Charles Howard Strong

Charles Howard Strong. [Born] 1865. Lawyer.

The practice of the law is a noble profession, but only if it be practiced so that the profession is lifted up by the lawyer’s presence in its ranks. Charles Strong personified this point of view and, accordingly, his service went far beyond the normal orbit of the lawyer’s professional activities.

Admitted in 1892 to the New York Bar he spent 57 years in practice, to construct day by day a well-deserved reputation. In 1917 he was made Secretary of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and continued in that office until advancing years impelled him, after twenty-nine years of continuous service, to lay its burdens down. It is simple truth to say that no other man in all that time contributed so much to the usefulness and vitality of that important organization. A succession of presidents leaned heavily on him for advice and guidance; and it would not be easy to number the wise policies adopted or the mistakes avoided in following his quiet counsel.

To all good causes he was ready to lend a hand. To mention but a few, he was concerned with the cause of good government in the City of New York, the administration of the State Charities Law, the reform of the taxing laws of the State, the revision of the Charter of our City, support to the League of Nations and the organizations of the American Law Institute.

In all these and many other endeavors he was never a mere passenger. But he always pulled his weight.

He realized to the full the Bar’s responsibility flowing from the lawyer’s special competence in public affairs and his traditional leadership in political thought arid action to devote a large part of its reserves of time thought and energy to public purposes.

Source: Henry Allen Moe Papers, Mss.B.M722. Reproduced by permission of American Philosophical Society Library & Museum, Philadelphia

Henry Allen Moe
Henry Allen Moe Papers, 1949 Memorials