View source for Moorfield Storey

{{short description|American lawyer and civil rights leader (1845–1929)}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name         = Moorfield Storey
|image        = Moorfield Storey in a chair (3x4a).jpg
|office       = President of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]]
|term_start   = 1909
|term_end     = 1929
|predecessor  = Position established
|successor    = [[Joel Elias Spingarn]]
|office1      = [[List of presidents of the American Bar Association|President of the American Bar Association]]
|term_start1  = 1895
|term_end1    = 1896
|predecessor1 = [[James C. Carter]]
|successor1   = [[James M. Woolworth]]
|birth_date   = {{death date|1845|3|19}}
|birth_place  = [[Roxbury, Boston|Roxbury]], [[Massachusetts]], U.S. (now [[Boston]])
|death_date   = {{death date and age|1929|10|24|1845|3|19}}
|death_place  = [[Lincoln, Massachusetts|Lincoln]], [[Massachusetts]], U.S.
|education    = [[Harvard University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])
}}
'''Moorfield Storey''' (March 19, 1845 – October 24, 1929) was an American lawyer, anti-imperial activist, and [[civil rights]] leader based in [[Boston, Massachusetts]]. According to Storey's biographer, William B. Hixson Jr., he had a worldview that embodied "[[pacifism]], [[anti-imperialism]], and racial [[egalitarianism]] fully as much as it did [[laissez-faire]] and moral tone in government."<ref>Hixson (1972), p. 39.</ref> Storey served as the founding president of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP), serving from 1909 to his death in 1929. He opposed United States expansionism beginning with the [[Spanish–American War]].

==Early life==
Moorfield Storey was born in 1845 in [[Roxbury, Massachusetts]], then a suburb of Boston. His family was descended from the earliest [[Puritan]] settlers in New England and had close connections with the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist movement]]. Storey's father was a Boston lawyer. The young Storey went to the [[Boston Latin School]] and graduated in 1862, during the beginning of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]. He then continued onto [[Harvard University]], where he was a member of the [[Harvard Glee Club|Glee Club]],<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ulcEAAAAMBAJ|title=Moorfield Storey As a Man|work=The Crisis|last=Perry|first=Bliss|date=1930|publisher=The Crisis Publishing Co., Inc.|pages=156–157, 176|language=en}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=January 2024}} graduating in 1866, and then studied at [[Harvard Law School]]. In a speech almost thirty years later at [[Cambridge University]], Storey discussed the mindset of the young men of his generation, stating that "a great movement for intellectual, religious, and political freedom was just culminating".<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

==Career==
Storey established a law practice in [[Boston, Massachusetts]] as a founding partner of the firm Storey, Thorndike, Palmer, Dodge (Currently "[[Locke Lord LLP]]"). From 1873 to 1879 he was editor of the ''[[American Law Review]]''.<ref name="ea">{{Cite Americana|wstitle=Storey, Moorfield}}</ref> He was elected president of the [[American Bar Association]] in 1896,<ref name="ea" /> and was a fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]].<ref>{{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Storey, Moorfield}}</ref> He served as president of the [[Massachusetts Bar Association]] during 1913–14.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Fiat Justitia, A History of the Massachusetts Bar Association, 1910–1985|last=Brink|first=Robert J.|publisher=Massachusetts Bar Association|year=1987|isbn=0-944394-00-0|pages=20, 129}}</ref>

He was a well-known person in the "[[Mugwump]]" movement of 1884, and actively supported [[Grover Cleveland]]. As a strong believer in the [[gold standard]], [[freedom of contract]], and [[property rights]], Storey opposed the candidacy of [[William Jennings Bryan]] and supported the [[National Democratic Party (United States)|National Democratic Party]] (Gold Democrats) [[Third party (United States)|third-party]] ticket in 1896.<ref name="David">Beito, David T., and Linda Royster Beito, [http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=22&articleID=261 "Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism, 1896–1900"], ''Independent Review'' 4 (Spring 2000), 555–575.</ref> In 1887 he built a house on [[Great Cranberry Island]].

An opponent of [[Interventionism (politics)|military intervention]],<ref>Storey, Moorfield, [http://wohlstadterj.faculty.mjc.edu/Nothing%20to%20Excuse%20Our%20Intervention.pdf "Nothing to Excuse Our Intervention"], ''Advocate of Peace'' 60 (May 1898).</ref> Storey spoke at the first [[American Anti-Imperialist League|anti-imperialist]] mass meeting in Boston in June 1898, called because of the Spanish–American War. He was a vice president of the [[American Anti-Imperialist League|New England Anti-Imperialist League]]. In addition, he wrote a book brief for the [[Lodge Committee]] summarizing the [[war crime]]s of the [[Philippine–American War]]. From 1905 until its dissolution in 1921 Storey was the Anti-Imperialist League's President. He perceived that "national subjugation overseas and racial persecution at home were related," which drove his efforts at reform.<ref name="gawalt" />

Storey was known to work 16-hour days, even into his later years. He was a fighter for unpopular issues, and as Bliss Perry wrote in his obituary for Storey, he was "usually in the minority at any given time."<ref name="ReferenceA" /> Storey himself was quoted as saying "It is not success to fight on the winning side. It is success to fight bravely for a principle even if one does not live to see it triumph."<ref name="ReferenceA" /> This determination to fight for the right, even if he did not win, led him to cross political swords with Presidents [[William Howard Taft]], [[Theodore Roosevelt]], [[Woodrow Wilson]], and [[United States Secretary of War]] [[Elihu Root]].<ref name="ReferenceA" />

==1900 Congressional campaign==
Late in the campaign of 1900, Storey seriously pondered running for president on a third-party ticket but decided against it as impractical. Instead, he ran a losing, but spirited and high-profile campaign for [[United States Congress|Congress]] as an [[Independent (politician)|independent]] anti-imperialist candidate. Other planks in his platform included support for the [[gold standard]] and [[free trade]].

==Champion of civil rights==
{{quote box
|quote=..."What, indeed, is true civilization ? By its fruit you shall know it. It is not dominion, wealth, material luxury – nay, not even a great literature and education
widespread, good though these things be. Civilization is not a veneer; it must penetrate to the very heart and core of societies of men. Its true signs are thought for the poor and suffering, chivalrous regard and respect for women, the frank recognition of human brotherhood, irrespective of race or color or nation or religion; the narrowing of the domain of mere force as a governing factor in the world, the love of ordered freedom, abhorrence of what is mean and cruel and vile, ceaseless devotion to the claims of justice. Civilization in that, its true, its highest sense, must make for Peace."
|author=One of Storey's favourite quotes attributed to Lord Russell{{which|date=January 2024}} may have inspired his views on civil rights
|width=30%
|source=<ref>Kitching, W. (1903). “Worse Things Than War!” The Advocate of Peace (1894–1920), 65(7), 128–128. {{jstor|25752165}}</ref>}}

Storey consistently and aggressively championed civil rights, not only for blacks but also for [[Native Americans in the United States|American Indians]] and immigrants. He opposed immigration restrictions, and supported racial equality and [[self-determination]].<ref name="gawalt">Gawalt, Gerard W.,[https://www.jstor.org/stable/364414?loginSuccess=true&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents "Reviewed Work: ''Moorfield Storey and the Abolitionist Tradition'' by William B. Hixson, Jr."], ''The New England Quarterly'' Vol. 45, No. 3 (September 1972), pp. 451–453, accessed February 15, 2016.</ref>

"When the white man governs himself, that is [[self-government]]," he declared, "but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government–that is [[despotism]]."<ref name="David" />
[[File:Moorfield Storey in a chair.jpg|thumb|267x267px|Moorfield Storey]]

Storey was the first president of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP), from its founding in 1909 until his death in 1929.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> According to his biographer Hixson, he "launched and maintained the effective campaign to achieve the total destruction of the legal embodiment of white supremacy."<ref name="gawalt" /> He guided NAACP's legal challenges to discriminatory laws that violated the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth]] and [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth]] amendments, especially related to disenfranchisement and segregation of blacks in the South, and led several important NAACP legal victories. Most notably, he was lead counsel before the [[Supreme Court of the United States|United States Supreme Court]] in ''[[Buchanan v. Warley]]'' (1917). In that case, the Court unanimously overturned a [[Louisville, Kentucky|Louisville]] law that [[Racial segregation|racially segregated]] blacks by specific city blocks.  The Court's opinion reflected the jurisprudence of property rights and freedom of contract as embodied in the earlier precedent it had established in ''[[Lochner v. New York]]''.

On February 17, 1916, he testified in opposition to the nomination of Louis D. Brandeis to the United States Supreme Court.<ref>{{cite news |title=Testimony of Moorfield Storey |work=Hearings on the Nomination of Louis D. Brandeis |agency=Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee |issue=64th Cong., 1st Sess |date=1916}}</ref>  Storey was on the conservative side in the [[Sacco and Vanzetti]] case.<ref name="dab">{{Cite DAB|title=Storey, Moorfield|year=1936|first=Sidney |last=Gunn}}</ref>

Storey was, with [[James Weldon Johnson]], the organizer of the 1919 [[National Conference on Lynching]].

In 1920 Storey led the NAACP to take on the defense of the [[Elaine massacre|Elaine Twelve]] in their appeals from convictions for murder and the death penalty.<ref name="brown">Brown, Walter L.,[https://www.jstor.org/stable/40022483?loginSuccess=true&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents "Reviewed Work: ''A Mob Intent on Death: The NAACP and the Arkansas Riot Cases'' by Richard C. Cortner"], ''The Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' Vol. 48, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 289–291.</ref> The NAACP raised $50,000 for their defense, hiring two attorneys to manage the appeals in Arkansas. The cases were broken into two tracks because of technical trial issues, and six men (Ware et al.) were retried beginning in May 1920 after their defense team won the first appeal at the state supreme court. Storey worked with the team as the cases of six other men (Moore et al.) later reached the United States Supreme Court. In its ruling in ''[[Moore v. Dempsey]]'' (1923), the Court set an important precedent for reviewing state criminal cases against the standard of the [[Due Process Clause]] of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution]] and application of Bill of Rights to state actions.<ref name="AKenc">{{cite web|url=http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=1102# |title=Elaine Massacre |publisher=Encyclopedia of Arkansas |access-date=2012-07-07}}</ref>

==Later life==
In the 1920s, Storey opposed the U.S. occupations [[United States occupation of Haiti|of Haiti]] and [[United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1916–1924)|of the Dominican Republic]] as the chairperson of the Haiti-Santo Domingo Independence Society. He was also on the advisory committee of the [[American Fund for Public Service]] Committee on [[American imperialism|American Imperialism]].

He died in [[Lincoln, Massachusetts]] in 1929, survived by four of his five children with Gertrude Cutts, whom he had married in 1870. She had died in 1912.<ref name="dab" /> His children were Charles Moorfield Storey, Elizabeth Storey Lovett, Richard Storey, Gertude Storey Burke and Katharine Storey Donald.

==Friendship with Edward Waldo Emerson and the Emerson family==
[[File:EdwardWaldoEmerson.jpg|thumb|139x139px|[[Edward Waldo Emerson]]]]
Storey was longtime friends with [[Edward Waldo Emerson]], son of famous American poet [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]]. The two were in the same graduating class at Harvard. Just after their graduation, Storey was one of two friends that accompanied Emerson on a camping trip. Also among the party was the elder Emerson, as well as [[Transcendentalism|Transcendentalist]] poet [[William Ellery Channing (poet)|William Ellery Channing]]. The camping party encountered a fierce storm on their second night out, and Storey worked to lighten the mood by singing through storm, with the younger Emerson joining in to sing the chorus. The event is recorded in Ralph Waldo Emerson's journals of the time.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> The two men's friendship continued for the next several decades, and they wrote a biography of former [[United States Attorney General]] [[Ebenezer R. Hoar]] together in 1911.<ref>{{cite book |last=Moorfield Storey |first=Edward Waldo Emerson |url=https://archive.org/details/ebenezerrockwoo02emergoog |title=Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar: A Memoir |year=1911 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Co. |language=en}}</ref>

==Time with Charles Sumner==
[[File:Appletons' Charles Sumner.jpg|left|thumb|161x161px|Charles Sumner]]
From 1867 to 1869, Storey was a clerk for the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]], and served as a private secretary to its chairman, Senator [[Charles Sumner]]. Storey was introduced to Sumner through his father, and moved to the Senator's house after his graduation from Harvard University. He accepted the position as it seemed the best route to continue his legal studies.<ref name="dab" /> Storey spent two years of his life as the Senator's right-hand man and one of his only friends, as the progressive Sumner had made many enemies in Washington.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> During his tenure, he initially supported the removal of President [[Andrew Johnson]] from office but soon became disenchanted by what he viewed as the [[Political corruption|corruption]] and [[opportunism]] of politicians on both sides. He was admitted to the [[Bar association|bar]] in 1869.

==Legacy==
Writer and editor Damon W. Root touted Storey as an historical role model for [[libertarian Democrat]]s in a December 2007 article for ''[[Reason Magazine]]''.<ref>{{cite web
|url=https://reason.com/2007/11/27/the-party-of-jefferson/
|title=The Party of Jefferson: What the Democrats can learn from a dead libertarian lawyer
|first=Damon W.
|last=Root
|magazine=Reason Magazine
|date=December 2007}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
* ''[[Charles Sumner]]'' (1900) in "American Statesmen Series."
* ''The Reform of Legal Procedure'' (1911).
* ''[[Ebenezer R. Hoar|Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar]], a Memoir'' (1911), with [[Edward Waldo Emerson]].  [https://books.google.com/books?id=BcJBAAAAYAAJ At Google Books].
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=7d5DhXmAuuwC&q=moorfield+storey ''Problems of To-Day''] (1920), the [[Godkin Lectures|E. L. Godkin Lectures]] delivered at Harvard, March 1920.
* ''The Conquest of the Philippines'' (1926)
* Howe, M.A. DeWolfe. ''Portrait of an Independent: Moorfield Storey 1845–1929.'' Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1932.

==Notes==
{{Portal|Biography|United States}}
{{reflist}}

==References==
* William B. Hixson Jr., ''Moorfield Storey and the Abolitionist Tradition,'' Oxford University Press, 1972, {{ISBN|978-0195015133}}.
* William B. Hixson, "Moorfield Storey and the Struggle for Equality." ''Journal of American History'' 55.3 (1968): 533–554, {{jstor|1891012}}.

{{NAACP}}

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