Volume XLIX • Number 6 November/December 2016 Maryland Legal History November 2016 MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL 1 2 MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL November 2016 Volume XLIX • Number 6 November/December 2016 16 34 4 46 Published bimonthly by the Maryland State Bar Association, Inc. The Maryland Bar Center “Maryland Legal History” 520 W. Fayette St. Baltimore, Maryland 21201 Telephone: (410) 685-7878 (800) 492-1964 Website: www.msba.org Features Executive Director: Paul V. Carlin 4 Eugenics, Jim Crow & Baltimore’s Best Editor: W. Patrick Tandy Assistant to the Editor: Lisa Muscara By Garrett Power Design: Jason Quick Advertising Sales: Network Media Partners Subscriptions: MSBA members receive 16 A Look Back: University of Maryland BALSA, 1976-1979 THE MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL as $20 of their dues payment goes to By Harry S. Johnson publication. Others, $42 per year. POSTMASTER: Send address change to THE MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL 22 Psychologists As Expert Witnesses: A Legal Retrospective 520 W. Fayette St. Baltimore, MD 21201 By Kenneth A. Vogel The Maryland Bar Journal welcomes articles on topics of interest to Maryland 28 People’s Progress: Looking Backward and Forward attorneys. All manuscripts must be original work, submitted for approval by the After 20 Years Special Committee on Editorial Advisory, and must conform to the Journal style By Dave Pantzer guidelines, which are available from the MSBA headquarters. The Special 34 Integration in a Post-Brown World: A Conversation with Committee reserves the right to reject any manuscript submitted for publication. Judge Marcella Holland Advertising: Advertising rates will be furnished upon request. All advertising By Jennifer L. Kent and Christy A. Fisher is subject to approval by the Editorial Advisory Board. 40 A History of Divorce in Maryland: Where It Started Editorial Advisory Board and Where It Should Go Courtney A. Blair, Chair James B. Astrachan By Benjamin Schenker Alexa E. Bertinelli Cameron A. Brown Susan K. Francis 46 What You “Say” on Social Media May Have Consequences Peter A. Heinlein Hon. Marcella A. Holland (ret.) By Alvin I. Frederick and Erin A. Risch Louise A. Lock Victoria H. Pepper Gwendolyn S. Tate MSBA Officers (2016-2017) President: Hon. Harry C. Storm Departments President-Elect: Sara H. Arthur 52 Ethics Docket 2016-13 By the Ethics Committee Secretary: Hon. Keith R. Truffer Treasurer: Hon. Mark F. Scurti Whether a lawyer can pay a fee to an online legal directory for increased Statements or opinions expressed herein are visibility throughout the website, including on other lawyers’ profile pages? those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Maryland State Bar 54 Attorney Grievance Commission By Glenn M. Grossman Association, its officers, Board of Governors, the Editorial Board or staff. Publishing an The Health of the Profession advertisement does not imply endorsement of any product or service offered. November 2016 MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL 3 eugenics, jim crow & baltimore’s best By Garrett Power introduction During the first half of the twentieth century, Jim Crow laws denied suffrage, housing, education, and justice to black Baltimoreans. These laws were conceived and implemented by Baltimore’s leading attorneys. Why did the “Best of the Bar” choose to be the active agents of white supremacy and racial segregation? Perhaps history has an answer. 4 MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL November 2016 November 2016 MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL 5 Biological Science as examples. Marbury was just one of humankind.” Simply put, the During the second half of the nine- generation removed from his impov- Progressives advocated: teenth century biological science erished family’s slaveholding planta- 1. White supremacy; found itself at the start of a “paradigm tion in southern Maryland when he 2. Racial segregation; and shift.” Charles Darwin’s 1859 theo- arrived in Baltimore in the 1870s. 3. Selective breeding. ry of evolution was challenging the He was admitted to the newly cre- old belief of “creationism.” Darwin’s ated Johns Hopkins University, but In Richard T. Ely’s words, gover- notion of “natural selection” hypoth- a shortage of funds forced him to nance by white men was imperative esized that the best adapted members drop out and go to work while taking because “…negroes [were] grownup chil- of any biological species had the great- evening classes at the University of dren and should be treated as such.” A est chance to survive and to reproduce Maryland School of Law. W. Cabell racial quarantine was thought neces- themselves. Bruce (1860-1946), a patrician gradu- sary to protect white people from the In 1869, Francis Galton had applied ate of the University of Virginia, was contagion and the violence endemic Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” to his classmate; Marbury and Bruce in black communities. Controls on human society. Galton’s “eugenics” shared class honors at the 1881 grad- breeding were required to prevent opined that interbreeding among the uation. T. Woodrow Wilson (1856- race-mixing, and to eliminate defec- leading specimens of the Anglo Saxon 1924) arrived from Virginia in 1886 tive genes from the gene pool. white race had produced a people (where he had previously earned his Cabell Bruce, Woodrow Wilson, with superior and health, energy, abil- law degree) intent upon pursuing a and William Marbury became ity, and manliness. J.H.U. doctorate. dedicated Progressives who were destined to have long and distin- guished public careers. Woodrow After the War Between Progressivism Wilson would become President of the States The Johns Hopkins University had Princeton University and, eventu- U.S. constitutional law was also in been founded in Baltimore in 1876 ally, President of the United States. the midst of change. After the “War as the nation’s first research insti- Cabell Bruce would represent the between the States” (1861-1865), tution. It stood at the center of the State of Maryland in the United the victorious North modified the Progressive movement. Richard Ely States Senate and receive a Pulitzer Nation’s organic law. The Thirteenth (1854-1943) joined the faculty in 1881 Prize for a biography of Benjamin Amendment abolished slavery; the as a professor of Political Economy. Franklin. William Marbury became Fourteenth Amendment bestowed Schooled in the German tradition, one of the nation’s leading lawyers citizenship on all persons born in the Ely championed government con- and, in the words of H.L. Mencken, United States and guaranteed to them trol over all aspects of human life “one of the best citizens Maryland the “equal protection of the law, and; (business, employment, immigration, ever had.” the Fifteenth Amendment granted and families). A dedicated Episcopal Each of these men in their own “Negro suffrage.” churchman, Ely preached a “Social way advanced the Progressive segre- A mixed lot of newcomers inundat- Gospel” that would create a “heaven gationist’s agenda. Bruce published ed Baltimore. Black freemen from the on earth.” a vitriolic monograph entitled The South and immigrants from Ireland, Ely founded the Baltimore-based Negro Problem (1890) wherein he Italy, Poland, and Russia overwhelmed American Economics Association warned of the prospect of an “igno- the city’s capacity to provide shelter, (AEA). Both Ely and the AEA rant” black vote, and of the dangers jobs, schools, and health care. embraced Progressivism and of acceptance of “savage” Negroes Displaced men from the southern Galton’s new science of eugenics. into the white midst. Wilson, when gentry also came to town seeking edu- Eugenics explained all differences in President of Princeton, rejected all cation and professional opportunity. human intelligence, character, and black applicants, and when President William L. Marbury (1858-1935), temperament as matters of hered- of the United States, re-segregated W. Cabell Bruce (1860-1946), and T. ity. Eugenic measures were touted the federal civil service. Marbury Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) stand the way to “advance the progress spent the remainder of his profes- 6 MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL November 2016 All Family Law Matters • Litigation • Appeals • Mediation Collaborative Law • Neutral Case Evaluation We Solve Problems. With over 30 years’ experience we provide a broad depth of knowledge in all family law matters. In our centrally located office in Greenspring Valley, we advocate for you with efficiency and a real “get it done” attitude. Rated Multiple Years! The Law Offices of Julie Ellen Landau landaulaw.com 1925 Old Valley Road • Suite 2 • Stevenson, MD 21153 P.O. Box 219 • 410.625.1100 • FX410.625.2174 November 2016 MARYLAND BAR JOURNAL 7 sional life in active opposition to elected a Republican Governor and a to pass. The Poe Amendment was the integration of African-Americans Republican Mayor. Democratic Party then defeated by the voters at ref- into full citizenship and participa- Boss Gorman bewailed the electoral erendum. Although registered as tion in Baltimore life. power of this minority which was Democrats, foreign-born citizens “altogether unfit for the management joined long-time Republicans and of the affairs of any community.” blacks in voting against the amend- Turn of the Century ment. They feared that the “under- Opposition to “race mixture” and standing test” might be administered support for racial segregation gained Jim Crow so as to deny them the vote as well. immediate and widespread accep- At the start of the twentieth century, In 1907, Isaac Lobe Straus (1871- tance. In 1884, the Maryland General Jim Crow laws became the centerpiece 1946), as Maryland’s newly elected Assembly made it a crime for “white of Progressive Era reforms. Eugenic Democratic Attorney General, cre- persons and persons of negro descent” science provided white leaders a righ- ated a “brain-trust” of prominent to marry. In 1890, the University of teous justification to use the rule of Maryland lawyers, including William Maryland School of Law summar- law to impose a caste system upon L.