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John Brooks Leavitt (1849–1930) was a New York City attorney, author and reformer. As member of the "Good Government" movement, Leavitt crusaded against Tammany Hall municipal corruption, demanding in 1897 the indictment of United States Senator Thomas C. Platt on charges of extorting bribes from the New York Life Insurance Company in return for favors to the insurance giant.〔("Wants Mr. Platt Indicted", ''The New York Times'', Oct. 29, 1897 )〕 "We have positive evidence, which as soon as New York has an honest District Attorney," Leavitt told a crowd of 2,000 gathered at Long Acre Square on Broadway, "will be laid before him, and we then shall be able to obtain an indictment and send the arch-boss to the jail which yawns for him."〔Despite many allegations of bribery against Senator Platt, including a $500 bounty offered for proof of Platt's bribe-taking by then-Mayor Col. William Lafayette Strong, the Senator was never indicted.()〕 ==Early life and career beginnings== John Brooks Leavitt was born September 30, 1849, at Cincinnati, Ohio, where his father John McDowell Leavitt was practicing law,〔(''Prominent and Progressive Americans, An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography, Vol. I'', Mitchell C. Harrison (ed.), New York Tribune, 1902 )〕 and his wife Bethia (Brooks) Leavitt. Leavitt subsequently attended high school in Zanesville, Ohio, where his father acted as minister of an Episcopal church after leaving his law practice. In 1868 Leavitt graduated from Kenyon College, and four years later he graduated with a master's degree.〔Kenyon College awarded John Brooks Leavitt a doctorate of laws in 1896.〕 Leavitt then enrolled at the Columbia University School of Law, where he graduated in 1871. Following his graduation from Columbia, Leavitt began clerking in a New York City law office, and shortly after hung out his shingle as sole practitioner.〔Later Leavitt went into business with Boudinot Keith, opening the practice of Leavitt & Keith.〕 Leavitt's practice was meager, but gradually he found clients, usually cases he took when he felt a client had been shortchanged. An early client was a clergyman who was accused of . In a subsequent case tied to election fraud, Leavitt filed suit against the New York State Secretary of State, the state's Attorney General and other state officers for contempt of court. The state officers sued by Leavitt were heavily fined by the court for their offense.〔''Prominent and Progressive Americans'', page 202〕 From the beginning of his career, Leavitt was outspoken. Among his targets through the years were the telephone monopoly,〔(The Arena, Vol. XXXI, P.E.N. Club Centre for Writers in Exile, B.O. Flower (ed.), published by Albert Brandt, Trenton, N.J., 1904 )〕 fellow attorneys who abused the contingency fee system,〔(The Abuse of the Contingency Fee, John Brooks Leavitt of the New York Bar, Journal of Social Sciences, American Social Sciences Association, Vol. XLIV, Frederick Stanley Root, Damrell & Upham and the Boston Book Company, Boston, Mass., 1906 )〕 the laws regarding the criminally insane, and the need for ballot reform in New York State.〔("Want a Ballot Beyond Fraud; Leading Independents of This City Go to Albany and Oppose the Raines Blanket Bill", ''The New York Times'', March 22, 1895 )〕 Early on, Leavitt laid out his philosophy in simple language. "The conservatism which preaches the improvement of the individual as the sole cure for social ills," Leavitt wrote in 1902, "will never improve the world." Leavitt then launched an attack on corruption in all forms – especially corporate. "If an illustration is needed it is to be found in the conduct of directors of corporations, who, when acting as a body, countenance theft, bribery, extortion, tyranny, lawlessness, trickery and fraud, which as individuals each man would abhor.... The old common-law saying that corporations have no souls is false. Corporations have souls. Governments have souls. Society has a soul."〔(''John Brooks Leavitt, Legal Aspect: Rights of Property and Rights of Men, from Labor and Capital: A Discussion of the Relations of Employer and Employed'', John P. Peters, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1902 )〕 In another of Leavitt's articles, he cut to the chase. In writing on the church (Leavitt's client was a high churchman accused of malfeasance), Leavitt addressed the temptation to follow conventional wisdom. In his essay ''The Attitude of the Church Towards Things Not Seen'', the New York attorney noted that while church members believed miracles which happened two millennia ago, and which they had not seen, they were skeptical of current events they had seen. "Sheep follow the shepherd," Leavitt wrote. "Many laymen echo their minister." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Brooks Leavitt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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