The Jeffersonian

He was the nation's top constitutional lawyer, a millionaire, a witty and urbane man of letters. He served his country and his countrymen well, in Congress, as Solicitor General, and as the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. He was the lawyer for Big Steel and for labor unions as well. He argued more cases before the U.S. Supreme Court than any other man in history. Honors fell on him like the summer rain: honorary degrees by the dozen, the presidency of the American Bar Association--finally, the votes of 8,385,586 Americans for President of the United States. Yet during most of his long and distinguished career, few of his fellow citizens knew John William Davis well.

Counsel for Mother Jones. Davis was born in 1873 in Clarksburg, W. Va., on April 13, the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, and he became one of his country's staunchest advocates of the democracy of Jefferson. As a West Virginia attorney Davis once joined Socialist Eugene V. Debs in defending the United Mine Workers' firebrand organizer, Octogenarian "Mother" Mary Jones, on charges of inciting a riot in a coal strike.

In 1910 Davis, like his father before him. went to Congress, resigned three years later to become, at 40, Solicitor General of the U.S. In 1918 Woodrow Wilson appointed him Ambassador to Great Britain. He was so successful that, when he returned home in 1921, his ship was escorted from Southampton by the flagship of the British Battle Fleet and 40 destroyers.

Davis reached the pinnacle of his political life at the Democratic Convention of 1924--the longest, noisiest, bitterest political gathering in U.S. history. For two sweaty, exhausting weeks two evenly matched political gladiators--William Gibbs McAdoo of California and Al Smith of New York--kept the old Madison Square Garden in an uproar, the delegations hopelessly split, the Alabama delegation doggedly casting "24 votes for Underwood" and the convention stalemated. Finally, after the 80th ballot, the deadlocked delegates began to drift away from Smith and McAdoo, and the nomination was left to a field of also-rans.

Counsel for Mr. Morgan. Slowly, John W. Davis of West Virginia and New York began to pull ahead of the other also-rans, until William Jennings Bryan, den mother of the Democrats, cast aside his palmetto fan and rose to denounce Davis as the advocate of Wall Street. Next day William Randolph Hearst's supreme pundit, Arthur Brisbane, reported it: "Instantly, Davis' vote dropped away to practically nothing, and there it will stay. For. as Mr. Bryan said, you can't nominate the lawyer of J. Pierpont Morgan for President of the United States." The following day, Davis won the nomination by acclamation, on the 103rd ballot.

It was as far as he ever got. The farm and labor voters decamped to Robert La Follette's Progressives. Bryan remained lukewarmly loyal to the party (his brother, Nebraska's Governor Charles W. Bryan, was the Democratic nominee for Vice President). And, for all his urbanity and dignity. John Davis, the darkest of dark horses, never had a chance. Calvin Coolidge won in a landslide, and Davis contentedly returned to his lucrative New York law practice, his books and his briefs.

He rarely caught the public eye again. In 1953, as the attorney for the state of South Carolina, he defended segregation in the schools of the South (TIME, Dec. 21, 1953). Last year he came to the aid of J. Robert Oppenheimer (TIME, June 14). He lost both cases. A year ago, on the eve of his 81st birthday, Lawyer Davis complained that he was getting old: "Most of the crowd I worked with are gone." Last week in Charleston, S.C., John W. Davis lost a bout with pneumonia, and rejoined the old crowd.* It was just three weeks before his (and Thomas Jefferson's) birthday.

*Davis' death leaves four surviving candidates of major parties who unsuccessfully ran for the presidency: Republicans Alf Landon, 67 (1936), and Thomas E. Devvey, 53 (1944 and 1948); and Democrats James M. Cox, 85 (1920), and Adlai E. Stevenson, 55 (1952).

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