John Carter Rose

Background

John Carter Rose was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the son of Mary Elizabeth Hall and John Rose and a descendant of Robert Rose who left Ipswich, England, in 1634 and settled at Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Education

He received his early education in the primary schools of Baltimore and attended the Baltimore City College from 1873 to 1876. He began the study of law in the office of his cousin, Thomas W. Hall, a Baltimore lawyer, and in 1882, when he was twenty-one, he graduated from the law school of the University of Maryland.

Career

During his first years at the bar Rose wrote editorials for the Baltimore Sun on public questions. Early in his career he aligned himself with a reform group who were working to eliminate the political abuses prevailing throughout the state, and for ten years he served as counsel to the Reform League, of which he was a charter member. Largely through his efforts many of the aims of this organization, such as the adoption of the Australian ballot, were realized, and upon the passage of a new election law in 1896, he became counsel to the Supervisors of Election of Baltimore City.

In 1890 he acted as supervisor of the census for Maryland. Rose's prominence as a reformer resulted in his appointment by President McKinley as district attorney (May 1898), an office which he held through successive administrations until his elevation to the district judgeship by President Taft on Apr. 4, 1910. He had built up a lucrative practice and the acceptance of the latter office, which he had neither sought nor desired, entailed financial sacrifices. He possessed unusual arithmetical ability and an almost infallible memory, and his grasp of the fundamental principles of the law, coupled with an extensive knowledge of economics, political science, and history, made him an unusually able member of the federal judiciary.

Rose also enjoyed the friendship of Roosevelt and, as a member of the "tennis cabinet, " was frequently consulted concerning public papers. His wit, and the speed with which he grasped the essential elements of a case, made his courtroom a disciplinary chamber, where circumlocution and long arguments were banned, where he was feared, sometimes disliked, but always respected. It is to his credit that he maintained his poise and sense of proportion during the war hysteria of 1917-18 and during the supposed "Red" menace that immediately followed.

In December 1922, he was promoted by President Harding to the United States circuit court of appeals for the fourth circuit. In 1925 Rose was elected president of the Maryland State Bar Association. He died of heart trouble in his sixty-sixth year at Atlantic City and was buried in Baltimore.

Achievements

• During the twelve years that John Carter Rose held the office of district judge he was never reversed in a criminal case and seldom in a civil action. He delivered many notable opinions, including United States vs. Curry (201 Fed. , 371), which resulted in an amendment of an act of Congress because of his criticism of its basic unfairness, and The Virginia (264 Fed. , 986), a landmark in admiralty law. He enjoyed the confidence and respect of the members of the United States Supreme Court, and it was at the request of one of the justices that he undertook, in the last year of his life, a revision of his "Elementary Treatise on the Jurisdiction and Procedure of the Federal Courts" which was first published in 1915.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Jurisdiction and Procedure of the Federal Courts

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • An Elementary Treatise on the Jurisdiction and Procedure of the Federal Courts

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

Connections

On October 19, 1886, Rose married Grace Harvey Beatson, the daughter of George Harvey Beatson of Baltimore. Three of his four children survived him.

Father:

John Rose

Mother:

Mary Elizabeth Hall

Spouse:

Grace Harvey Beatson