Cordenio A. Severance

Never himself holding or seeking political office, Cordenio Arnold Severance was curiously associated through his legal partnership at St. Paul with some highly interesting episodes of our history. One of his partners, Cushman K. Davis, was the aggressive chairman of the United States Senate’s Foreign Affairs committee during 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish War. The other partner, Frank B. Kellogg, was United States Senator from Minnesota during our own participation in the war, Ambassador to England, and now Secretary of State. Severance was as useful a citizen as his eminent associates. He served as counsel in several cases of national importance, notably for the Harvester Company and the United States Steel in the Anti-Trust litigation. In 1922, as President of the American Bar Association, he came into public notice for his speech at its convention, in which he took issue clearly, earnestly and convincingly with the propaganda, which was then getting into politics, for an amendment prohibiting the Federal Courts from declaring an act of Congress unconstitutional. Such tampering with the framework of our government, he pointed out, in words which were quoted throughout the country, was an innovation which “would take away the liberties of the people by giving Congress unchecked power” and would “wipe out the Bill of Rights, with all the protection that it gives.”

Personally, Mr. Severance was a man of easy manners, broad culture and an abundant stock of humor, and of well-known hospitality at his Minnesota suburban home.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1926 Century Association Yearbook