On this day in 1937, former North Dakota federal judge Charles F. Amidon died in Tucson, Arizona, ending a distinguished career in public service

Here is the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:

Death Ends Career Of Public Service; Appointment To Federal Bench Was Made By Grover Cleveland In 1896

Judge Charles F. Amidon, appointed federal judge for the district of North Dakota by Grover Cleveland Sept. 3, 1896, intimate personal friend of Theodore Roosevelt and many men and women of outstanding rank in the nation, died at his winter home, Tucson, Ariz., at midnight Sunday. He was 81 on his last birthday, Aug. 17, and had retired from active service June 3, 1928.

He definitely retired at the age of 72 although he had been gradually withdrawing from participation in the duties of the local court following the appointment of Judge Andrew Miller some years previously. A federal judge who has served 10 years and reached the age of 70 may retire on full pay. Such retirement leaves him in possession of all his judicial powers and subject to assignment to do work in any part of the country, but he himself may determine the amount of work he shall do.

The last term he sat on the court of appeals was in 1925, afterward spending his winters in California and his summers in the east. Of late years his summer home has been at Westport, Conn., and his winter home at Tucson.

When he retired he received a tribute from the members of the legal profession in North Dakota and Judges of the United States court of appeals for the eighth circuit, “such as seldom, if ever, has been accorded a citizen of North Dakota,” according to the account in The Fargo Forum at the time.

At a banquet in his honor he was characterized as “the outstanding figure in the legal life of the state for the last quarter of a century, a man worthy to have sat on the supreme bench of the United States.”

The Amidon Legal club of Los Angeles was named for the jurist and he was a member of the “X” club of Los Angeles.

ASHES TO FARGO

Funeral services were to be conducted at Tucson today. Following cremation, his ashes will be brought to Fargo for burial.

Charles Fremont Amidon was born in Clymer, Chautauqua county, New York, Aug. 17, 1856, a son of John S. and Charlotte A. (Curtis) Amidon, natives of New York. The grandfather, Leonard Amidon, was one of the first settlers in Chautauqua county, having located there in 1820. He followed the occupation of farming all his life.

Judge Amidon’s father was a United Brethren minister. He was a strong antislavery man and before the Civil War played a part in the famous underground railroad, the means of escape of many Negroes on their way to Canada and freedom.

Judge Amidon received his common school education in New York. He prepared for college at the Cortland normal school from which he graduated in 1878. In the autumn of that year he entered Hamilton college, Clinton, New York, where he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1882.

Hearing of the opportunities that were to be had in the vast prairies of the west, Judge Amidon came to Fargo where he acted as one of the first principals of Fargo high school. At that time he conceived the idea that he would like to be an attorney so he entered the law office of Alfred Thomas as a law student in 1883 and was admitted to the bar in 1886.

In January 1887 he began his life’s work in the active practice of law as a member of the firm of Amidon and Bradley, which partnership existed until 1889 when John D. Benton was admitted to the firm. He was appointed city attorney in 1890 and held that office for two years.

When North Dakota was admitted as a state, the young attorney gave himself over to a study of federal court practice and he had a heavy practice in federal court up to the time of his appointment.

HELPED MAKE N.D. CODE

In 1893 the North Dakota legislature authorized revision of the statutes of North Dakota and Mr. Amidon was appointed by Governor Shortridge, with George W. Newton and Burke Corbett as the code commission.

The work of codifying the North Dakota statutes was divided among the three, Mr. Amidon having charge of the preparation of the civil code and code of civil procedure and two of the young Amidon did at that time what he considered the most important work of his career. He took charge of the political, probate and justice code, and Mr. Newton had charge of the penal code and code of criminal procedure.

Judge Amidon was then on the Republican bench but became a Democrat in 1896 when he adopted the Democratic view of the tariff.

BECAME JUDGE IN 1896

On Sept. 3, 1896 Grover Cleveland, president of the United States, named Mr. Amidon as judge for the district of North Dakota to succeed A. D. Thomas, under whom Mr. Amidon received his law training.

A reporter for The Fargo Forum, on receipt of a dispatch from Washington, called up Mr. Amidon and gave him his first information of his appointment. This news dispatch was taken from the files of The Forum for that time.

“President Cleveland this morning appointed Charles F. Amidon, Fargo, United States district court judge, North Dakota, to succeed Alfred D. Thomas, deceased.”

There were nearly a dozen applications for the position and the contest was hot one, and the candidates had strong indorsement for the position. Judge McConnell, also of Fargo, and Burke Corbett of Grand Forks were considered the two strongest candidates other than Mr. Amidon.

FAR REACHING WORK

Judge Amidon early interested himself in the matter of simplified legal procedure. An address which he made before the Minnesota bar association, in 1906, criticizing technicalities in federal court practice, resulted in an eventual change in the federal law dealing with technicalities in federal court practice.

This address was published in The Outlook, and later came to the attention of Theodore Roosevelt, who was president. He wrote Judge Amidon, commending his address and declaring it was one of his own hobbies.

There followed a series of exchanges by mail, which resulted in intimate acquaintanceship between the two men and one who wrote of Judge Amidon’s judgment was held in high esteem by Roosevelt, and had a profound influence on many of his subsequent actions.

In one of his messages to congress Roosevelt devoted a section to the evil of reversal of cases for technicalities, referred to Judge Amidon’s address and cited a proposed statute which Judge Amidon had prepared as part of his address. He urged congress to enact this proposed statute into law.

The American Bar association took up the proposed reform at its next meeting and appointed a committee to propose the passage of the act. It was finally enacted into law in 1919.

Judge Amidon, in an address before the American Bar association upon the subject The Nation and the Constitution, urged that the nation must take some steps to control interstate commerce. He declared that interstate commerce had become so dominant that the railroads had become mere instruments of that commerce and that it was impossible for them to be subject to the dual regulation of the nation and the state.

This doctrine was thought to be extremely radical at that time, but later it became the established law of the land.

RETAINED ENTHUSIASM

On his 70th birthday, Aug. 17, 1926, Judge Amidon was interviewed by a Forum representative and declared that one of the greatest satisfactions of his life was that he came to the age of 70, still retaining the interest and enthusiasm in life which alone makes life worth living.

Some of the things he said at that time are intimate glimpses into the character and personality of the man.

“It is a great satisfaction,” he said, “that it didn’t permit my life to be bound in law books. The tremendous Carlyle declaration that there are two types of people, those who get knowledge of life from books—those who draw it from their experiences and struggles of life.”

“I started life as a youth, after graduation from law college, with a great enthusiasm for the study of Emerson, Carlyle and the poets,” he said. “Amidon at that time belonged to the literary society at Hamilton college which is still a prosperous organization and exerts a potent influence on the college life.”

“I graduated at 25. This was a good time to begin the serious study of Emerson and the poets. That enthusiasm possessed me like a religious conversion. That side of my life has ever been dominant. Now that my judicial career is soon to end, I find that I can turn to those other fields of thought with an abiding enthusiasm.”

“A friend of mine once said that Jesus in the carpenter has windows on all sides of his soul. We all see men who have only one window, sometimes a very narrow window. It often allowed his life to narrow to a single field, when he saw the view of that field close, he is like one who has lost his soul.”

“Some of my judicial friends have told me that if they were to retire they would die within a few months. If that be true it is because they have allowed their lives to be bound in law only.”

RETAINED INTERESTS

Judge Amidon retained active interests throughout his later years and became a student of some modern sciences, being particularly interested in recent discoveries in the splitting of the atom. On one of his late visits to Fargo he remarked that he was getting much enthusiasm and fun out of following these new discoveries as if he were a freshman student.

Living members of his immediate family are Mrs. Amidon, who was Beulah Ann Tuscon, two daughters, Bethlah Amidon Ratliff and Mrs. Rodney E. Clark, the former living at Los Angeles and the latter at Minneapolis; and two grandchildren. Beulah and Phillip Ratliff, who have spent their summers in recent years with Judge and Mrs. Amidon at the family summer home, Westport, Conn.

SISTER IN VALLEY CITY

His sister, Fanny C. Amidon, formerly a member of the faculty of Valley City Teachers college, is now retired and living at Valley City.

A daughter-in-law, Elsie Amidon, widow of his son the late Charles L. Amidon, a teacher in Los Angeles, was present here Christmas vacation with Judge and Mrs. Amidon at Tucson.

Beulah Amidon Ratliff is on the editorial staff of Survey Graphic, national magazine.