Charles W. Chesnutt to Frank X. Cull, 13 October 1931
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October 13, 1931
Mr. Frank X. Cull,
630 Bulkley Building,
City.
My dear Frank:
I have a very good excuse for not having acknowledged sooner your letter with regard to Freed's candidacy for Municipal Court judge.1 When the letter came and for the five weeks that have followed that time, I have been at home sick, in bed most of the time.2 This is my first day at the office for six weeks, and one of the first things I am doing is to answer your letter.
Of course I have done what little I could by way of questionnaires and Bar Association ballots, to forward Mr. Freed's ambition, but apparently without success so far. Freed is a nice fellow; I have always liked him; and for his own sake, as well as that of the firm with which he has been connected, I would like to see him succeed.3
If he decides to run in spite of the adverse decision of the Bar Association, I shall be glad to vote for him and do anything else for him that I can.4
I see, by the way, that the firm has changed recently. I am sorry Mr. Jamison left your firm, and I hope that the return of Mr. Inglis will more than replace his absence.5
Otis & Company got soaked in the stock slump, to which they contributed so largely.6 I know I asked one of their men when a certain stock for which I paid $98.50 was selling at $145.00 if I should sell out. He said no, that he had three times as much as I had and he was holding on -- and I held on, and as a consequence my stock dropped from $145.00 to $5.00, and is only a few cents above that now. That was only one rotten apple in the barrel. I had three or four others which I had bought at their suggestion at various prices ranging from $15.00 to $50.00, several of which are quoted anywhere from $1.50 to $10.00.7
[2]
Mr. Cull - page 2
Hoping that Mr. Freed may decide to run, or at any rate he will not be discouraged by the action of the Bar Association, but will remember that he is comparatively young yet and has plenty of time to distinguish himself in many lines during his probably duration of life, I remain,
Sincerely yours, CWC:ESCorrespondent: Francis "Frank" Xavier Cull (1887–1965) was a White lawyer from Ohio with a Ph.D. from Notre Dame University and a law degree from Georgetown University. Beginning in 1913, he was associated with the law firm of Robert Bulkley (1823–1911), Bulkley, Hauxhurst, Inglis & Sharp, which often employed Chesnutt's stenography services. Work for Cull by Chesnutt & Moore's firm is mentioned in letters from 1930–1932. He was a member of the Cleveland and the state Bar Associations and a registered Democrat.
1. Frank X. Cull's letter to Chesnutt from the end of August 1931 has not been located. [back]
2. Chesnutt became seriously ill and was home-bound from late August to at least mid-October of 1931; while he is vague about the nature of his illness, his letters thanking friends for flowers, gifts, and visits indicate that they had been very concerned. [back]
3. Emerich Burt Freed (1897–1955) was a White lawyer, a Democrat who was born in Hungary and spent his adult life in Cleveland. He attended law school at Western Reserve University and worked for Bulkley, Hauxhurst, Inglis & Sharp, the same law firm that employed Frank Cull (1918-1929); he then became assistant prosecutor for Cuyahoga County (1929–1932, 1933) and for a time its prosecuting attorney (1932–1933). His bid to become municipal court judge in November 1931 failed. [back]
4. The Cleveland Bar Association eventually endorsed Emerich Freed before the November election, but it had also polled its members in early October about the candidates for nine municipal judgeships. Freed's rival for the position, the sitting judge, received a majority of the members' votes (see "Bar Slate Strong in City Judge Tilt," Cleveland Plain Dealer [October 19, 1931]: 3). Neither candidate won. [back]
5. Bulkley, Hauxhurst, Inglis & Sharp (BHIS) was a prominent Cleveland law firm co-founded by Robert J. Bulkley (1880–1965) in 1909, initially as Bulkley & Inglis. By 1924, it was located in the newly built Bulkley Building, initially as Bulkley, Hauxhurst, Jamison & Sharp (BHJS). It was renamed from BHJS to BHIS in the summer of 1931 when Robert H. Jamison (1884–1965) left and Richard Inglis (1880–1956), one of the original founders of the firm, rejoined. [back]
6. Otis & Company was a brokerage firm founded by White Cleveland businessman Charles Augustus Otis, Jr. (1868–1953), originally as Otis & Hough in 1899. Charles Otis sold the company in June 1931 and continued his brokerage business under a different name, but it continued, with same name, as an investment firm. [back]
7. Between the initial Wall Street crash in late 1929 and the mid-1931 banking crises, most U.S. stocks lost ninety percent or more of their value, with effects that cascaded throughout the economy. Chesnutt, who had invested in the stock market and used these investments as collateral for his mortgages, was severely affected by the crash and discussed its effects in many letters between 1930 and 1932. [back]
