820 WILLIAM WIRT HOWE. 



sufficiently great under the best circumstances, of the race prolilem. 

 When Judge Howe settled in New Orleans it was with no desire to 

 exploit the South hut with the purpose of becoming a permanent 

 resident and of doing his part as he would have done it elsewhere for 

 the public good. Long before his service as a judge of the Supreme 

 Court ended it had been demonstrated that continuance of the negro 

 republican rule meant the ruin of Louisiana. Judge Howe, like other 

 good citizens, rallied to the support of Francis T. Nicholls and the 

 men who with him were struggling to save the state from further 

 spoliation and degradation, and without renouncing his political faith 

 worked patriotically for redemption of the city and the state. 



It is seldom that any man starting life afresh at over thirty years of 

 age in a new environment, almost an alien in race, under the handicap 

 of most violent political and social prejudices, achieves success. 

 Judge Howe faced all these conditions. Probably no community in 

 the South felt a greater bitterness towards the North than did New 

 Orleans at the end of the war. This bitterness was increased ten fold 

 by the experiences of the reconstruction period. Yet Judge Howe 

 succeeded in overcoming the obstacles. First appointed to public 

 office by a hated military commander and later to a higher judicial 

 office by an equally hated republican governor, he so won the esteem 

 of political opponents and enemies as to be selected by a staunch demo- 

 crat and ex-confederate soldier for a position of honor and responsi- 

 bility as administrator of the Charity Hospital, and long before his 

 death had become, as the roll of offices of trust and honor which he 

 held shows, one of the leading citizens of his adopted state. 



The secret of Judge Howe's success was character. Those thrown 

 into association with him could not fail to recognize the cultured 

 gentleman, the public spirited citizen, and the loyal friend and associ- 

 ate. Political advancement, if he desired it, he could not expect in 

 Louisiana, without apostasy to his republican convictions. But once 

 the political atmosphere was cleared so that men judged their fellows 

 by other than political tests his integrity, ability and high standards 

 earned for him the respect and the confidence of his neighbors in New 

 Orleans, as they earned for him national recognition. His election 

 to the presidency of the American Bar Association stamped him as a 

 fit representative of the South in his chosen profession; his appoint- 

 ment as a trustee of the Carnegie Institution showed that his reputa- 

 tion as a wise and responsible administrator had become more than 

 local. 



An interesting and aumsing conversationalist, of readv wit, with a 



