Judge Arthur Henry Chetlain was born at Galena, Illinois, in 1849, and is descended from a notable ancestry. His father, General Augustus L. Chetlain, is a Huguenot, of French-Swiss extraction. his parents having emigrated to America from the canton of Neufchatel, Switzerland, in 1821. They came by

! "[graphic][merged small]"

way of Hudson Bay to the Red River of Selkirk settlement of British America, thence to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1823. and in 1826 to the then celebrated lead mines at Galena, where the old homestead was founded. In that locality General Chetlain was reared and became the first commander of the regiment raised by General Grant: He participated in all the battles of his division in the \Var of the Rebellion. and when hostilities had ceased was breveted major-general of voltmteers. During President Grant's administration he was appointed United States consul to Brussels, Belgium. He was the founder and first president of the Chicago Home National Bank. and has been a prominent figure in business and military circles for years.

Reared in his native city. Judge Chetlain acquired his preliminary education in its public schools. and then entered the University of \Visconsin. where, on the completion of a two years‘ course, he was graduated with the degree of bachelor of arts. In Brussels, Belgium, he completed the full course in natural science in the “Universitie Libre." and won the degree of bachelor of science. After his graduation from that institution he served as a bearer of dispatches between the American legation of Paris, France, and the United States authorities in London, England. during the Franco-Prussian war.

Returning to his native land in February, 1871. Judge Chetlain took up the study of law in the office of \Villiam Lathrop of Rockford. Illinois. and on passing an examination before the Supreme Court of the state, June 20, 1873, was admitted to the bar. Not content. however. with this preparatory training, he returned to his parents‘ home in Chicago and continued his studies in the law office of Edward'A. Small. In July, 1874, he formed a partnership with Stephen S. Gregory, which continued for five years. when it was consolidated with the firm of Tenney & Flower, this relationship being maintained until 1881, when Judge Chetlain was forced to withdraw on account of ill-health. He then spent a year and a half in travel through the \Vestern States and Mexico for rest and recuperation. and in 1883 resumed practice in Chicago. His practice has covered a wide range, and in it he has traversed the entire domain of the law. \Vhile a member of the firm of Tenney & Flower he acquired a wide familiarity with commercial and contract law, and also with the law of private corporations. After his return to Chicago he was in general practice until the spring of 1891. when he was appointed by .\'Ia_vor \Vashburne first assistant corporation counsel. In that capacity he was called upon to assume active charge of a vast amount of litigation of the most important character. He represented the city in much complicated litigation connected with the lake front in suits brought by the railroads to enjoin the opening of public streets across their tracks and in many other cases involving the city's rights of property and the exercise of its powers of police. In these cases constitutional questions of great importance and difficulty were involved. He dealt with them exhaustively and ably, and was generally successful.

Judge Chetlain speaks and reads French, and has been counsel in Chicago for the French. Belgium and Turkish consulates.

.-\s a lawyer he has always been diligent. thorough and intelligent. In the preparation of his cases no mere superficial view contents him: he is not satisfied until he feels that he has carefully considered every phase of the questions presented and given them the most thorough and conscientious examination of which he is capable. He does not jump at conclusions. but maintains those he has reached with vigor and tenacity.

Of studious habits. and with the instincts and training of a scholar, he regards the law as a noble and reasonable science, in which results are to be attained by logical and intellectual processes of reasoning. He does not ignore cases, but studies them patiently in the effort to grasp their underlying principles and then to make intelligent application of those principles to new questions. He does not, in dull and slavish effort to follow the letter of the law, miss its entire spirit and purpose, that which alone makes it a living beneficent force in human society.

Of singularly fair and impartial mind. always courteous and considerate in his treatment of others, it was natural that he should be considered for the bench. In 1892 he was nominated by the Republican party for judge of the Superior Court. but went down to defeat with his ticket before the great tidal wave of Democratic success which rolled over the country that year. In 1893 he was again nominated for the same position, and in November of that year was elected to fill out the unexpired term of Judge George H. Kettelle, who died during that summer. Judge Chetlain has just been reelected for another term, receiving a larger number of votes than any other judicial candidate on the ticket. He has been a painstaking, diligent and conscientious judge, and has earned and commands the confidence, respect and regard of the bar and the esteem of the comnumity. His fairness, justness and universal courtesy and urbanity are recognized and appreciated by all who pract-ice before him. .-\n incident in a local cause celebre, which occurred early in his judicial career, shows that he is not wanting in that sterner stuff which judicial duty sometimes requires. Prendergast, who killed Mayor Carter H. Harrison. in October, 1893, had been tried for his crime. had interposed insanity as a defense, had been convicted and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court had denied him a supersedeas. The afternoon of the day before that set for his execution, his counsel having applied to various other judges to hear such an application, finally appeared before Judge Chetlain, then sitting in the Criminal Court, for a trial as to the prisoner's sanity, upon affidavit that he had become insane since sentence, and in order to give time for such trial moved for a judicial reprieve or postponement of the execution. The state's attorney appeared, conceded in open court that the prisoner was entitled to a trial by jury under the statute, but insisted that it proceed at once. After some discussion the court took a recess until eight o'clock that evening. On coming in at that hour he held that, notwithstanding this admission of the state, he was not satisfied that a prima facie case had been made under the statute. but would hear evidence as to whether the affidavit was true. Three disinterested witnesses were accordingly sworn, whose testimony tended to sustain the allegations of the alli

davit which had been sworn to by the prisoner's brother, and the court then held the prisoner was entitled to a trial on the issue thus raised. The state denied the power of the court to postpone the execution. In the midst of the discussion the news came that the executive had refused a reprieve. The argument proceeded until nearly midnight. The courtroom was crowded to suffocation and a great concourse gathered in the street, attracted by the strange battle for a human life that hung by so slight a thread.

The proposition was plain; the prisoner was entitled to a trial, the power of the court to postpone the execution for the purposes of such a trial was plenary and was demonstrated by the argument. However, judges are but men, and the entire community seemed to demand the immediate execution of this wretched man. Most judges would have gone with the tide; not so Judge Chetlain. Considering the questions presented calmly, as if seeking the solution of an intellectual problem, he saw clearly that the prisoner was. as indeed the state conceded, entitled to this trial; that it could not be conducted decently in the few hours intervening before the time set for execution, and that the power of the court to postpone the execution was undoubted. He dared to do his duty, and, just before the day set for the execution began, in such an atmosphere of suppressed excitement as rarely exists in a courtroom, even in a capital case. he entered an order for such a trial, and postponed the execution for two weeks. This was a thing unprecedented in this state, and almost unheard of in modern criminal jurisprudence. lt was severely criticised by the press and the unthinking generally. But it has passed into precedent and is now recognized as admissible and proper procedure in this county and elsewhere in this state, and has been followed in several instances.

In the Dreyer case Judge Chetlain refused to hold that public moneys in the hands of a treasurer became absolutely his if he paid, or agreed to pay, interest thereon under the statute. and accordingly refused a motion to quash the indictments in that case. Since this ruling Dreyer has been tried, convicted and sentenced before another judge, who followed the law as laid down on this subject by Judge Chetlain, and although that conviction was reversed in the Supreme Court, that tribunal fully sustained, in its opinion, the views expressed by Judge Chetlain on this point.

Arthur H. Chetlain