Municipal Ownership and Operation of Public Utilities in New York City
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Samuel Seabury was an American lawyer and politician, special anticorruption investigator and counsel. He was the author of famous book The New Federalism.
Background
Samuel was born on February 22, 1873 in New York City, New York, United States, the son of William Jones Seabury and Alice Van Wyck Beare. He was the namesake of his great-great-grandfather, the first Episcopal bishop in the United States, who was ordained by the Church of England and was named bishop in Connecticut in 1783. On his mother's side, he was a descendant of New England's governing Saltonstalls as well as the seafaring Beares.
His father, William Jones Seabury, was rector of the Church of the Annunciation and professor of canon law at General Theological Seminary in New York City. The church family, of modest circumstances, provided great social recognition and background but minimal financial aid.
Education
Samuel Seabury's formal education began at a small private school in the Chelsea area, Wilson and Kellogg School, from which he graduated in 1890. Later he raised enough funds to enter New York Law School. He graduated in June 1893.
Career
Samuel clerked in the law office of Stephen P. Nash to find money for studies. He was admitted to the New York bar on March 16, 1894.
He opened his own law office, and that same year he published his first law work, Law Syllabus on Corporation Law, a small pamphlet for law students. He joined the Manhattan Single-Tax Club in 1894 and also became active in the Good-Government Club. In 1897 he was elected president of the Manhattan Single-Tax Club, devoting much time to the reform movement in politics and, at the same time, representing small-fee clients in criminal and civil courts.
He ran on the Independent Labor ticket for the city court bench in 1899, with Republican backing, but lost to the dominant Democratic machine - the first of his anti-Tammany efforts. Supported by labor unions, single-taxers, and other reform groups, Seabury was elected a judge of the city court of New York as a candidate of the Citizens Union party.
He was sworn in on New Year's Day, 1902, and became the youngest judge in New York. On the bench he remained politically active, taking a leadership role in the Municipal Ownership League and devoting himself to a favorite cause: public ownership of utilities and, especially, of the city's transit system. While on the city court, he wrote the booklet Municipal Ownership and Operation of Public Utilities in New York City. In 1907 Seabury was sworn in as a justice of the state supreme court of New York.
In the fall of 1913 the Progressive party nominated him for the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, but he was defeated. The following year, backed by the Democrats, he became a member of the Court of Appeals, the only Progressive elected to the high bench. He continued to speak out on public issues, strongly supporting President Woodrow Wilson's nomination of Louis D. Brandeis for the U. S. Supreme Court.
He resigned from the Court of Appeals upon receiving the Democratic nomination for governor in 1916. He aligned his state campaign with Wilson, but he was defeated because of the lack of support by Theodore Roosevelt's Progressives and Tammany Hall. Seabury then returned to private practice but continued to be politically active during the 1920's and early 1930's. In 1928 he supported Alfred E. Smith for president.
In the summer of 1930, he was appointed referee to conduct an investigation of the magistrates' courts of New York City. The appointment had come after consultation with Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. Under Mayor James J. Walker, Tammany corruption flourished. In the course of the investigation, which took place in 1930-1931, Judge Seabury (as he was generally called) exposed payoffs and court fixing and the hold of political leaders on the bench. In the fall of 1931 the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Affairs of the City of New York was formed, with Seabury as counsel. This led to a citywide investigation of the sheriffs and other bureaus and pockets of corruption. Walker was forced to resign, a stunning victory for Seabury against an official and Tammany Hall.
Thereafter, Seabury was instrumental in the election of Fiorello H. La Guardia as mayor. He remained a close adviser to the "fusion mayor" for three terms. He resumed his lucrative legal practice but continued to speak out on national and international issues. As president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (1939 - 1941), he advocated stricter legal ethics and created a new committee on national defense.
He died in 1958.
Achievements
Samuel Seabury has been listed as a reputable lawyer by Marquis Who's Who.
