U. M. Rose: Arkansas Attorney

Abstract

LIKE EVERY STATE, ARKANSAS is represented by two figures in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. One is a statue of U. M. Rose. Perhaps best known in modern times as the namesake of a Little Rock law firm that by the 1990s had become nationally famous, Rose was recognized by his contemporaries as one of Arkansas's greatest lawyers. His career placed him at the center of key political and legal developments from the Civil War well into the Progressive Era. Uriah Milton Rose's ancestors hailed from Virginia, where Rose's father, Joseph Rose, was born. But upon receiving his medical degree, Dr. Rose moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and established a practice. While there, Dr. Rose invested in a glass company that failed, leaving the family deeply in debt. His father's struggle to pay that debt over the next twenty-five years left a great impression on U. M. Rose, who recalled, "My earliest recollections are painfully connected with that terrible debt, the skeleton in the family closet."1 Dr. Rose moved to Kentucky in 1824, acquired a 400-acre farm near Bradfordsville, and, a few years later, met and married Nancy Simpson. U. M. Rose remembered his mother as "a very domestic woman, of delicate constitution, but of untiring energy, and a most affectionate wife and mother."2 Rose was born on the farm in Bradfordsville, the third son (and the fifth child of his father), on March 5, 1834. Dr. Rose, a member of the Christian Church, then known as "Campbellites," and preoccupied with the Old Testament, named his son for the prophet Uriah. U. M. Rose disliked the name intensely and never used his full name when he could avoid it. Life changed dramatically for U. M. Rose when his mother died in 1848. His father quickly sank into depression and died the following April. The home place then went into the hands of an administrator, and the children were thrown out. Rose found work and a place to stay in the village store but soon realized that with his hours extending late into the night he had no time for education. He took work as a field hand for board and five dollars a month. Years later, in an address to graduates of the University of Arkansas, he reminisced: I can bring those days back to my mind with a good deal of clearness, and can remember that, with all the elasticity that belongs to youth, I spent in them a good many sad and despondent hours. My father and mother, upon whom I might have relied for assistance and advice, had died long before. I had neither wealth nor influential friends, nor any of those aids that smooth one's way towards success in life .... Every man and woman and child needs a home, a place of refuge, something to fall back on for new strength in case of misfortune or temporary defeat.... This I had not.3 After struggling several years, Rose hit upon a bit of luck. Rutherford Harrison Roundtree, an attorney traveling through the area (whom Rose later described as an "eminent, very intelligent and kindhearted lawyer"), called on his employer at the farmhouse and remained the night.4 Apparently, Rose made a favorable impression on the visitor, as the next morning Roundtree asked Rose to move to Lebanon, Kentucky, board with him, and take a position as deputy clerk for the county. Rose jumped at the chance and began his lifelong study of law. In spring 1853, a few years after the move to Lebanon, the nineteen-year-old Rose entered upon the formal study of law at Transylvania University in Lexington. Six months later, he graduated with a degree in law and immediately obtained a license to practice from the Kentucky Court of Appeals. In the course of his studies, Rose had met his future wife, Margaret T. Gibbs. She later recalled: Mrs. Ben Spalding gave a picnic at the Sulphur Spring near Lebanon to which several Lebanon people were invited as well as a good many from Springfield. The knobs as they are called in Kentucky surrounded the springs and were beautiful to ramble over and I spent the most of the day rambling with U. …