TESTIMONIAL OF MARK L. BURNS

Sacramento County

Biographies

TESTIMONIAL FOR MARK L. BURNS

Below is a transcription of a document I found in some of my mother’s papers. Mark L. Burns was her father. The paper bound document was typed on 8 1/2 x 11 legal paper had on its cover the following printing:

Jos. E Pipher

W.E. Combrink

Thomas J. Franklin

Kenneth G. Gagan

Room 306, Court House

Sacramento, California

Official Shorthand Reporters

Remarks of the Bar and the Court at Memorial to Mark L. Burns, Esq.

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The Court Sitting in Banc:

Hon. Peter J. Shields Hon. Martin I. Welsh

Hon. Malcolm C. Glenn Hon. Dal M. Lemmon

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JUDGE SHIELDS: Mr. Foote.

MR. GEORGE E. FOOTE: May it please the Court, at this time on behalf of the committee, consisting of myself, Mr. H.N. Mitchell, and A.J. Harder, I wish to present a memorial to the memory of Mark L. Burns, the Memorial of the Sacramento County Bar to Mark L. Burns.

“To the Honorable Superior Court of the County of Sacramento, State of California, sitting in banc, and to the Members of the Sacramento County Bar:

“We are assembled here today to pay our respects to the memory of Mark L. Burns, a member of the Sacramento County Bar, who passed from this life on August 26, 1938.

“In recent months our attention has been directed to the passing of several members of our Bar who have been looked upon as the ‘older generation’. They have all departed to sit in the High Tribunal before the Supreme Judge of the universe, and Mark L. Burns was one of that grand group.

“Mark L. Burns could be properly called a lawyer of the ‘old school’, benign dignified, honest and well-liked by both the older and younger members of his profession. As we assemble here today –look around at the faces of the remaining members of our Bar, we reflect and think back on the gentlemanly qualities of Mark L. Burns. He was a man who stood for the highest ethics in the profession of the practice of law and gauged himself to the high standards exacted by members of our profession. The young men following to take the places made vacant by his passing and the passing of others have been inspired by the traditions of our Bar and the characters of men such as Mark L. Burns.

“Mark L. Burns was a true product of the West and in his veins flowed the blood of the sturdy pioneer. He was a self-made man, filled with ambition and inspired by the thought of a lawyer’s reward and with full knowledge that it consisted not of worldly goods, but principally in bringing a good name into the community. He was ever ready to assist his brethren with good advice, or help them financially.

“Mark L. Burns made mistakes. Those mistakes were not deliberate, but were made in the honest exercise of his judgment. He was true to the cause of his clients; scrupulous, honest, and a symbol of integrity. No one ever heard him express an unkind word toward a fellow man, yet for the cause of right he was a forceful advocate. He was always respectful toward the Courts and his fellow lawyers.

“Mark L. Burns was born March 9, 1873, at Porterville, Tulare County, California. While he was yet a small boy his parents moved to Grants Pass, Oregon, with their children –Mark having three brothers and one sister, now living. Mark went to the public schools, later marrying and moving to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where he lived for a number of years, going into the real estate business.

“Later he went to Hastings Law School and was admitted to the Bar July 11, 1911, and began practicing law at Doris, Siskiyou County. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Oroville, Butte County, California, where he resided until 1913, moving then to Sacramento where he practiced law until his death. Mark was the father of ten children, nine of who are now living.

“The passing of Mark L. Burns will be noticed by the community and the members of the Sacramento Bar, but his influence upon the community will survive. We place the name of Mark L. Burns among the names of those lawyers of the old school who, by their own labor, have elevated themselves to the high position in the profession that was attained by Mark at the time of his death. Industry, learning, kindliness, honesty and integrity – these are the measures of a lawyer’s life, and were certainly his. We regret his going but we shall profit by his example.

“Dated: March 31, 1939. Respectfully submitted, H.N. Mitchell, A.J. Harder, George E. Foote.”

I make a motion that this be spread upon the minutes of the Court of this County, and that a copy be sent to the family.

JUDGE SHIELDS: I know that there are a great many of you here today who share the sentiments of myself and my brothers here, who feel very kindly to Mark Burns and could say many pleasant things about him, and would be pleased to testify to your good will and your affectionate recollection; but I presume in this busy world we must make haste and attend to the pressing tasks of the moments, so I will ask Judge Glenn just to say a few words about Mark Burns,

JUDGE GLENN: Members of the Bar: If I were to dwell on the special characteristics of Mark L. Burns, it seems to me I would stress the matter of his optimism; also another trait: Mark L. Burns had a very jovial disposition. He was one of those men who made you feel better for having had contact with him. Whenever he came into your office, or whenever you met him, on the street, or elsewhere, he had that same pleasant smile and merry twinkle in his eye. Undoubtedly he counted his friends by legion, because to know Mark was to like him, and to know him well was to love him. He had those qualities that all do not possess – qualities of making and keeping friends, I dare say that there is no man, woman or child who ever knew Mark L. Burns who did not form the opinion I have expressed of him in these few words; and, of course, it goes without saying that we all mourn his loss, we sincerely miss him—miss his friendly smile, his jovial disposition and his kindly regard for all people.

JUDGE LEMMON: We were all very fond of Mark Burns. I recall a few years ago that in a conversation he told me something of his forebears and his background. He came from humble but good substantial stock. As the resolution informs us, early in his teens he was forced to make his own way in the world. I recall his telling about being in some mercantile pursuit up in the town of Klamath and in the Klamath Indian Reservation, and he told me about a number of interesting experiences that he had up there in that backward country, particularly in his dealing with the Indians on the reservation. As the resolution says, he was a very kindly and a friendly man. We all enjoyed having him around us. Perhaps he did not reach the highest eminence at the Bar, but he was honorable, he was honest with his clients, honest with other members of the Bar, and honest with the Court. He shunned any hypocrisy. There was no sham about him. He wanted to be known as he was and without any dissembling in his actions and in his character. I am sure that there are none of us who know Mark Burns who will not carry with us a very pleasant recollection in our memory of him.

JUDGE WELSH: Mark L. Burns, who was affectionately known to those of us who knew him well, practiced law in the courts of this County for close on to twenty-seven years. It was my pleasure first to meet him in the north corridor of the State Capitol, outside the court room of the District Court of Appeal, where I was waiting with others to be called in to be examined on our qualifications for admission to the Bar. As all lawyers know who have had the experience, the moments preceding the Bar examination are nerve-racking, and the nerves of all in the corridor that morning seemed to be in that condition, except those of Mark. He indulged in witticisms and talked to a group of us in the corridor about the pending Bar examination in such a vein as to put us all in a good humor and to steady our nerves for the examination.

Mark carried that good humor throughout his life, and even into his trial work in the courts. I recall vividly a case that he tried in Department One of our local Superior Court, where he represented the defendant, who was charged with a rather serous crime. When the prosecuting witness was turned over to Mark for cross examination, he looked rather sternly at her and then asked her a question. The question was no more asked when the spectators and the jurors broke into a loud laughter. Immediately the bailiff brought them to order, except one woman juror, who seemed to be in a convulsion of laughter, and seemingly with great difficulty brought herself under control. After the arguments of counsel were delivered to the Jury and instructions given by the Court, the Jury retired to deliberate upon its verdict and thereafter returned with a verdict finding the defendant guilty but with a recommendation to the Court that it extend leniency to her in the matter of punishment. This the Court followed, and the defendant was saved from the penitentiary. After the court room had been cleared we concluded that the good fortune of the defendant in being recommended to the leniency of the Court was entirely due to the good humor that Mark put the Jury in. Humor was one of his characteristics. He never presumed to be a great lawyer, but he as an effective advocate, even in his rather unorthodox method of trying cases – he seemed to have that happy and rather unusual faculty of getting under the skin, as they say, of the jurors, and he was quite successful in his jury trials.

He will be remembered affectionately by all of those who knew him well. He will be remembered for his good humor and his kindly manner, because no matter where you met Mark, whether it was on the street or in the court room, he always greeted you with a pleasant smile and a cheerful word, and men of his kind make the world a happier and a brighter place in which to live.

JUDGE SHIELDS: My associates have left very little for me to say. Some characters are very difficult to describe, because of their complexity, while others are so simply that they are self-expressive. As has been stated, Mark Burns never pretended to be a great of a learned lawyer; it would be hypercritical on our part here to attempt to describe him as such. But there was a great deal of manhood and a great deal of power and force in Mark Burns. He had been a cowboy in his youth. He had the reckless courage and the rather romantic skill of the best of that breed. In his early youth he crossed the Cascade Mountains into eastern Oregon, where he added to his pioneer raising the environmental influences that made his a typical western man. He was a power in that country, in Bend and in Burns and Lakeview, and later in Klamath Falls. If he had remained there and had devoted himself to those things to which he was especially fitted, he probably might have had the career that has been so common in the interesting growth of this country, for there have been many men like Mark Burns that have gone to the United States Senate, been governors of their states, or prominent in the public life of the country. I like the statement of my associates with reference to his hopefulness. There was a buoyancy to him that I suppose was the product of his western birth and rearing, a conviction that he was just as good as anybody else and that there wasn’t anything to which he could not aspire. If you would meet him casually on the street some days in a hopeful mood he would suggest, “If so and so is not a candidate for governor this fall, I think I will be.” He had plans for a good many positions which he never had quite enough time to address himself to. But we remember him as a picturesque figure at the Bar, and I join Judge Lemmon’s statement that we could always depend upon his integrity and his honesty. He never attempted to deceive; he was never guilty of any improper of unfair practice. So we cheerfully grant the motion that was made by the committee, and join with those who have spoken here in testimony of our affectionate recollection of a very interesting personality.

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Transcribed by Kathy Porter, pkathy98@yahoo com.

Source: Family Papers, Dated: March 31, 1939.