Howard A. Taylor

The early achievements of Howard Taylor in athletics may have led some of even his Century associates to overlook his real and solid achievements in the law. Before his death he stood in the front rank of New York’s trial lawyers. In his trial of cases, so wrote an eminent member of the New York bar, “he was straight and fair and pleasant and able; and the older he grew the more power and influential as a lawyer he would have continually become.”

Taylor had been during several years counsel for the New York World, and it was his determined insistence upon a trial of the case brought by Mayor Hylan against the World for libel which compelled that ornament of our present municipal régime to withdraw his suit, pay costs, and thereby practically admit the truth of the charges made against him at the time of his candidacy for the office. What was not so well known, outside of his circle of more intimate friends, was Taylor’s unusual social quality as host.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1921 Century Association Yearbook