Constantine J. Smyth, Councillor-at-law promoted by President Wilson

This week's Times Past column by Jonathan Smyth remembers Constantine Joseph Smyth of Nebraska.

Nebraska has plenty going for it. This agricultural American State is known for its prime steaks, its forestry, home to the College Baseball World Series and is a major producer of corn beef. The subject of this week’s column made his home in Omaha, Nebraska.

Cavan has numerous familiar surnames. After O’Reilly and Brady, Smyth/Smith in all its forms is one of the most known family names in Cavan. While investigating the background to Constantine J. Smyth, I ran into another man of the same name, and although just as interesting, I could find no obvious link between the families. All the same, to distinguish them from each other I have given a brief account of that earlier law man at the end.

Family

The great Irish American Attorney-General Constantine Joseph Smyth (known as C.J.) was born on December 4, 1859, in Co Cavan. His mother and father were Rose Clarke Smyth and Bryan Smyth. Unfortunately, the exact location of where they lived is not known. They later sent him off to the United States in the care of a rich uncle. According to the ‘Illustrated History of Nebraska, from the Earliest Explorations to the Present Time,’ his uncle, a ‘widower and childless,’ requested that he be permitted to take his young nephew to the United States and have him educated ‘for the bar.’ They landed at first in New York where young Smyth attended.

Career

Constantine had a successful professional career. The Federal Judicial Centre provided the information which follows on their website. Having read law at Creighton University, he received a call to the bar in 1885. Smyth became a member of the law firm of Mahony, Minahan and Smyth in Omaha, Nebraska. He qualified for a Master of Arts degree in 1907 from Creighton University. In 1887, Smyth became State representative for Nebraska. From 1894 to 1896 he served as chairman of the Nebraska State Democratic Committee; then Attorney general for the State of Nebraska, from 1897 to 1900; Associate dean and professor at Creighton University College of Law from 1905 to 1910; and from 1913 to 1917 he served as Special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. He was later a partner in the Omaha-based law firm of Smyth and Schall. In 1916, a news report credited Smyth as being a public spirited citizen and a dominant factor in the development of Greater Omaha and the Middle West for over 30 years.

In 1916, The Omaha World-Herald newspaper alerted readers to Smyth’s obsession with books. Of course, it is the best obsession to have if you must have an obsession. They wrote that: ‘The things of the mind have always interested Mr Smyth. He has ever been a lover of books and a close student of what they have to say.’

His success with various embezzlement cases brought him to the attention of people in high places. Smyth as Attorney General prosecuted a variety of people for embezzlement. They included Joseph S. Bartley, the former state treasurer, put on trial for $200,000 that went missing and received twenty years in the penitentary; also, Eugene Moore the former state auditor who embezzled $20,000 from State funds, but without majority agreement, the Supreme Court released him.

Count Creighton’s will

Smyth’s private practise linked him to many major lawsuits of the time, none more so than the lawsuit around the will of Count John A. Creighton and the trust founded by him to form and run the Working Girls Home in North Omaha. The Count who died in 1907 was a generous philanthropist whose millions of dollars benefitted secular and non-secular projects in Nebraska. The Count left $50,000 to set up the home, but a letter was found in which he suggested an increased amount of $110,000 should be set aside for the trust. Constantine Smyth managed to get a good result for the trust by winning an increase in funding from the Creighton estate. In 1913, the John A. Creighton Home for Working Girls officially opened.

His work for the Federal Judicial Service was impressive. In June 1917, President Woodrow Wilson nominated Smyth to succeed to the ‘Federal Judicial Service: Chief Justice, Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia,’ in place of Seth Shepard who ‘vacated’ the seat. The Senate approved his nomination on 12 July 1917, he then ‘received his commission’ as Chief Justice that same day. Smyth held the job until his death in 1924 at Rochester, Minnesota; said to be because of an operation he underwent. Constantine’s final resting place is at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska, USA.

The Smyth House, Nebraska

In 1906, Constantine Smyth built a magnificent mansion at 710 North 38th Street, in the new Gold Coast District, North Omaha. The house surrounded by majestic 100 year old oak trees was purchased by the Herchenbach family in 2013. They have a Facebook page, ‘The Smyth House’, which documents happenings around the house. For more about Constantine J. Smyth, see: The Omaha World-Herald Newspaper, Omaha, May 28, 1916.

The other Constantine J. Smyth

The American Chief Justice, Constantine Joseph Smyth, is not to be confused with an earlier Cavan born legal eagle also named Constantine Joseph Smyth who came from Kilnaleck townland, Butlersbridge. The earlier Constantine (who became a barrister at law) was born in 1806 to Bernard Constantine Smyth BA, and Elizabeth O’Reilly Smyth (formerly O’Reilly of Annagh).

Constantine of Kilnaleck wrote ‘The Chronicle of the Irish Law Officers’ published around 1849 and a series of law tracts. His great grandparents were Mary O’Reilly Smyth (formerly O’Reilly of Kevitt, Cavan), and Bernard Smyth of Laragh, Co Cavan. His grandparents were Constantine Smyth, who became a Dublin Merchant, and Elizabeth Dunne, a sister of the Rev Andrew Dunne, DD, President of Maynooth University.