DAVIS, JOHN WILLIAM

John William Davis was born April 13, 1873, in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Davis earned a bachelor of arts degree from Washington and Lee University in 1892, a bachelor of laws degree in 1895, and a doctor of laws degree in 1915. He also received doctor of laws degrees from numerous other institutions, including the University of Birmingham, England, 1919; Yale, 1921; Dartmouth, 1923; Princeton, 1924; and Oberlin College, 1947. Three doctor of civil law degrees were bestowed upon Davis, by Oxford University in England, 1950; Columbia, 1953; and Hofstra College, 1953.

After his admission to the bar in 1895, Davis returned to his alma mater, Washington and Lee University, as an assistant professor of law, teaching from 1896 to 1897. In the latter year, he established his law practice in Clarks-burg, West Virginia, serving as counselor until 1913.

Davis entered politics in 1899 by participating in the West Virginia House of Delegates. He was a member of the Democratic National Conventions from 1904 to 1932.

In 1911, he served the federal government as a congressman, representing West Virginia until 1915. Davis left this post to perform the duties of solicitor general from 1913 to 1918.

The next phase of Davis's career encompassed foreign service. He was appointed ambassador to Great Britain in 1918 and acted in this capacity until 1921. Also in 1918, Davis was chosen as an American delegate to Berne, Switzerland, to the conference with Germany regarding prisoners of war captured during world war i.

In 1924, Davis was the Democratic candidate for president of the United States; he was defeated by calvin coolidge.

"There is nothing I resent more than the idea that a lawyer sells himself body and soul to his clients."
—John William Davis

Davis died March 24, 1955, in Charleston, South Carolina.

Davis, John William (b. Clarksburg, W. Va., 13 Apr. 1873; d. Charleston, S.C., 24 Mar. 1955), lawyer and solicitor general, 1913–1918. Member of Congress from 1910 to 1913, ambassador to the Court of St. James's from 1918 to 1921, and Democratic candidate for president in 1924, Davis was preeminently an appellate lawyer. During his five years (1913–1918) as solicitor general of the United States during the Wilson administration and three decades as the head of the Wall Street law firm of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Sunderland & Kiendl, he argued more cases in the Supreme Court than any attorney to that time. Davis's conception of the law was wholly traditional. He believed devoutly in stare decisis (see Precedent), states' rights (see State Sovereignty and States' Rights), and strict constructionism, and he regarded property rights and human liberty as inseparable. He became a founding member of the anti–New Deal Liberty League in 1934, and he attacked the New Deal in half a dozen arguments before the Supreme Court. In 1952, as counsel for the steel industry in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, Davis successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Truman administration's seizure of the industry. In the epic Brown v. Board of Education (1954), he unsuccessfully defended school segregation. “Somewhere, sometime,” he declared in oral argument, “to every principle [e.g., segregation] comes a moment of repose.”

A man of gentle wit and superior learning, Davis was esteemed by the bar; his grace and quiet elegance charmed almost everyone he touched.

Bibliography

William H. Harbaugh , Lawyer's Lawyer: The Life of John W. Davis (1973).

William H. Harbaugh

James John Davis 1873–1947, American public official, b. Wales. After emigrating (1881) to the United States, he worked as a puddler in ironworks in Pennsylvania and, moving to Elwood, Ind., became active in local politics and labor activities. After 1907 he became well known as director-general of the Loyal Order of Moose. He was appointed (1921) Secretary of Labor by President Warren G. Harding, remained at that post until 1930, and served (1930–45) in the U.S. Senate.

Bibliography: See his autobiography, The Iron Puddler (1922).