A Lawyer Who Believes in People: The Human Story of a Successful New York Lawyer

CITY LAWYER. By Arthur Garfield Hays. Simon & Schuster. $3.00

“I AM happy to say . . ."this book begins, and Arthur Hays has good reason. He has had a good time practicing law in the City. We share it in this “autobiography of a law practice” — almost all of it, except the good fees he earned from the good time he had. The cause of both is plain to read. Arthur Hays likes people. He is shrewd and witty. He is persistent. He puts on no side. He has few prejudices, but they also make this a good book.

A successful New York lawyer does not lead the contemplative life. Nor has Mr. Hays. Never has. Never will. Too many friends to talk to. Too many clients to listen to. Too much to be done. In the first chapter he comes into his office one typical morning — and finally does make the 1.30 to New Haven, because it is his only chance to see Thurman Arnold and try to get him not to indict ASCAP. In the second chapter, he has time to get born and brought up in Rochester, move to New York, go through Columbia, and start being a City Lawyer.

In 1914 Hays had his first big opportunity — he went to England for a client who wanted to break the British blockade. But after the United States entered the war Hays’s partners, who had been acting for Dr. Albert of the German Embassy, were convicted of trading with the enemy and disbarred. It was an hysterical period; and when it passed, Hays’s partners were pardoned on the recommendation of Harlan Stone, and reinstated on the recommendation of the Bar Association. No wonder that today, in this new war, Hays is one of the most intelligent, zealous, and outspoken champions of freedom of conscience.

His law practice found itself diverging further and further from the contemplative life, — so does his autobiography. Part Two is called “Somewhat Biographical.” The only person I can find in the book whom Hays didn’t like is Richard Whitney, but even Whitney — “I liked him better as a convict.” Starting S.P.A. with Billy Rose was fun. There was a certain walk down Broadway one evening with Bill

Fallon — fortunately for Fallon, for the jury disagreed when Hays testified to what Fallon had told him. A medley of clients and cases and trials and appeals. It was all very happy.

Then there is a chapter on Marriage and Divorce, which is the best writing on the subject I know. Prospective divorcees, please read. The Wendell will contest. That was settled, for how much Hays does not, cannot say, but he has a house in Long Island to show for it. A bit of the great Sacco-Vanzetti case. Hays was not in it. A page or two on the Countess Cathcart, Perhaps you have forgotten her. But not the Scopes trial. Hays was associated with Clarence Darrow in that, and “ He was the greatest man I ever met.”

To me the most interesting chapter is the one on the Reichstag Fire trial, and the picture of Dimitrov, the Communist, who was his own lawyer. Never was the old adage more inappropriate. No fool he, when he talked back to the German judges and gave Göring more than he could take. He was acquitted, to become head of the Third International. I wonder where he is now. “A magnificent exhibition of moral courage,” says Hays. “The story should be in the schoolbooks of every democracy.” And so it should, as you will see when you read it.

Arthur Hays likes people, not as a lover of mankind. There’s no Abou Ben Adhem about Hays. The people he loves are individuals. He finds something in each one to believe in. And he believes in little else — except his own complete competence to deal with each one of them and to enjoy doing so.

That is the stock in this soup, and it is nourishing stuff; but the best part of this book is its consequence. Love of the individual made Arthur Hays a genuine lover of liberty. Again, not the sentimental lover. There is no more Walt Whitman about Hays than Ben Adhem. Hays has been counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, and he gave his talents, his zest, his ingenuity, his skill to the little people who needed them. Not altruistically in the study noble sense, but because Arthur Hays loves the little people, and also because he likes to give cant and rant and stupidity a swift kick in the pants whenever and however he gets the chance.

CHARLES P. CURTIS, JR.