Biographical Sketch of John Cromwell BELL (b. 1862); Philadelphia Co., PA Contributed to the PAGenWeb Archives by Diana Smith [christillavalley@comcast.net] Copyright. All Rights Reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ********************************************************* "Philadelphia, A History of the City and its People; A Record of 225 Years" Author, Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer Publisher: S. H. Clark; Philadelphia; 1912 Vol. 4, page 376 JOHN CROMWELL BELL It needs not the consensus of public opinion or the testimony of his professional brethren but only the court records to establish the position of John Cromwell Bell as one of the eminent members of the Philadelphia bar, for reported opinions show that he has been the successful contesting counsel in many of the most important cases that have appeared before the courts of Pennsylvania. Moreover, at the present writing he is serving as attorney general of the state by appointment of Governor John K. Tener the most important legal office in the commonwealth. His life history had its beginning at Elder's Ridge, Indiana county, Pennsylvania, October 3, 1862. He represents a family of Scotch-Irish lineage, founded in Pennsylvania in colonial days. His father, Alfred M. Bell, long a prominent citizen of Indiana county, was a schoolmate of Mathew Stanley Quay, the late Judge Clark of the supreme court, and Judge White, of Indiana county. The son, reared in his native county, acquired his early education in me public and normal schools there and following his removal to Philadelphia when youth of fourteen years, entered the Central high school, from which he was graduated with the A. B. degree in 1880, having remained at the bead of his class through the four years' course. In due time he received from that school the Master's degree. The trend of his mind naturally analytical and inductive, led him to the study of law. He matriculated in 1882 in the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, where his preceptor was John Moylen Thomas. His university course was completed in 1884, and to him were accorded two honors that seldom fall to me same man in that institution, the law faculty awarding the Meredith essay prize and also selecting him to deliver the law oration, a most notable one on commencement day. While he made high grade in his studies be was also well known and popular in athletic circles, playing half-back on the Varsity football team in 1882, 1883 and 1884. He afterward became a member of the board of directors of the Athletic Association of the university, retiring from that position after twenty years' service. Entering upon the active practice of the law as a member of the Philadelphia bar, Mr. Bell received almost immediate prominence and his advancement has been continuous from the first. He has largely specialized in the department of corporation law and has been the legal representative of some of the most prominent business concerns and corporations of this city, including the Real Estate, Title, Insurance & Trust Company, the United Fireman's Insurance Company, the German Demokrat, the Interstate Railways Company and the United Power & Transportation Company. At the outset of his professional career Mr. Bell determined to take no active part in politics as an officeholder and to this resolution he strictly adhered for many years until the pressure of public demand for his services was too great to be resisted. There is undoubtedly no other young man of Philadelphia who has declined so many political preferments as has Mr. Bell. Eschewing office, his devotion to his clients' interests became proverbial, and he again and again refused to accept appointive and elective positions. In 1898 he might have had the position of first assistant district attorney had he not declined, and when the common pleas court No. 5 was established he refused the proffered honor of a seat upon the bench. It was not until after the election of November, 1902, that he yielded to the persistent demand of the people of his adopted city after receiving a petition signed by fifteen hundred members of the bar and many of the leading citizens of Philadelphia. He then consented to fill out the unexpired term of district attorney, the position having been made vacant by the election of Hon. John Weaver as mayor of Philadelphia. Mr. Bell discharged his duties so vigorously, faithfully and capably mat the public demanded his continuance in office and in November, 1903, he was elected by a very nattering majority, receiving the support of many opposed to him politically. It is a fact widely recognized by members of the bar that for certain reasons the administration of the duties of the office of district attorney of Philadelphia is one of the most difficult legal services in this country. Traditional precedents and the ever recurring conditions peculiar to the office have placed upon its incumbent requirements which mere legal lore and forensic display are not sufficient to satisfy. The district attorney mast possess judicial as well as executive ability. The work of Mr. Bell in connection with the enforcement of the pure food laws drew to him not only the attention of the bar and the public in America but to a considerable extent in foreign lands. In this connection a contemporary biographer has written: "The use of deleterious chemicals in the preservation of meats has long been practiced by eminently respectable purveyors of public food necessities, but rarely has there ever been witnessed so bold, so deliberate an effort on the part of capital to subsidize the combined skill of technical learning, public credulity and legal fine-line interpretation to the disadvantage of the food consumer compelled to place his health and physical welfare at the mercy of these individuals. No mere attorney, however skilled in his legal ascertainments, could have hoped to cope with the brilliant array of medico-legal talent marshalled by the opposition. The litigation following the brilliant attack of District Attorney Bell was ably assailed by the allied interests of the food preservation manufacturers throughout the country who recognized the wide-spread effects of an exposure and conviction. Experts were engaged by the defense from all over the United States, and among them was Professor Oscar Liebreich, of the University of Berlin, the Prussian Government University, Kaiser Wilhelm Military Academy. Honorary D. C. L. of the University of Oxford, etc. In this trial the leading chemists of the world were pitted against the District Attorney's contention that the use of Sodium Sulphide as a food preservative was deleterious. After perhaps the most brilliant case of this nature ever witnessed in this country Mr. Bell secured a verdict against the defendants." Another case which won Mr. Bell almost equally wide fame and prominence was that known as the Hossey & Danz poison case. This was practically divided into two distinct prosecutions and exceeding in importance any other poison case ever tried in the courts of Pennsylvania. The defendants brought to their aid not only the services of the ablest criminal lawyers bat also the expert testimony of eminent chemists of the country, and added to this they pleaded the weakness of circumstantial evidence. After nine weeks a verdict of conviction was rendered in each case. Mrs. Danz was the second woman convicted of murder in the first degree in Philadelphia, and after appeal followed by two arguments in the supreme court that tribunal sustained the conviction. Equally creditable and almost equally important was the work which Mr. Bell did in the prosecution of the straw bail case, in which he filed informations against the defendant, a remedy that had not been resorted to in Pennsylvania for over a century and the affirmance by the superior court of the twenty-eighth ward school directors, which resulted in sending to jail the defendants convicted by his predecessor in office. Mr. Bell also sustained the constitutionality of the act establishing the juvenile court before the superior court, and his record of two years in the office shows a victory of ten out of eleven appeal cases conducted by him before the superior and supreme courts. On his retirement from the position of district attorney in 1907 Mr. Bell was tendered a public dinner, on which occasion Chief Justice Mitchell said: "It is a high honor to say tonight, as those of us who are familiar with the conditions of affairs in courts of justice know, that Mr. Bell has followed faithfully the traditions of the office and has given them additional luster." On his retirement Mr. Bell resumed the private practice of law but again the demand for his services was so insistent that in January, 1911, he accepted the office of attorney general for the state of Pennsylvania, conferred upon him by appointment of Governor John K. Tener. There are other phases in the life of Mr. Bell which are of equal interest, though to perhaps a smaller number of people. In his own home he is a genial host, whose cordial hospitality makes the Bell residence the attractive center of a cultured social circle. He was married, in 1890, to Miss Fleurette de Benneville Myers, a daughter of Hon. Leonard and Hettie de Benneville (Keim) Myers. The children of this marriage are John Cromwell and de Benneville. In the summer season the family retire to a beautiful country home, Blythe Wold, near Radnor, while their winter residence in Philadelphia is at Twenty-second and Locust streets. Mr. Bell belongs to various social, professional and business organizations, including the Markham, University, Country and Merion Cricket Clubs. He is the corresponding secretary of the Lawyers Club of Philadelphia and a member of the Library Committee, of the Law Alumni Association and the Athletic Association of the University of Pennsylvania. He was elected and became a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania in 1911. He is a member of the State Bar Association. On various occasions, he has been called to speak upon important legal problems and in delivering the annual address before the Law Academy of Philadelphia, in May, 1904, he chose as his topic "The Several Modes of Instituting Criminal Proceedings in Pennsylvania." It is regarded as an extremely high honor to be chosen to address the Law Academy, which is the most ancient society of young lawyers in the English speaking world, and Mr. Bell is the youngest man upon whom this honor was ever conferred. His address was published by the society and also appears in the volumes of law reports. His prominence needs no emphasis by his biographers. His position is evident to all who know aught of the history of the Philadelphia bar and the work of the courts during the last quarter of a century. Throughout his entire professional career he has united the intensely practical with high ideality. Words, looks and actions are the alphabet by which we spell character, and in the life of John Cromwell Bell these have had no uncertain sound. This file is located at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/pa/philadelphia/bios/history/bell-jc.txt