Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1878 — Lawyers in Congress. [ARTICLE]

Lawyers in Congress.

In no other country is any such prominence given to lawyers as in this. It would be thought a wildly extravagant assertion if we were to say that more than half of all the important offices in the United States are held by lawyers; yet the statement would be far within the mark. We have taken the trouble to ascertain the proportion of lawyers in the present Congress. In the United States Senate, for instance, are fifty-eight lawyers and only twenty of all other professions and occupations! From the States of Alabama, California, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, lowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, the Senators are all lawyers —no other profession or occupation is represented at all in all those great States. Only two small States found both their Senators outside the legal profession —New Jersey and Rhode Island. The States not included in either of these classifications send to the Senate one lawyer and one who is not a lawyer. Here we find almost threefourths of the members of the United States Senate lawyers. In the House of Representatives it is nearly the same. We have arranged a table of members from the different States by districts, figure one standing for a lawyer, and the cipher for a man of some other occupation. This interesting classification is as follows: Alabama 11)01111 Arkansas 1111 California 1011 Colorado 1 Connecticut 0111 Delaware 0 Florida 11 Georgia 111011U11 Illinois 0111111011111111111 Indiana 0111111)1111001 lowa .001*011111 Kansas 101 Kentucky 1001111111 Louisiana 11011 Maine.. 11111 Maryland 111101 Massachusetts 11101010111 Michigan 111111111 Minnesota 000 Mississippi 11111 Missouri 000111011 lilt Nebraska. 0 Nevada 1 New Hampshire 011 New Jersey 1001100 New York 110(011101110110101011111000110 North Carolina 11111110 Ohio 11111111101111011010 Oregon 1 Pennsylvania 110101011111111101111010110' Rhode Island 10 Houtli Carolina 00010 Tennessee 110111111 Texas 111110 Vermont 11l Virginia 11101111 West Virginia 111 Wisconsin 11111110 Here we have the surprising result of two hundred and seventy-three lawyers and only seventy who are not lawyers! More than three-fourths of the whole! Delaware, Minnesota, and Nebraska stand quite alone without lawyers in the House, but they have only five members between them, while Michigan presents a platoon of nine lawyers, Mississippi six, and Maine five, without any adulteration from other occupations. Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin have each seven lawyers, and only one other member; and Illinois has a solid phalanx of seventeen lawyers and only two members from all other occupations. —New York Graphic.