1450 Jayhawk Blvd, Lawrence, KS 66045, United States
Frederick attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1897 and a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1899.
1450 Jayhawk Blvd, Lawrence, KS 66045, United States
Frederick attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1897 and a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1899.
Frederick Hill Wood was born on January 2, 1877, in Lebanon, Maine, United States. He was a son of Frederick Ansel Wood and Mary Calista (Hill) Wood. Frederick's father, Frederick Ansel, a Union Army veteran and a staunch Republican, was a schoolteacher. He moved, in 1886, to Kansas, where he continued to teach and later became a real estate dealer in Kansas City, Missouri.
In his early years, Frederick attended Kansas City public schools and the University of Kansas in Lawrence, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1897 and a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1899.
Upon graduation from the University of Kansas in 1899, Wood was admitted to the bar in Kansas and Missouri and opened a practice in Lawrence. For two years, he was an assistant professor in the university's law school. Then, Frederick joined a law firm in Kansas City, Missouri, but in 1905 embarked upon a career as a railroad lawyer.
In 1905-1910, Wood was general attorney of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad and, from 1910 to 1913 served as general solicitor and commerce counsel to the Kansas City Southern Railway, after which he moved to New York City as general attorney and commerce counsel of the Southern Pacific Railway (later known as Southern Pacific Transportation Company), the position he held until 1924.
With an opportunity to argue important railroad cases before the Interstate Commerce Commission and the United States Supreme Court, Wood quickly acquired a reputation as a forceful and lucid advocate. He served the railroads faithfully, defending them in public, as well as in the courts.
In 1924, at the invitation of Paul D. Cravath, Wood joined the prestigious New York law firm Cravath, Henderson and de Gersdorff, which, in 1928, was reorganized as Cravath, de Gersdorff, Swaine and Wood. He continued to represent the railroads, winning substantial rate increases in the Railway Mail Pay case (279 U.S. 73) and acceptance of a more favorable method of rate valuation in St. Louis & O'Fallon Railway Company v. United States (279 U.S. 461). He also served other large corporate clients, such as Bethlehem Steel and Westinghouse Electric.
During the 1930's, Wood entered the most important phase of his career, during which he established himself as a leading constitutional authority and as one of the most successful anti-New Deal lawyers in the country. When the Cravath firm, on behalf of its steel clients, offered its services in the major court test of the National Industrial Recovery Act, Wood won the landmark Supreme Court decision of 1935, declaring the act unconstitutional (A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States, 295 U.S. 495). The following year, he won a similar decision, invalidating the Guffey Coal Act (Carter v. Carter Coal Company, 298 U.S. 238).
In other New Deal cases, Wood successfully sought to impose procedural restrictions on government agencies. In Morgan et al. v. United States (304 U.S. 1), he persuaded the Supreme Court to void an order, issued by the Secretary of Agriculture under the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, fixing the rates of marketmen, selling livestock at public stockyards. The Court held, that the Secretary's improper hearing procedures had denied the marketmen the "rudimentary requirements of fair play". The decision had far-reaching implications for other government agencies as well. In subsequent litigation, for example, in which Wood represented the Ford Motor Company, the National Labor Relations Board was compelled to adopt more formal procedures, including the furnishing of preliminary reports to companies under investigation.
A conspicuous exception to Wood's general opposition to the New Deal was his support of Roosevelt's demonetization of gold. Taking action on behalf of several Cravath clients, who would otherwise have gone bankrupt, Wood won favorable decisions in the Gold Clause cases (294 U.S. 240), in which the Supreme Court sustained the power of Congress to invalidate gold clauses in private contracts.
Frederick continued working hard even after severe heart attacks in 1938 and 1940. During the early years of World War II, he expanded his public interests, becoming chairman of the board of trustees of Town Hall, Inc., in New York, national chairman of United China Relief and an active participant in the National War Fund drive. In 1942, Wood won substantial judgments for the Bethlehem Steel Company against the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation. He died suddenly the next year in his New York office at the age of sixty-six.
Wood's writings include "The Small Investor and Railroad Ownership and Management" and "Some Constitutional Aspects of the National Recovery Program".
Frederick Hill Wood was a prominent corporation lawyer and one of the most well-known anti-New Deal lawyers in the United States. He worked as a solicitor for such famous companies, as the Cravath, Henderson and de Gersdorff (later known as Cravath, de Gersdorff, Swaine and Wood), Bethlehem Steel, Westinghouse Electric, Ford Motor Company, among others.
Wood was an anti-New Deal lawyer. Claiming, that the policies of the Roosevelt administration would lead to "an autocracy or dictatorship" and were in principle "totalitarian", he questioned the constitutionality of such measures, as the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Banking Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act.
Wood was a member of the New York County Lawyers' Association, Kappa Psi, Phi Delta Phi and Phi Beta Kappa. Besides, he was a member of such clubs, as the University Club of New York, Piping Rock Club, Manhattan Club, Broad Saint Club, Blind Brook Club, among others.
Wood tempered his relentless logic with good humor and had many friends, even among his professional opponents. In court, he was a shrewd cross-examiner. He worked hard at his job, continuing even after severe heart attacks in 1938 and 1940, despite the warnings of his doctors.
Physical Characteristics: Wood was a short man of somewhat slight build.
On July 14, 1914, Wood married Margery (Pearson) Wood. They had one daughter - Patricia.
