WILLIAM WIRT HOWE. 819 



in 1907 to the presidency of the American Bar Association of which he 

 had become a member in 1881, three years after its organization. In 

 his profession too he was recognized as a lecturer of exceptional 

 ability and delivered courses of lectures at the St. Louis Law School, 

 the Law Schools of the University of the South, Boston University, 

 the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. At Yale 

 LTniversity he delivered the Storr's series of lectures and these were 

 published in 1896 and a second edition in 1905 under the title of. 

 "Studies in the Civil Law." 



Judge Howe's interests and activities were not, however, confined to 

 the law. For four years he was president of the New Orleans civil 

 service board, receiving his appointment from the mayor of the city. 

 He served as president of the Louisiana Historical Association and 

 published a Municipal History of New Orleans, a Monograph of 

 Johns Hopkins and a life of Francois Xa^-ier Martin, for more than 

 thirty years a judge of the Supreme Court of Louisiana and known as 

 the "Father of Louisiana Jurisprudence." Always prominent in 

 philanthropic and public enterprises Judge Howe was one of the incor- 

 porators and at his death a trustee of the Eye, Ear and Nose Hospital; 

 one of the original members of the Louisiana Association for the 

 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; administrator of the Charitable 

 Hospital of New Orleans; treasurer of Tulane University; an incorpo- 

 rator and first president of the New Orleans Art Association; an active 

 member of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce and Board of 

 Trade ; for thirty-four years senior warden of Christ Church Cathedral, 

 and a trustee of the Carnegie Institution in Washington. 



Settling in New Orleans immediately after the civil war in which he 

 himself had taken an active part on the Northern side, Judge Howe 

 began his career in a hostile community. The stormy years of recon- 

 struction followed. A Northerner and a republican, he could not 

 look with favor on the reestablishment of the old slaveholding aris- 

 tocracy, and he received his judicial appointments from the republi- 

 can party. But whatever sympathy he may have felt with the 

 original aspirations of the radical republicans who for five or six years 

 were supported by the federal government and maintained a pre- 

 carious rule only through the use of federal troops, he revolted from 

 the carnival of extravagance, dishonesty and corruption that marked 

 the period of republican control. He was not one of the infamous 

 horde of carpet baggers who after the war invaded the South intent 

 only on loot, and, seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of an 

 impoverished and distracted people, greatly aggravated the difficulties. 



