Ernest Morris
| Publication year | 1990 |
| Pages | 1286 |
| Citation | Vol. 19 No. 7 Pg. 1286 |
1990, July, Pg. 1286. ERNEST MORRIS
Willis V. Carpenter, Denver is a partner in the firm of Carpenter & Klat-skin, P.C.
The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the careers of many capable Colorado lawyers. Ernest Morris deserves recognition as one of the greatest of that era, from the perspective of skill in his profession as well as extraordinary courage under fire.
Morris was born in Thorn, Prussia, on May 6, 1875. His birthplace, on the eastern border, would later be annexed and become part of the Republic of Poland following World War I. His father left Prussia for the United States in 1848, following the gold rush to California. After becoming a naturalized United States citizen, his father returned to Prussia in 1861, married and raised a family of six children, of which Ernest was the youngest.
In 1882, the entire family emigrated to this country and settled in Park City, Utah. After several years they moved to Central City, Colorado, where Ernest graduated from high school. Continuing to college at the University of Colorado, he received a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1896. The same year, he enrolled at Cornell Law School, but his love for the mountains of Colorado caused him to return to the law school at Boulder, where he was awarded an LL.B. in 1898.
Perhaps his return to Colorado was prompted by events as well as memories. In his unpublished autobiography, Morris' only mention of his term at Cornell is a debate in which he contended that westerners were more intelligent than easterners, subsequently proving the point with illiteracy statistics compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. Although he won the argument, his popularity with his fellow students was not enhanced. It was certain even then, however, that Ernest Morris was not one to back away from controversy, whatever the consequences.
Commencing practice in 1898 at the old Symes Building at 16th and Champa Streets in Denver, Morris had no clients; he relied instead on criminal appointments to defend the indigent accused. He achieved a few acquittals, including two men he proved "innocent" of forgery, but he acquired a distaste for criminal law when the same two men were convicted of robbery several months later.
Wedded to Lillian Selma Eppstein in 1900 (they had two sons, Bertram and Clarence), he admitted to three years of starvation, punctuated by only two good meals per week, one at her parents, one at his. The economic struggle of this young Denver lawyer improved when he acquired a wealthy client, thanks to the elevator operator in the Symes Building who steered a lady his way when she asked to be taken to the "best lawyer in the building." A subsequent lawsuit on behalf of his new client who sued a prominent society matron for alienation of affections, a case Morris accepted on a one-third contingency fee basis, was settled after the complaint was served but before it was filed under the ten-day rule of court.
As with many attorneys fresh from the bar examination, Morris sought new fields of practice. On adoption of the Bankruptcy Act of 1898, he filed the first involuntary petition in the state of Colorado. The opposing debtor's counsel was Ben B. Lindsey, later to become Denver's famous juvenile judge. When the Torrens Title Registration Act was passed in Colorado in 1903 (under the sponsorship of then state Senator Ed Taylor who, in 1934 as a U.S. Congressman, authored the Taylor Grazing Act), Morris filed the first certificate of title on behalf of William O. McFarlane, builder of the Central City Opera House.
Involved in many of the publicized trials of his day, Morris' reputation continued to grow. On passage of Denver's home rule charter, he successfully litigated the right of judges Otto Bock and Clifford W. Mills, elected under the charter, to assume their places on the municipal bench, despite the refusal of the incumbents to vacate. However, he became famous principally for taking on, and eventually defeating, the most potent force in Denver civic and political life, The Denver Post.
It appears that Morris first acquired the enmity of The Post's notorious proprietors, Frederick G. Bonfils and Harry H. Tammen, in the early 1900s when he sued the chief of police who had beaten an elderly man in the chief's office. The chief, Patrick W. Delaney, was a favorite of The Post. When forced to resign by the attendant publicity of Morris' lawsuit, Delaney was hired by Bonfils as a personal bodyguard. Bonfils and Tammen would not forget Morris, as we shall see.
Morris joined the Denver Philosophical Society, for which he served as secretary under ten presidents before becoming president himself. He and William W. "Will" Grant joined forces as...
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