquaintances as easily as some men. There was an air of reserve about him, which strangers sometimes mistook for haughtiness, but he had not a tinge of haughtiness about him. He was modest, almost to timidity, but no man ever reached out the friendly hand to him without having it grasped in a sincere and kindly spirit, and friends once made were rarely lost. He was reticent but not unsocial. He was a good conversationalist in the same sense that Sir Walter Scott meant when he said that on certain occasions “speech spoiled conversation.” It has been said that many brilliant talkers are incapable of conversation. Judge HOOKER certainly had not that weakness. He greatly enjoyed the companionship and conversation of his friends. He was open-handed and hospitable, and his latchstring was always out for the entertainment of his neighbors.

 Rev. THOMAS HOOKER, the eminent divine, founded, with his colony, the city of Hartford, Conn., in 1636, and became the first pastor of the church, which in those days accompanied every advancement into the wilderness. From him have descended many men who have become eminent as divines, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, seamen, and men skillful and successful in commerce and the useful arts. From this source, by direct descent, has come down to us FRANK A. HOOKER. It may be truthfully said that among the great men who have borne this name, he stands shoulder to shoulder in the front rank.

The Honorable FRANZ C. KUHN, Attorney General, spoke as follows:
May it Please the Court:
“Death takes us unawares
And stays our hurrying feet,
The great design unfinished lies:
Our lives are incomplete.”

Stricken while still in vigorous manhood, the Grim Reaper has taken from your midst one whom the entire bar, and, in fact, all the people of our State had learned to admire and respect. It was a great shock to all who knew Judge HOOKER to learn of his death while away from home, and when he was about to take a much-needed rest and recreation.

It has not been my privilege to know him well personally. While at the University, I did, however, become well acquainted with his two sons during the four years that we were in the literary department, and the friendships thus formed caused me to have more than a general interest in the work and public career of their father. The resolutions offered by the bar associations pay deserved and merited tribute to his worth as a citizen, his work as a lawyer, and his career upon the bench. I have been particularly interested in his early career, and it is my belief that it was the large experience he had with the everyday affairs of life, gained from administering the duties of the offices of county commissioner of schools, justice of the peace, prosecuting attorney, and circuit judge, that so well equipped him for the important duties of a position on the court of last resort in this great State. I was much interested in reading of his career as a lawyer and of what the judge before whom he practiced said of him. In an interview had in 1881 Judge WOODRUFF, of Marshall, said of him:

“He always prepared his cases well, was not a case lawyer, but looked upon the law as a science rather than as a mass of rules; he was gifted with a power of strict analysis, and his arguments were logical and his exposition lucid. His talent as a jury lawyer was of a superior order, while his efforts in that way might be termed solid rather than brilliant. He never appealed to passion or prejudice, but his aim seemed to be to enlighten and convince.”

The record of his work as a judge of this court, speaks for itself. His untiring energy and industry is known to you all, and the logic and legal acumen of his written opinions has been most favorably commented upon by the entire bar of this State. In his personal relations with men, one would easily get the impression that he was distant and unsociable, but on closer acquaintance such an impression would be quickly dissipated, and one would soon appreciate the kindly interest he took in his fellow man. I remember gratefully the kind words of encouragement with which I was received by him when I assumed the duties of the office which I now hold, and I have heard young men of the bar speak of the courtesy and considerate treatment they received at his hands.

The study of lives of men like Judge HOOKER, without stain and crowned with success and achievement, is indeed an inspiration, and serves to create ideals which do much toward creating high standards of citizenship and faithfulness in public office. In the death of such a man Michigan has indeed suffered a great loss, and I am heartily in accord with the memorial resolutions which have been offered.

 The Honorable CHASE S. OSBORN, Governor of the State of Michigan, spoke as follows:
It is a deep satisfaction to have been present at these exercises. In so far as it is possible for me to do so, as governor, I feel it my duty to bring here an expression of the respect that the people of Michigan felt for the late Justice HOOKER, and their sorrow at his death. To me he had no mask. If there was any curtain of austerity over the window of his heart it was used to partially conceal an unusual degree of kindness and generosity. Probably the last letter he wrote in his life was addressed to me. It was in the interest of a person who is weak and obscure, and through it there were many evidences of refined humanity and deep consideration.

Justice HOOKER possessed those attributes of mind and heart and character that go to make a man. When he took his place upon this great court he did not forget his humanity. His work and attitude, as judged by the public, were such as to bring to this court his share of those things that have made the Supreme Court of Michigan trusted and respected by the people.

Justice HOOKER, by his life and work, showed his belief in a court above, supreme over all earthly things. Before that court we all will have to stand. He has been there and has won his case by the record he made here. The people of Michigan mourn his loss and will forever cherish and respect his memory.

 Mr. LEVI BARBOUR spoke as follows:
May it Please the Court:
I was well acquainted with Justice HOOKER during his student days at the University of Michigan, during the law course of 1865-4. We sat at the same table immediately in front of the platform occupied by those eminent men, Justices CAMPBELL and COOLEY and by Judge WALKER.

The same characteristics which distinguished Mr. HOOKER all through his judicial career marked him, I think, as a student. He was always in his place, an earnest and industrious listener, had the points correctly, and in reviews stated them exactly.

In the moot courts he never attempted flourish of speech or brilliancy. He was a plodder who went to the foundation, applied the principles and arrived at the logical results in that way. So I believe the characteristics which marked his judicial life were more innate than a matter of growth and cultivation. He was always sober and sedate, seldom smiling and never a joker or fun maker.

 Chief Justice OSTRANDER spoke as follows:
After serving 14 years as circuit judge, Justice HOOKER, at the January, 1893, term, assumed the position and duties of chief justice of this court. He had acquired the habit of judicial inquiry, and had a wide knowledge of the law. He possessed the power of close analysis, mental stores well assorted and available, and the genius of common sense. He had formed no habits which interfered with the fullest exercise of his intellectual faculties, and had no interests which might affect his honest judgment. He surveyed life and men, and the actions of men, with level eyes, without passion, and, as nearly as any of us can do so, without prejudice. He was charitable towards human frailties, and had the saving grace of humor. Add to these qualities honest purpose, a high sense of the importance of the work of the court, instinctive rectitude, and great capacity for work, and you have, somewhat broadly pictured, the apparent characteristics of the man.

During the period of his service here, the published work of the court will be found in 73 volumes of the Reports, beginning with the 94th Michigan. Examination will disclose that he took part in the decision of more than 8,300 causes, himself preparing about 1,700 of the written opinions of the court. The period was one of phenomenal industrial development, and of much social unrest, fruitful in legislation and in litigation, requiring the application of the law, common and statute, to a manifold number of new conditions. If we consider only this evidence of prodigious labor, of public service, performed as acceptable as he performed it, the judgment must be that he was a large mane, entitled to high place among the distinguished men of his time.

While his reputation as a judge must largely rest upon the opinions he wrote, it is in his case especially true that their consideration will not disclose the most considerable, and, in my opinion, the most valuable, service which he rendered to the court, the bar, and the people. He was not a brilliant or a graceful writer; yet it goes without saying that, had he been so disposed, he might have much amplified, polished, and ornamented his opinions. But he was by nature helpful. He was unselfish of his time and knowledge in aid of his colleagues. He gave cheerfully, bountifully, helpfully. He concerned himself about all of the opinions of the court delivered in causes in the decision of which he took part, not in the framing, but in the matter of them. The members of the court came to rely with increasing confidence upon his painstaking examination of cases, reviewed with care conclusions opposed to his, and advanced with greater confidence reasoning of which he approved. In this manner, he impressed himself upon and into the work of the court, and in this way his judgment is reflected in the judgments of the court. It is due to his reputation and his memory that so much should be said.

Personally Justice HOOKER was somewhat awkward in appearance and carriage, and casual acquaintance left, sometimes, the impression that he was cold and not sympathetic. Any such conception of his character is wholly wrong. He was by nature affectionate and sympathetic. He did not easily yield opinions which in his painstaking way he had formed and fortified, but he was not impatient towards opposition nor intemperate in discussion. With his intimates he was charming in conversation and in manner, one of those wonderful, too rare beings, a strong and gentle man. While Mrs. HOOKER lived, his home life was ideal. He always spoke of her with affection, and never ceased to mourn for her. There was never a better neighbor or kinder friend.

By his death, the members of this court have lost a loving, helpful friend and wise counselor, the community has lost an upright citizen, and the State a wise and learned judge.

The memorials which have been presented at the bar, and the eulogies which have been pronounced here, will be made records of the court and published in the Reports.