Judge Wilkin's interest in the young men who grew up about him never deserted him. He welcomed their advances, he reciprocated their esteem, he enjoyed their companionship. His reminiscences of the older bar were lively and entertaining, his sense of humor keen, his exultation in life and all its activities throbbing and intense. He was not ready to go when the summons came and he made no hypocritical pretense of resignation to it. His was a life so full of promise and performance, passion and power, persuasiveness and preeminence that well may we exclaim with the poet:
"But what rich life—what energy and glow!
Cordial to friend and chivalrous to foe!
Concede all foibles harshness would reprove,
And what choice attributes remain to love."
If James N. Pronk had given the thought and attention to his own interests that he gave to the interests of the public and to the development of his city he would have died wealthy and famous. In his early manhood when, as the only lawyer in Middletown, except Judge Wilkin, he acquired a large practice, he quickly accumulated a fortune sufficient to enable him to build and wholly pay for what still remains the finest store and office block in Middletown. He had nothing to do then, in order to a successful life, but to take his ease and accept such work as he might enjoy. But this was not his nature. He simply could not take his ease. He was possessed by the desire to originate and carry forward every public enterprise that might benefit the town. He lived plainly and simply, had no personal indulgences, spent nothing upon himself, denied himself every pleasure in order that he might give himself wholly to the service of the public. Every pleasure indeed except that of friends and books. He loved the society of congenial spirits and he dwelt much among books. But he was not selfish even in this. Instead of putting the books he bought into his own library he put them into a public library. He established the Lyceum, the fine circulating library of which gave to Middletown its first literary impetus. In connection with this he organized debates in which the ablest men of the community discussed every moral, social and political question of the day. These debates brought out the native talent and debating powers of many men who otherwise might have been silent, notable among them Israel O. Beattie, whose wide information, keen reasoning and sparkling wit are well remembered by those who know how naturally his distinguished son, Judge John J. Beattie, comes by these qualities.
Moreover, Mr. Pronk brought to the platform of the Lyceum the foremost intellects of his time—Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phillips, Horace Greeley, Edward H. Chapin, Theodore L. Cuyler and many others. I well remember when, a few years ago at Mohonk, Judge Beattie and I introduced ourselves to Dr. Cuyler and mentioned Middletown, he at once exclaimed: "How's my old friend Pronk?" though they had not met for forty years and he had not heard of his death.
The great mistake of Mr. Pronk's life was when he mortgaged his fine building, on the income of which he might easily have lived, in order to establish what became the passion and the idol of his life, Hillside Cemetery. But was it a mistake? Is it not success, after all, to live in lasting institutions? This cemetery is to-day the most beautiful resting place of the dead in Orange County. Over this sacred spot where he himself was laid, broods ever the sentiment inscribed over the tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral of Sir Christopher Wren, its architect—"If you would behold his monument look about you." (Si monumentum quaeris circumspice.)
Younger than any of the lawyers thus far considered, but entering upon his professional life while theirs was still active, and dying prematurely before the close of those careers with which his own was strictly contemporaneous, was William F. O'Neill. Perhaps no career was ever more of a surprise to the public and to the profession than that of Mr. O'Neill. From Winfield, Gedney and Fullerton with their distinguished lineage, family influence, county connections, social position, superior education, wide culture, courtly address and imposing presence much was expected and expectation was always satisfied. But here was a young man, who coming from Monticello to study law in Middletown with Judge Groo and entering upon his career without any of these advantages, boldly flung himself into the courts to try conclusions with the ablest of Orange County's advocates and began at once to captivate juries and to win his cases. Small in stature, unimpressive in appearance, deficient in culture, unformed in style, averse to application, trying his cases with very inadequate preparation, the lawyers were puzzled at first to know the secret of his immediate and enormous success at the bar. It lay, as they soon learned, in his faculty of making the jury think that he always happened to be on the right side. It was like the case of the juror who was descanting enthusiastically upon the magnificent, unrivaled powers of Brougham as an advocate. "But," said a bystander, "I see that you always give the verdict to Scarlett." "Scarlett, O yes," said the juror. "Well, you see Scarlett is always on the right side."
Mr. O'Neill was a natural verdict getter. He never went over the heads of the jury. He talked with them on their own plane of thought, sentiment and experience. Juries liked him personally. They felt interested in his success. I remember a trial in which he obtained a verdict of $2,000 against the village of Port Jervis for a woman who had fallen upon a defective sidewalk, but who did not appear to have been much injured. After the verdict, one of the jurors, Coe Goble, of Greenville, asked me what I thought of the verdict, to which I replied that they probably gave as much as the evidence justified, since she did not seem to be hurt much. "Well," said Goble, "it was this way—we thought the woman ought to have $1,000 and we thought Billy ought to have $1,000."
This familiar, affectionate reference to him as "Billy" indicates his place as a popular idol. Indeed the boyishness of his appearance and stature seemed to help him. People who saw him for the first time and who had not expected much from him, went out of the courtroom saying, "Did you see how little Billy O'Neill laid him out?"
Mr. O'Neill made negligence cases a specialty, and he became known far and wide as a negligence lawyer. Those who deprecate the rise of the negligence lawyer and the increase in negligence cases during the last forty years fail to make sufficient allowance for those changed conditions in the business of the world under which its various currents of capital and industry converge in one swollen stream of corporate enterprise and control. This tends, on the one hand, to encourage professional alertness in protecting the individual from corporate greed or neglect and, on the other hand, to create extreme devotion to corporate interests seeking the aid of professional skill and judgment. While the zeal of attorneys in behalf of corporations is rarely condemned it is somewhat the fashion to deprecate the negligence lawyer who takes the case of a client against a corporation upon a contingent fee. As the client is usually destitute it is difficult to see how his case is to be presented at all unless the attorney takes his chances upon success. As courts and juries must determine that the claim is a worthy one before it can succeed, the whole criterion seems to resolve itself into the position that worthy causes and clients should be deprived of a hearing. This feeling can be well understood on the part of corporations constantly compelled to pay damages on account of their carelessness, but the expression of it comes with poor grace from lawyers who receive large retainers and liberal fees from wealthy clients. It is at least as fair to a client to wait for compensation until the work is done as it is to insist on a retainer before any work at all is done. It is noticeable that the criticism upon the contingent fee at the conclusion of the case comes usually from the lawyer who expects a large fee at the beginning of the case.