Los Angeles County
Biographies
JOHN T. MULLIGAN
On the list of professional men in Long Beach appears the name of John T. Mulligan, who was an able and successful lawyer with a background of more than thirty years’ experience as a legal practitioner, and had also achieved prominence in the field of literature. He was born in Waterloo, Iowa, February 25, 1977, a son of Daniel and Sarah (Stannard) Mulligan, the former a native of Ontario, Canada, and the latter of New York State. The father went to Iowa before the outbreak of the Civil war and became one of the prosperous farmers of Black Hawk County. His life was guided by teachings of the Catholic Church and both he and the mother are now deceased.
A member of a family of nine children, John T. Mulligan was reared on the home farm and after the completion of his high school course attended the Williams Normal School of Nebraska. He studied law at the University of Nebraska, from which he won the LL. B. degree in 1901, and in the same year was admitted to the bar. Going to the state of Washington, he began his career as an attorney at Davenport, Washington, where he remained until February, 1922, when he came to Long Beach, and he here specialized in corporation and oil matters. He had a fine suite of offices on the third floor of the Ocean Center building and was the owner of a large library of law books. Strong and convincing in argument, he was regarded as a formidable adversary in legal combat and won many verdicts favorable to the interests of his clients. He successfully handled a number of notable cases, including the suit for damages for the killing of “Peter the Great,” the famous dog actor, instituted by the owners. The jury, composed of nine women and three men, returned a verdict of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, the largest verdict ever recorded in the annals of history. In his closing argument at the trial, Mr. Mulligan said, in part:
“It is not within my power to add to or take from the monuments of glory already erected in recognition of the dog and his services to mankind. It was a dog that licked the sores of Lazarus as he accepted the crumbs from the rich man’s table. Cuvier tells us that the dog was perhaps necessary for the establishment of civil society, and that a little reflection will convince one that barbarous nations owe much of their subsequently acquired civilization to the dog. History records that a small spaniel saved the life of William of Orange and thus changed the current of modern history. Indeed, from the primitive man to the present day, is the long distance of ages; yet to every step of that long, long trail is marked by the countless instances of dog’s fidelity, devotion and companionship to his master. From the frozen poles to the torrid zone, on the parched plain and in the blistering desert, in the death-lurking jungles and on the ice-capped mountains, wherever man has wandered, there has been his dog, ever faithful and watchful, ever trustworthy and true. Neither cold, heat, danger, or starvation deprives him from manifesting those unexplained qualities in his love and devotion to his master. History is filled with incidents where all others have fled, but the faithful dog stood guard, either as a mourner at his master’s grave, or with a determined purpose to administer to him if opportunity presented itself.
“So much for man’s best friend. We are here trying more than a dog case. ‘Peter the Great’ is a name that will go down in history as a character that gave something to human advancement. It will survive in film history as the most human-like dog that ever displayed its skill in a film drama. His name was a symbol of loyalty, devotion, nobility and heroic exploits. ‘Peter the Great,’ king of the silver screen, was the playmate of mankind. He lived and struggled, suffered and sacrificed, to make countless thousands happy and cheerful. He made the multitude laugh and cry, wonder and admire. ‘Peter the Great’ sent to them to their homes with pictures of high ideals and unselfish service; the clean, the pure, the good in thought, example and action. ‘Peter the Great’ was a byword of every household, a wonder-word to every child lover of the motion picture world. And when he came to the last scene in the drama of life, when the curtain of death was slowly ringing down and he was going into that long, long sleep, I know he felt that it was only a new act he was performing as part of his life, as a part of some cruel tragedy, and he seemed to smile as the light went out. And as he lived he died-the beloved, noble and devoted ‘Peter the Great.’”
Mr. Mulligan was not only an eloquent orator but a gifted writer. Among his published works are: “Mulligan on Corporations;” “The Introduction to Industrial Government;” Americanism or the Money Huns;” “An Echo of Flanders Fields;” and “Draft Will Rogers for President of the United States,” a booklet of seventy-two pages.
In 1910 Mr. Mulligan was married to Miss Phoebe Roberts, a daughter of David and Sarah E. Roberts. Mr. Mulligan belonged to the Masonic fraternity, to a number of clubs and to the Los Angeles County Bar Association and the State Bar of California. As a legal practitioner he had ever in mind the dignity and responsibility of his profession and at all times has upheld its high standards.
Transcribed
By: Michele Y. Larsen on November 15, 2012.
Source: California
of the South Vol. V,
by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 498-500,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles,
Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 Michele
Y. Larsen.
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BIOGRAPHIES