Background
Reuben Melville Wanamaker was born in North Jackson, Mahoning County, Ohio. His parents, Daniel and Laura (Schoenberger) Wanamaker, were of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction.
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book
The Voice of Lincoln (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Voice of Lincoln He lived largely in th...)
Excerpt from The Voice of Lincoln He lived largely in the world of thought. How he thought, what his mental methods were, how he developed his great mental efficiency in law, logic, language, and public leadership, Should be a matter of interest and inspiration to that great army of men and women who have learned to love Lincoln. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Reuben Melville Wanamaker
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended the local schools and Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio, where his studies were interrupted from time to time by periods of teaching.
Career
Elected prosecuting attorney of Summit County in 1895 and 1897, he became widely known through his successful prosecution of the leaders of an attempted lynching in August 1900. In May 1906 he became a judge of the common-pleas court of Ohio; in 1912 he was elected as a Progressive to the supreme court of Ohio for the term beginning January 1, 1913, and in 1918, as a Republican, was reëlected. Two years later he was defeated by Frank B. Willis for the Republican nomination to the United States Senate. Before the completion of his second term on the supreme bench, as a result of a long-continued nervous breakdown, he took his own life by jumping from a window at Mount Carmel Hospital, Columbus.
Achievements
Works
book
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The Voice of Lincoln (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Voice of Lincoln He lived largely in th...)
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The Voice of Lincoln (Classic Reprint)
Views
In his opinions the doctrines of included offenses, double jeopardy, corpus delicti, and variance between indictment and proof received a new and modern meaning. One of his opinions in this field was to the effect that it is not necessary for the trial court in an indictment for murder to charge assault and battery as an included offense, and in another he declared that there is no material variance between an indictment which charges the stealing of several "rungs" and proof of the stealing of several "rugs. " In addition to his work on the bench he did some occasional writing, contributing a number of articles to the Saturday Evening Post and in 1918 publishing a book, The Voice of Lincoln.
Personality
Wanamaker was a unique figure. According to general opinion an extreme radical, he was in fact less radical in thought than in manner of expression and in disregard of the conventional attitudes of a judge. He had little respect for judicial precedent and often supported his opinions by quoting from Lincoln and the Bible rather than by citing decided cases. "My experience upon the bench has taught me that precedents are followed when they square with the judgment desired to be rendered, " he declared in a dissenting opinion. "They can with equal fidelity be ignored when they do not square with the judgment desired to be rendered". "Case law, " he said in an earlier opinion, "is fast becoming the great bane of bench and bar. Our old time great thinkers have been succeeded very largely by an industrious army of sleuths, of the type of Sherlock Holmes, hunting some precedent in some case, confidently assured that if the search be long enough some apparently parallel case may be found to justify even the most absurd and ridiculous contention. " At times almost vitriolic in his condemnation of the opinions of his judicial colleagues, he accused them of usurpation of power, juggling of words, sophistry. In spite of his habit of extravagant expression, however, Wanamaker made a real contribution to the jurisprudence of Ohio. At a time when most judicial thinking was somewhat stereotyped and concerned chiefly with the protection of property rights, he struck out boldly for a liberal construction of constitutions and laws in favor of the rights and needs of the common man. "Written constitutions, " he said, "were adopted not as a sword against public interest but as a shield to protect the public interest". Coming to the supreme bench shortly after the adoption (1912) of the constitutional amendment providing for municipal home rule, he fought long and hard in lengthy dissenting opinions for a liberal interpretation of the amendment which would give to the cities complete power of local self-government, including the right, free from any review by the state public utilities commission, to fix rates to be charged by all public utilities.
Connections
On April 7, 1890, he married Fannie Jane Snow, daughter of Prof. Freeman Snow. They had two children.
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Born
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Died
June 18, 1924 (aged 57) -
Nationality
American -
Political Party
Republican