The Citizen, the State and Our Economic System: Address by Robert Von Moschzisker, at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa.; Commencement Day, June 6, 1922 (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Citizen, the State and Our Economic Syst...)
Excerpt from The Citizen, the State and Our Economic System: Address by Robert Von Moschzisker, at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa.; Commencement Day, June 6, 1922
You and I are privileged to live in a marked period of evolution; we are seeing old familiar, geographical, social, political and economic lines changed and chang ing, probably as never before in the world's history. In the midst of such stirring events, the question naturally arises, What part shall we play? What can we con tribute towards solving the problems of the moment and of the immediate future? These thoughts must come to every right-minded man, particularly to those of us who, through opportunity, either afforded or cre ated, have been privileged to drink at the fountain of knowledge, and, therefore, are better equipped than our less fortunate brothers to grapple with the questions of the day.
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Trial by Jury: A Brief Review of Its Origin, Development and Merits and Practical Discussions on Actual Conduct of Jury Trials, Together with a ... and Other Cognate Subjects of Importance
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Robert von Moschzisker was born on March 6, 1870, in Philadelphia. His father, Franz Adolph von Moschzisker, came of a family of high standing in what was then the Austrian sector of Poland.
An officer in the Austrian army, he joined the forces of Kossuth in the uprising of 1848, was captured as a prisoner of war, escaped to England, taught German literature in King's College, London, studied medicine, and emigrated to the United States to practice his profession. Here he married Clara Harrison, of English descent, by whom he had five children, Robert being the fourth and the youngest of three sons.
Both parents died before the boy was thirteen years old, and he was raised by his father's sister Bertha.
Career
In order to help support himself, Robert secured a job as an office boy for Edward Shippen, a prominent Philadelphia lawyer, who took a great interest in him. It was in Shippen's office that von Moschzisker received his legal training. For a few years in his early twenties, he practiced conveyancing, writing sports news on the side for the Philadelphia Press. Shortly afterward he spent most of a year in California working on a ranch, an experience that broadened his knowledge of human nature. On June 1, 1896, he was admitted to the Philadelphia bar.
Von Moschzisker's public career began in 1902, when, through his friendship with Israel W. Durham, a right-hand man of the Republican state leader Matthew S. Quay, he was appointed third assistant district attorney of Philadelphia. He rose rapidly to second and then the first assistant, in which offices he prepared and tried many important criminal cases. Partly as a result of the reputation thus acquired, partly because of his personality and his wide acquaintance with men of influence, he was elected, in November 1903, a judge of one of the courts of common pleas of Philadelphia County.
During the six years of his tenure, he wrote over four hundred opinions, a most unusual number for a nisi prius judge, most of whose time is taken up with presiding at jury trials. The prodigious industry thus displayed so impressed the bar and the political leaders that in November 1909, he was elected an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. When he took his seat on January 3, 1910, still only thirty-nine, he was one of the youngest men ever to sit on that bench.
After eleven years as an associate justice, having progressed, according to the practice of this court, by seniority, he was sworn in, on January 3, 1921, as chief justice.
He resigned on November 24, 1930, shortly before the end of his term. During his tenure on the court, he wrote some 1, 370 opinions, including 487 styled "Per Curiam" but written for the court by him. Sixty-five opinions per year, the average disclosed by these figures, is a high standard for an appellate court judge. In the midst of his judicial work, von Moschzisker delivered several series of lectures, mostly at law schools, which were compiled into three volumes: Trial by Jury (1922), Judicial Review of Legislation (1923), and Stare Decisis, Res Judicata and Other Selected Essays (1929).
He established the annual judicial conference of all the judges of the state and caused the supreme court to set up a board of governance (a statewide disciplinary body) and to formulate and promulgate rules for character examination of applicants for admission to the bar, later known as the "Pennsylvania system. " After retiring from the supreme court he became associated with a leading Philadelphia law firm and practiced actively until his death.
Achievements
Robert was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa by Dickinson, Lafayette, Juniata, and Pennsylvania Military colleges and by Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania, of which the last institution he became a trustee immediately after his retirement from the bench. In that same year, he was elected president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association.
A Republican in politics and a conservative by nature, Robert permitted no predilections, political or personal, to affect his judgment by a hair's breadth.
Personality
Slight of stature and never of robust health, Robert kept pace with his work largely because he was supremely happy in his judicial career. He died in Philadelphia following a series of operations for a bladder ailment and was buried at Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.
Justice von Moschzisker's judicial performance was characterized by profound learning, tireless industry, respect for tradition, yet withal a breadth of vision and a lively interest in the development of the law to meet changing conditions. When occasion demanded, he would prepare an exhaustive opinion which was practically a monograph upon some branch of the law that he believed required clarification.
He kept his court up to date in its work, all cases being disposed of upon its adjournment for the summer recess. He presided over it with both dignity and a stimulating interest in every argument. His life was dominated by his respect for the law and his passion for justice.
Connections
On June 29, 1912, von Moschzisker married Anne V. Macbeth of Pittsburgh. They had three children: Kate, Bertha, and Michael.
