Please RSVP by Friday, November 19th franklinbar.org/rsvp/

Gloria Keener, Executive Director of Franklin County Legal Services and Pro Bono Coordinator of the Franklin County Bar Association shared “In the past year, 31 matters have been accepted by Franklin County Bar Association pro bono attorneys. These matters have included divorce, will/power of attorney, protection from abuse, adult guardianship, estates, a lien matter, consumer lawsuit defense, a week-long office and hearing coverage for a legal services attorney and regular divorce consultations at a legal services office. All of this pro bono involvement addressed critical legal needs and helped individuals with legal issues affecting their basic needs. Our theme this year is about how hope grows when volunteers plant the seeds of justice. Yes, pro bono attorneys are the heart of our legal services community, and we are so grateful for the difference you make in the lives of others. When you plant a seed, it takes hard work. You have to get down in the dirt and do something where you can’t see the end result at the time. But you do it with faith and in a hope that something beautiful will grow. For the clients, your hard work begins to grow a hope that they didn’t know they could have. You may never know how the divorce you got for someone helped change their life, or the custody case you handled helped a child feel loved, how the PFA order saved a life, or how any type of legal work you did was a steppingstone to a brighter future. You may never know what a lifelong difference you made by showing up and using your talents to help someone at the time of their deepest need. Your pro bono involvement is launching someone into a life of hope. In due time, the seeds planted will have grown into a beautiful garden.”

On November 4th, we will present the webinar, Orientation to Legal Research: U.S. Federal Statutes.

Register here.

Join the Law Library of Congress and the American Association of Law Libraries for The Jane Sánchez Memorial Lecture on the Future of Law Libraries and Law Librarianship. The late Law Librarian of Congress and Deputy Librarian for Library Collections and Services Jane Sánchez worked to advance the Law Library of Congress by advocating for new initiatives. These initiatives, such as the Law Library of Congress Legal Research Institute, helped enhance the Law Library of Congress' products and services, and expand our ability to assist patrons across the world. This webinar, which is cosponsored with the American Association of Law Libraries, will honor Jane's legacy by examining the future of law libraries and law librarianship with a panel of experts that draw on their experience as leaders in academic, government, and law firm libraries. The Law Librarian of Congress, Aslihan Bulut, will moderate this discussion.

Register here.

The Orientation to Law Library Collections Webinar is designed for patrons who are familiar with legal research, and would instead prefer an introduction to the collections and services specific to the Law Library of Congress. This webinar is an online version of the one-hour onsite orientations taught by legal reference librarians from the Law Library of Congress, and will cover digital resources available through the Law Library’s website as well as those available onsite.

Register here.

On November 18^th, the Law Library will present a webinar on Recently Published Law Library of Congress Reports.

In this entry in our Foreign and Comparative Law Webinar series, Law Library senior foreign law specialists Sayuri Umeda and Gustavo Guerra will provide a brief review of recently published Law Library research reports that they prepared in collaboration with other legal specialists in 2021, covering timely topics such as, "Taxation of Cryptocurrency Block Rewards in Selected Jurisdictions” and China’s “Belt and Road Initiative.” 

Register here. 

The complete member list is updated quarterly and available to you and your staff two ways.

You may download and print a PDF from the members' section of our website (log in required). Or you may email Amelia at director@franklinbar.org to receive a PDF or excel document anytime.

We have all heard the stereotype, that Attorneys are usually found with a glass of Scotch in hand. Scotch, a form of whisky (whiskey) is, of course, a distilled spirit. Not the type of spirit we saw this past Sunday but rather an intoxicant of sorts and most definitely alcohol. No doubt, alcohol has existed for centuries and has a history of regulation in our country. This story will begin about a century after 1784 when Franklin County came into existence. (Photo from TV show SUITS.)

Drinking was lucrative, promenade, and there was a push to stop it. From page 208 of the book “The True Path: Or The Murphy Movement and Gospel Temperance” by Vandersloot, Samuel (1878) came some shocking statistics on drinking.  

 “The following figures taken from the reports of E.S. Young, chief of the United States Statistical Bureau and from commissioner Wells’ report to Congress in 1869 are certainly undeniable inconclusive the amount of sales by the retail liquor dealers in the United states was $1,483,491,865. This was six tenths of the entire amount of the national debt at the time, i.e.1869.  The yearly deaths from intemperance in this country amount to 75,000, of these 71,000 are males and 4,000 females. It is estimated there are present in the United states 300,000 hard drinkers and 1,500,000 moderate drinkers with the occasional ‘smilers’ aggregate to 2,000,000.”

No doubt alcohol remained lucrative as the years passed from the 1800’s to 1900’s and was able to makes its presence felt even here in Franklin County and the 39^th Judicial District. Even in the few years leading up the passage of the 18^th Amendment, alcohol made its presence felt in many ways, some more surprising than others! Such was this particular Order of Court from 1918 on p. 284 of the Miscellaneous Docket.

“In the court of Common Pleas of Franklin County Pennsylvania December 2, 1918 it is ordered by the Court of Common Pleas of the thirty ninth Judicial District of Pennsylvania … [regarding jury selection] to select alternately from the whole qualified electorate of said County of Franklin at large, six-hundred sober, intelligent, and judicious persons to serve as jurors in the several courts of said county during the year beginning January 1, 1919”. (Emphasis added) 

We all have seen orders from our current bench. Words have purpose but they also have various meaning. Did the court intend to find electorate who were staid and sensible in behavior? Or did the Court want a juror who was not intoxicated? Perhaps somewhere, sometime, a juror was summoned who was a drunkard. This is not beyond some of the oddities we have seen today. Although funny now, if someone arrived inebriated to exercise their civic duty, what a frustrating day that must have been! Additionally, was there a blight of intemperate persons in this community? To the Franklin County Coyle Free Library I went and spent a good deal of time reading the paper – from about a hundred years ago.

On October 3^rd of 1918, our 39^th Judicial District had 109 cases docketed and not settled for the October term of quarter sessions. (Public Opinion from October 3, 1918, pages 1,3). Of those 109 cases there were 26 that may have been alcohol related. There were two cases involving surity of the peace. Of the 13 that involved assault or battery, 7 of them were brought by the oath of a woman. There were 6 desertion or maintenance cases, two cases involving furnishing alcohol to a known intemperate person, and finally one case of driving while intoxicated. Instability to family and injury to property and life were common during this period and articles about it abounded in the Public Opinion.

Driving while intoxicated caused quite a stir in 1919 when Judge W. Rush Gillan said in sentencing of a drunk driver involved in a crash with other motorists, “There is no excuse for a man of 58 years of age, or any other man operating a motor car to be intoxicated. It is dangerous business.”  (Public Opinion January 4, 1919, p1). Of course, the Chambersburg Motor Club’s meeting at the Hotel Washington, as reported in the February 25, 1919, Public Opinion, formally endorsed “the stand taken by Judge Gillan in punishing with fines and jail sentences those who drive their cars while in an intoxicated condition.” Furthermore, it was “decided by the club to address a letter to the state highway commissioner urging him revoke the license of any so convicted.” The February 24, 1919, Public Opinion informed the readers of how bad drunk driving had become! They report of a Lieutenant, presumably in Chambersburg, “…pulling Buffalo Bill stuff on a drunken auto driver” on a 22-year-old drunk driver still driving with his head slumped onto the door passed out by drink, by jumping onto the running boards from the taxi he was in to the drunk driver’s vehicle to stop the emergency.  

Others were more than injured by being drunk. The January 20, 1919, edition of the Public Opinion reported of a 45 year old Rouzerville man who, after drinking to excess at the Central Hotel in Waynesboro, met an unfortunate death on the tracks back to his home. After ending his evening of drink, he boarded the trolly back home. Once at his stop, he exited and proceeded to walk the tracks. Sadly, he was so drunk he fell down and laid there until a trolly ran over the passed out drunkard resulting in injuries that I can only describe, for the sensibilities of the reader, as gruesome.   

No doubt, the injuries of alcohol were part of the push to go ‘dry’. At the end of 1918 and beginning of 1919, states were ratifying the 18^th amendment with a push by the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance. Even in Franklin County, the temperance and dry movement made its presence known. The February 19, 1919, Public Opinion detailed how the “Silver Tongued Dry Leader” spoke at a local church the night prior. The writer of the article must had had fun writing the first paragraph which is as follows:

“Perhaps William Jennings Bryan, politician and prohibitionist, parted with a portion of his popularity through his palpable pacifist propensities of the past but not a particle of his prominence and potence as a prohibition preacher an promoter has passed away. Promised with a profitable and powerful preachment, people packed into the First United Brethren church last evening and put on an attentive posture while Mr Bryan spoke perspicaciously and perspicuously on the progress of prohibition, in these myriads of persons perceived at once that the pioneer political prohibitionist has not lost in power as a public speaker nor in his personal antagonism to the liquor traffic.” P is for prohibition. (William Jennings Bryan pictured.)

Pennsylvania was slow to ratify the 18^th amendment.  Maryland and West Virginia were dry by February 24, 1919. Crimes and injuries resulted from those in dry areas who wanted to ‘satiate their burning appetites’ in the wet state of Pennsylvania.  Such injuries included four bootleggers from West Virginia who, after obtaining 40 quarts of Guggenheimer Whiskey in Greencastle, wrecked their car on their way back to Berkeley Springs. By this time the Chambersburg Hospital was in operation and one of the injured was transported there “for repairs”, per the Public Opinion of February 24, 1919. Although injuries abound, so does money.  Just three days prior, the February 21, 1919 Public Opinion reported 135 cases of whiskey passed through Hagerstown on its way to Greencastle from Baltimore. “The goods were valued at $25.00 per case, 12 quarts to the case, 1620 quarts or 405 gallons at a value of $3,375.” Although alcohol was lucrative, it was destructive. 

For anyone who has lived in Franklin County for some time will not be surprised it leaned ‘dry’. Franklin county had support from citizens and elected officials alike to go ‘dry’ leading up to prohibition. In the January 10, 1919 edition of the Public Opinion, Franklin County state representatives Benchoff and Magill were reportedly solid for the amendment as they were elected on a dry platform. [Additionally] State senator Beals, for the Adams-Franklin counties was for the amendment stating “… I would vote for it … by reason of the great good it will do for humanity and our country.” This sentiment flourished, with local citizens organizing a ‘dry’ parade to support the measure. Although the saloon interests were also present in Franklin County and the state, after passing the Pennsylvania House, the 18^th amendment was approved by the Senate after a vote on September 25, 1919. 

Franklin county began its march towards having sober individuals – both temperate and staid and sensible of behavior. What percentage of alcohol beer and wine may contain, what townships and when alcohol could be sold, if at all, as well how the amendment was to be enforced, was yet to be determined. And what of the court order that sparked this trip down this rabbit hole? Without further research in the archives, it’s not conclusive what the court in 1919 meant when asking for sober individuals. Meanwhile, should you purchase and imbibe alcohol, be mindful. Do not drink so much as the Rouzerville man who faced a gruesome death on the tracks!

 Friendly reminder of the Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers: 1-888-999-1941.