The Atlanta Lawyer June/July 2020 Vol. 19, No. 1 | Page 17

the course of the pandemic. One reason for
the relatively low numbers could be that
when the flu outbreak started Atlanta had
already been experiencing elevator outages,
store closings, and restricted theater hours
as a result of wartime rationing of electricity.
No reliable figures for infections or deaths
due to influenza in the city exist because
of the lack of both uniform reporting and
standards for diagnosis. The U.S. Census
Bureau lists 829 deaths for the pandemic.
Lawyering in the Time of Pandemic
Atlanta’s lawyers suffered like everyone
else. The flu caused federal prosecutor Paul
Carpenter to stay out of the office for two
weeks. Carpenter, Chief Deputy Marshal
Robert Ramspeck, and Deputy Marshal
Bloodworth all caught the flu after a trip to
Rome. Seven people in Carpenter’s household
came down with the disease at the same time.
Two relatives and two nurses helping care
for the sick family became sick themselves.
Carpenter told The Atlanta Constitution “that
he does not desire any further acquaintance
with the malady.” Influenza kept mayor-elect
James L. Key from his law practice for ten
days in November. Frank E. Smith and W.A.
Hancock were reported to be missing from
City Hall because of the flu.
The flu disrupted operation of the courts.
In the City of Atlanta Recorders Court
Judge Johnson closed his courtroom to
all but litigants. The Recorder’s Court
functioned both as a court of law and
major entertainment venue. “Hitherto
from time immemorial the audience at the
great show has been allowed to warm the
benches in peace, but in the future fans of
the police court will have to hie themselves
to other locality for amusement,” The Atlanta
Constitution reported on October 22. “For
when the court opened on Monday, as usual
there was a full audience which packed the
room. When the recorder beheld the mob
he arose and declared that on account of the
influenza epidemic, all not having business
in the court would have to depart. With a
final look at the place which afforded them
entertainment since the movies were closed,
and with many a sigh, the audience filed out
through the door.”
Ross v. Garraux, 24 Ga. #App. 601 (1919)
provides a window into disruptions the
flu caused with trial courts. In Garraux
the Court of Appeals forgave the failure of
a movant for new trial to provide a record
because of sickness. Counsel had told the
City Court of Atlanta, “May it please your
honor, we have no brief of the evidence in this
case, and have not been able to prepare the
motion for trial because the court reporter
is ill, suffering from influenza, and has not
written out the record. We do not know
when he can furnish the record in this case.
We want the time extended until he recovers
and writes out the evidence and the charge.”
After several subsequent continuances, the
trial court dismissed the motion once the
brief of evidence was filed on the ground that
the brief had not been presented during the
same term of court as the trial. The Court of
Appeals reversed, finding implied consent to
the numerous continuances in the failure of
the opposing party to object. The appellant’s
victory was short lived. The Supreme Court
reinstated the dismissal the following year.
See Garraux v. Ross, 150 Ga. 645 (1920).
IN THE PROFESSION
Courthouses functioned as supply houses of
one popular treatment: whisky. On Monday,
October 21, Grady Hospital appealed to
the county police to provide the substance,
no doubt for medical use only. “The Grady
Hospital is in need of supply of whisky to be
used in the treatment of Spanish flu cases
and others of a similar nature,” reported
the Constitution. The physician could not
find any at the courthouse as the police had
poured its stock down the sewer earlier in
the day. “He was directed to apply at the
Federal building, and it is probable that an
effort will be made to secure a supply there.”
Doctors sought whisky at courthouses
because Georgia in 1907 prohibited
the sale of alcohol well before national
prohibition took effect with the adoption
of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1920.
The state continued to enforce prohibition
until 1935, two years after repeal of national
prohibition by the Twenty-first Amendment.
(Georgia still has not ratified the Twentyfirst
Amendment.) The seizure of illegal
beverages resulted in large quantities being
held by the government. In August 1919 The
Atlanta Constitution reported that the United
States Quartermaster Depot at the Candler
warehouses stocked 1,758 gallons of bottledin-bond
whisky appropriated by federal
agents enforcing a ban on importing liquor
from wet to dry states. The paper gushed,
“Another feature of the good qualities of this
particular stock is that it carries with it an
absolute guarantee of the government. It has
been recommended for uses in cases of the
‘flu’ and pneumonia.”
Although the United States Pharmacopeia
removed whisky as a palliative in 1916, many
doctors continued to use it to treat flu. The
widespread belief that military hospitals
chiefly used whisky to treat the flu, Dr. W.A.
Evans charged, had been started by the
wholesale liquor industry.
Two remarkable presidents headed
the Atlanta Bar Association during the
pandemic. Arthur G. Powell presided as the
disease started to infect large numbers of
people in 1918. The twelfth president of the
Association, Powell remains the only person
elected to two consecutive presidential
terms. An outstanding lawyer, he left private
practice in 1906 to become one of the first
judges on the Court of Appeals created
that year by constitutional amendment.
He returned to private practice in 1912.
Powell was president of the Georgia Bar
Association, the predecessor of the State Bar
of Georgia, in 1922.
Eugene Black, Association president in 1919,
became president the Atlanta Trust Company
in 1921. He was appointed Governor of
the Sixth Federal Reserve District in 1927.
President Roosevelt in 1933 picked him to be
Governor of the Federal Reserve Board. In
that position he assisted the reorganization
of banks across the country during the Great
Depression.
www.atlantabar.org THE ATLANTA LAWYER 17