JOSEPH SCOTT

Los Angeles County

Biographies

JOSEPH SCOTT

SCOTT, JOSEPH, Attorney at Law, Los Angeles, California, was born at Penrith, County of Cumberland, England, July 16, 1867. His father was Joseph Scott, of Scotch border stock, and his mother, Mary (Donnelly) Scott, was a native of Wexford, Ireland. On June 6, 1898, he married Bertha Roth at Los Angeles, California. To them were born eight children: Joseph, Jr., Mary, Alfonso, George, Cuthbert, John Patrick, Helen, and Josephine.

Mr. Scott received his first education in his native country, where he attended Ushaw (sic) College, Durham, from 1880 until 1888. He matriculated with honors at London University in 1887, being the gold medalist of his class. At St. Bonaventure’s College, Allegany, (sic) N. Y., he received the degree of A. M. in 1893, and the honorary degree of Ph. D. at Santa Clara College, Santa Clara, California, in 1907.

Mr. Scott came to America from England in 1889, and entered into journalistic work in New York City. In this he had little remuneration and about that period he had the hardest struggles of his life. He was unused to manual work, but during his financial difficulty he took employment of various kinds, in some cases consisting of the hardest kinds of physical labor. In 1890, St. Bonaventure’s College, Alleghany, (sic) N. Y., accepted his application for the position of Senior Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature. He held this position until 1893, when he resigned and removed to Los Angeles, where he took up the study of law. He was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of California in April, 1894, and subsequently in the Supreme Court of the United States, and has recently been admitted to the Supreme Court of Arizona, owing to the large litigation requiring his attention in Arizona.

His varied attainments have given him a remarkable professional career. Gifted with a forceful and impressive delivery—frank and outspoken to a fault—he has the happy faculty of impressing both court and jury with the sincerity of his purposes.

The following is a pen picture of Mr. Scott, as seen by Mr. H. D. Wheeler, a writer of San Francisco, California:

“He’s the two-fistedest, fightin’st Irishman that ever stepped as a lawyer into a California court.

“Give a man an average mental equipment and a superb physical make-up; put him through a course of book-learning, hod-carrying, teaching, law-practicing and prominent citizening among the real elite of a big city—and when you shoot him out at the other end, it’s a bet that you’ll find ‘something different.’

“Ever ready to join an issue, he strikes boldly, fearlessly, confidently—his weapon the passionate, compelling eloquence that God gave the Irish.”

In the limited time left from his busy life as a lawyer, he has found time to engage himself in civic affairs in which he has become a leading factor, especially in matters educational, and thus furthering the interest and growth of Los Angeles and Southern California. Hi energy and enthusiasm in this line won for him from President Taft the compliment of being “California’s greatest booster.” He is therefore greatly in demand on numerous public occasions throughout the State and nation and has frequently been called upon, by reason of his felicity of speech, to represent the city of Los Angeles upon social and civic occasions. He was the principal speaker in behalf of the city of Los Angeles at the banquet given upon the visit of President Taft to Los Angeles in 1908, and presided as toastmaster at the banquet in honor of the Admirals and officers of the battleship fleet of the United States Navy on its memorable trip around the world in 1908.

Mr. Scott is now and has been for the last six years one of the Directors of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and during his term as President of the Chamber of Commerce in 1910, he was one of the representatives of the California delegation sent to Washington to fight for the World’s Exposition to be held at San Francisco, and his successful work in that behalf won praise on every hand for which he was honored by being elected honorary Vice President of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition Company. He is a well-known figure throughout the State of California, stimulating assemblies by his vigorous speeches to boost for California and extolling the boundless resources of the State.

In the last eight years he has been a member of the non-partisan Board of Education of the city of Los Angeles, and has served for five years as its President. He has been one of the mainstays of the School Department in divorcing it from politics and in securing efficiency and merit alone as the only tests for the teachers.

His work in behalf of the teaching force of the city of Los Angeles in insisting upon recognition of their right to adequate remuneration attracted the attention of the National Educational Association in consequence of which he was invited to address them upon that subject in 1911, which he did with characteristic force and earnestness so as to compel attention to the subject, the result being that a committee was appointed to determine the best ways and means of promoting the purposes set forth in his address.

He is Vice President of the Southwest Museum, and also a member of the Executive Committee of the Southwest Society, and the Archaeological Institute of America. He is a member of the Los Angeles Bar Association, California State Bar Association, and the American Bar Association.

His club affiliations are the California, the Union League, the Sunset, the Newman, the Los Angeles Athletic, and the Celtic Clubs; honorary member, City Teachers’ Club.

Transcribed 1-24-09 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 185, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.

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