HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS, E. Polk Johnson, three volumes, Lewis
Publishing Co., New York & Chicago, 1912. Common version, 
Vol. III, pp. 1241-42-43.  [Jefferson County]

EDWARD J. McDERMOTT--Numbered among those who have attained precedence and
success as members of the bar of Kentucky is Edward J. McDermott, who is
engaged in the practice of his profession in his native city of Louisville,
where he was born on the 29th of October, 1852.  He is a son of William
and Catherine McDermott.  In June, 1833, William McDermott sailed from
Belfast, Ireland, when he was a boy, and settled in Louisville, which then
had about 5,000 people.  There he married Catherine, who was born in
Kentucky.  Her grandfather was a soldier of the Revolution.  At the first
public school in Louisville at the Southwest corner of Fifth and Walnut
Street she was given a silver medal, which Mr. McDermott has and on which
was engraved the words: "City School July 29th, 1831.  From Louisville City
to Catherine L. Byrne for scholarship."  William McDermott died here
November 9, 1854.  Catherine McDermott died here March 30, 1890.  In 1871
Mr. McDermott was graduated in and given a medal by the Male High School of
Louisville, after which he was a student in the Queen's College, Belfast,
Ireland, for one year, and for one year in the University of Gottingen, in
the kingdom of Hanover, Germany, and he still speaks and writes German.
After his return to America he entered the law school of historic old
Harvard University, in which he was graduated as a Bachelor of Laws in
1876.  In the same year he began the active practice of his profession in
the city of Louisville, where his abilities and his devotion to his chosen
vocation have gained for him pronounced success and prestige.  In 1880
he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature and in the
same year was presidential elector for his state on the ticket of his
party.  While in the legislature he was selected to deliver the welcoming
speech to the guest of the legislature, Charles Stuart Parnell, the great
Irish leader in the English Parliament, who later, publicly and by letter,
expressed his hearty appreciation of this speech in the most flattering
terms of administration.  In 1888 Mr. McDermott served as United States
Chief Supervisor of Elections for Kentucky; in 1890 he was a member of the
state constitutional convention; in 1892 he was chairman of the committee
of three that prepared the charter for the city of Louisville which is
still in force; and in 1894, in a primary where almost 20,000 votes were
cast, he was selected by a big majority over two strong competitors as
the candidate of the Democratic party for the office of representative in
Congress.  Before the election, the late Richard Watson Gilder, the poet
and the great editor of the Century magazine, wrote: "I hope to Heaven
Mr. McDermott will win for Congress.  He is a man of the Wilson sort
(referring to the Hon. W. L. Wilson of West Virginia and the Democratic
leader of the House) and would be for good government all along the line."
In December, 1894, the Century said, in one of its editorials, that the
nomination of Mr. McDermott was a significant and hopeful sign for good
government; but by reason of the panic of 1893 and a secret anti-Catholic
agitation going over the country at the time, he was defeated with the
remainder of the ticket in the Republican land-slide of 1894.
     Mr. McDermott is known as a speaker of especially fine ability; and,
by special invitation has appeared as a guest of and speaker before the
foremost commercial bodies in Boston, New York, Chicago and other cities
and also before many important national organizations, such as the
National Municipal League, the American Political Science Association, etc.
He has delivered lectures at several universities of the North and South
and before big audiences in our large cities.  His lecture on "Leo XIII and
the Papacy" was delivered to large audiences in Louisville, Cincinnati, St.
Louis and Atlantic City.  Of Mr. McDermott's speech in Louisville on "The
North" before the Wholesale Druggists' Association of America in 1891,
Mr. George William Curtis, while editor of Harper's Weekly, wrote:
     "I am conscious of my own proud fondness for New England but the New
England feeling of my day was never that of the Essex Junta.  It was
always blended with the pride of nationality.  That is the only state
pride in this country and it is that which your speech fosters and makes
it a public service."
     Of Mr. McDermott's speech on "Commercial and Political Problems from
a Southern Standpoint," at the great annual dinner of the New York Board
of Trade February 24th, 1892, Mr. Curtis wrote:
     "The warmth of its reception was a proof of its eloquent statement
of the common feeling.  It is a chapter in the gospel of public morality
which will be like seed upon good ground."
     At that dinner the speakers were ex-Minister J. W. Foster, Col. W.C.P
Breckinridge, Member of Congress from Kentucky, Mr. St. Clair McKelway
(Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle), Mr. Frederick Taylor and Mr. McDermott.
His speech was a plea for clean politics, a clear platform, courageous
leaders and sound money.  The New York Evening Post on February 25, 1892,
published only Mr. McDermott's speech and said:
     "The chief honors of the evening, however, were won by Mr. McDermott,
whose references both directly and indirectly to Mr. Cleveland brought out
great applause.  At the close of his speech Mr. McDermott received quite
an ovation.  The guests arose waved their napkins and cheered him again
and again."
     This speech so please ex-President Cleveland that he had Mr. McDermott
invited to the preliminary private caucus of his leaders at Chicago before
the meeting of the Democrat Convention that nominated him again for the
Presidency in 1892.
     At the meeting of the American Political Science Association held at
St. Louis in the latter part of December, 1910, Mr. McDermott read a paper
entitled "The Delays and Reversals on Technical Grounds in Civil and
Criminal Trials."  This paper is to be printed in the proceedings of the
Association and also simultaneously in the Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology of Chicago, and in the American Law Review of St. Louis.  An
editorial in the St. Louis Times entitled "Helpful Criticism" referring
to this paper says in part:
     "There is hope of improvement in the work of the courts when members
of the legal profession make an earnest search for defects, and offer
remedies for ills which the public is made to feel in countless ways * * *
A plea for simplicity in the drawing up of indictments touches one of the
defects in the law which have come down from generations far removed.  All
the matters dealt with by Mr. McDermott are familiar, and it is not to be
supposed that they can be remedied readily, or without vigorous effort."
     At the annual banquet of the Engineers and Architects Club of
Louisville, of which Mr. McDermott was recently elected an honorary
member, the predominating subject was "Intelligent City Building."  The
principal speaker of the evening was Mr. McDermott, his subject being
"Planning for the Future."  Mr. McDermott kept right to his subject all the
way through his speech from which the following is a very short extract:
     "In the government of cities Europe has far surpassed us.  There
political questions are not for a moment considered in municipal
government, and the ablest and most unselfish men have managed the European
cities with economy, ability and success.  We must change our whole
conception of the government of the city and the rights of the public as
against individuals.  We must give a new and more vigorous application to
the legal principle: 'Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas.'
     "The first consideration for every city is to preserve the health of
its citizens by good sanitation, by providing first, a pure and abundant
water supply and second, good drainage * * *  The wise and fortunate
planning of Washington one hundred years ago by a man of genius has been
one of the chief causes that have made our capital the most beautiful and
the most distinguished city in the world.  Public opinion must be turned
to this subject--must be turned in the right direction.  If a city is to
thrive and be comfortable and beautiful, it must be planned in advance as
carefully as a house is planned before it is built."
     Besides being a brilliant orator Mr. McDermott is a very forceful
writer.  The leading article in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
for January, 1911, is by him and this article has also appeared in the
Kentucky State Medical Journal and in many of the Medical Journals in the
country and has been approved by many editorials in the leading newspapers
of the country.  His editorial "Our Shame" in the Louisville
Courier-Journal, has attracted much attention.  In this article he scores
those who make it easy for criminals to escape altogether or with a light
sentence and those who pardon, wholesale, life convicts, especially
murders.  In the Columbiad of February 1, 1911, the monthly journal of the
Knights of Columbus is printed a sketch of Chief Justice Edward Douglas
White written by Mr. McDermott by special request.  The chief justice sent
a letter to Mr. McDermott thanking him for the sketch which he said gave
him pleasure because it was "more candid, more sensible and less extremely
fulsome" than many which had appeared in the newspapers and magazines since
his appointment.
     Mr. McDermott was twice elected (in 1901 and 1907) vice president of
the Kentucky State Bar Association and was elected in 1905-6 president
of the Louisville Bar Association as as local secretary of the Harvard
Law School Association.  He was twice offered an appointment to a Circuit
judgeship by the Governor of the State; but he declined the appointment.
He was selected to speak for Louisville at the dedication of her building
at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition at Nashville in 1897 and to speak
for Kentucky at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904 and at the unveiling of
Lincoln's splendid monument in Hodgenville in 1909.  He conducted and won
the suit in Hodgenville that brought about the sale of Lincoln's home,
which was later bought by Mr. Collier of New York and presented to the
Lincoln Memorial Association as a national park.  In 1907 he was president
of the Kentucky State Development Association and presided at the
convention in November.  Mr. McDermott enjoys distinctive popularity in
his native city and is here identified with such representative
organizations at the Pendennis and Commercial Clubs.  In 1892 he was
elected as the Commercial Club's annual honorary member of that year, one
being selected each year for meritorious public services.  The club had
then 1,000 members and now has over 3,000.  Mr. McDermott is a man of
broad culture and fine literary ability and he has made contributions to
many magazines and other periodicals, literary, legal and scientific.
     He is a member of the Catholic church and in 1910 was Grand Knight
of the 700 Knights of Columbus of this city.  Mr. McDermott was the only
speaker at the public celebration of the Silver Jubilee of Bishop William
G. McCloskey May 23, 1893, and at the installation of his successor,
Bishop Denis O'Donaghue, at the Cathedral of Louisville March 30, 1910.
He was also selected to speak at the Silver Jubilee Banquet of the late
distinguished Bishop Thomas U. Dudley of the Episcopal church in January,
1900, and at large public banquets to Dr. William H. Whitsitt, president of
the Baptist Theological Seminary in 1899, and to the Rev. Carter Helm
Jones, of the Baptist church, in October, 1907, and to the Rev. E. L.
Powell, of the Christian church, in May, 1905.
     On October 15, 1895, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. McDermott
to Miss Susan Rogers Barr, granddaughter of Col. Jason Rogers and
daughter of Susan Preston Rogers Barr and the late Hon. John W. Barr, who
was one of the prominent lawyers and jurists of Kentucky and who presided
for twenty years on the bench of the United States District Court of
Kentucky.  Mr. and Mrs. McDermott have three children, namely: Susan
Barr, Edward J. Jr., and Catherine Watson Barr.

McDermott Parnell Wilson Foster Breckinridge McKelway Taylor Collier Byrne
McCloskey O'Donaghue Dudley Whitsitt Jones Powell Barr Rogers Gilder
=
Hodgenville-LaRue-KY WV NY Germany Ireland

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/jefferson/mcdermott.ej.txt