Sen. Joseph W. Rickert

JOSEPH W. RICKERT

By Ann Steinbrecher

From the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

January 1937 Volume XXIX Number 4 P. 351-363

Four times every weekday the residents of Waterloo, Illinois, have occasion to see their most venerable and esteemed citizen, a tall erect figure, with the aristocratic bearing of an old southern colonel, walking across the Monroe County courthouse green. Joseph William Rickert, now in his ninety-seventh year, still maintains the practice begun over half a century ago of attending his law office every fore and afternoon with a regularity which rivals the strikings of the town clock. To and from the gray brick early American homestead and the Commercial State Bank, where his office is located, he passes under the ancient chestnut trees that line what was once the old Kaskaskia Trail, stopping occasionally to chat with friends who like himself have spent the greater part of their lives in this quiet, pleasant town situated high above the Mississippi River. The routine seldom varies. The county judge looks out of the window of the red brick courthouse facing Main Street, sees Mr. Rickert leaving his office, and puts on his own hat; he knows as well as if he had read his watch that it's a quarter to twelve and time for lunch.

Regularity is an essential characteristic of Joseph Rickert and the keynote of his longevity and successful career. Tracing the life story of this man who came to Waterloo in its earliest years and in whose memory lives the tale of the settling of southern Illinois by our pioneer ancestors, one rediscovers the values of natural and moral law as exemplified in a human being, fundamentally rational and consistent, yet possessing the graces of humor and temperament that spell a rich personality. The full flavor of a direct French and German inheritance combined with the southern spice pf pre-Civil War days gives to his nature a ripe mellowness, not usually found in the county lawyer of the Middle West prairie. His is the philosophy of one who has held fast the reins of everyday existence and at the same time set his eyes on far horizons. A conscientious interpreter of the law, a fair player in Illinois politics, a progressive citizen in the town which he helped to build, the life of ·Joseph Rickert, spanning almost a century of American history, bears analysis and appreciation.

Mr. Rickert was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, July 9, 1840. His father, Andrew Rickert, as a young man was inspired by a love of adventure from his own father, a soldier who, under Napoleon Bonaparte, had endured the rigors of the Russian campaign in Moscow. Upon the death of his parents, Andrew, in 1832, left his home in Alsace, France, where his ancestors had lived over three hundred years, and sailed from Havre for the United States. Settling first in New Orleans, an epidemic of yellow fever, of which he became a victim, pressed him on to a healthier climate and for several years he made his home in Vicksburg. Here he met and married Margaret Slund-Haag of Bavaria, Germany. During their residence in Vicksburg, they leased the Captain James M. White house, a rambling clapboard structure with a two-story verandah overlooking the Mississippi River, where little Joseph was born. In 1845 the elder Rickert purchased a farm in Monroe County, Illinois, and in the spring of that year he and his family took the steamer James M. White up the Mississippi to St. Louis. The steamboat of which Mr. White was captain carried “the horns” in recognition of having broken all records for speed in races on the Mississippi River. This trophy, a pair of large, gilded ox-horns, was fastened to a pedestal on the upper for-deck of the boat. The departure from his old home is a vivid recollection of Joseph Rickert's childhood. The speed of the boat rounding the bend after leaving Vicksburg was greater than any the four-year-old boy had yet known and in amazement he clung to his mother's skirts, crying: "Look, Mother, the trees are running away!!!

The new farm of the. Rickert’s was located in Tiptown, a community of settlers direct from Tipperary and other counties in Ireland. Thus, little Joseph received his early schooling under the tutelage of two Irishmen, William “Piper” Walsh and his nephew, Edmund Walsh. Both were excellent teachers. McGuffey's Fourth Reader, Webster's Spelling Book, Ray's Arithmetic and Lindley Murray's English Grammar lighted the children down the rocky path of knowledge, while the reward of handfuls of pins, contributed by pupils of the class, goaded them on to high marks. Joseph William usually went home with all of the pins, and. the story went around that when Edmund Walsh took pneumonia and grew delirious, he called most of the time: "Rickert, go to the head of the class.”

This early aptitude for learning revealed itself further in boyhood. A surgical mistake in the setting of a broken arm in Vicksburg handicapped him from doing work upon the farm. At the age of sixteen his parents sent him to enroll at St. Louis University, thirty-five miles away. In the school founded by the Jesuits and the famous friend and missionary to the Indians, Father de Smet, whom Mr. Rickert affectionately remembers, he underwent a thorough grilling in the classics, trained by the Jesuit scholars to be a facile reader in both Greek and Latin. The modern languages, French and German, were also grappled with and mastered. Joseph was recognized by the faculty as a superior reader, sharing with Shepard Barclay, future chief justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri, the distinction of reading to the boys at mealtime. Seated upon a small platform above the main dining hall, they read from the works of Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, and Commodore Perry' s TRAVELS IN JAPAN, and were later rewarded with extra sweetmeats and the honor of being served at a separate table by one of the Brothers. Books early became Rickert's chief source of pleasure. While plowing on the farm at Tiptown during vacations, he always carried a book with him, from which he would read a couple of pages at the end of every furrow before allowing the horse to go on.

Although on the whole life behind school walls spun out in a quiet and restrained pattern, reverberations of the Civil War occasionally blasted the usual routine. The sons of General D. M. Frost and General Harney were both students at the university and friends of Rickert; another friend was Jefferson Davis Harris of Kentucky, a cousin of Jefferson Davis. The sympathy of the students in general was for the South. Messages occasionally were sent through the lines to General Price, until one of the boys was imprisoned by a federal guard for sending a document in a firkin of butter to his brother, a captain in Price's army.

From 1857 to 1864 Rickert remained at the university save for one year when he taught the public school in Waterloo to help pay for further tuition. He was graduated (A.B. and A.M.) in time to cast his first presidential vote at Central City, Marion County, for George B. McCellan in accordance with the Democratic tradition of his father who had voted for Andrew Jackson in 1832 and for each succeeding Democratic candidate. For the next five years Rickert taught school in Monroe and Marion counties, studying law in spare time, at first under Judge H. K. S. O'Melveny and later in the office of Johnson and Hartzell at Chester, Illinois. In the spring of 1869, he was examined by Silas L. Bryan, father of William Jennings, then circuit judge of Monroe County and recommended by him for the bar.

Setting up an office in Waterloo on the present site of the Commercial State Bank building, Joseph Rickert in March 1869, embarked on his long legal career. On one side of the sign above the door were printed the words, Johnson and Rickert, he began practicing as a partner of his teacher; of the firm of Johnson and Hartzell) on the other side, "Deutscher Advokat” Waterloo by 1869 had largely changed from an English and American settlement to a German community populated with Revolutionist families of '48, and Rickert's knowledge of the German language proved a great advantage in gaining his first clients. During the same year, he was elected county superintendent of schools, an office he held until 1873.

May 22, 1873, Joseph Rickert and Miss Minnie Ziebold, the daughter of Gottlieb Ziebold, a prominent miller of southern Illinois, were married in St. Louis, Missouri.

The bride had been a former pupil of Mr. Rickert during his days as schoolmaster in Monroe City. Of the nine children born to the Rickert’s, the four who have survived are -- Nelson A., a businessman in St. Louis with a law degree and license, to practice in Illinois and Missouri to his credit, and three daughters, Luella, Marie and Marguerite, all of them with unusual artistic and literary ability. From the date of his marriage until almost the present day, the years have witnessed political and civic events in which Joseph Rickert has played a role. In 1874 he was a representative in the 29th general assembly, the last to convene in the old capitol at Springfield. Two years later he was elected state's attorney for Monroe County and was re-elected in 1880. In 1888 he won by a large majority the state senatorship from the 48th senatorial district on the Democratic ticket.

His senatorial term was memorable for the famous “101” coalition which held out for nearly seven weeks for the election of Major General John M. Palmer to the United States Senate. Mr. Rickert had at this time the honor of being the nominal governor of the State of Illinois for three days. On Friday, February 27, 1891, Lieutenant-Governor Ray came to Senator Rickert's desk on the floor of the senate and asked him to be president pro-tem of the senate in his absence. As Governor Fifer also happened to be away from Springfield., Mr. Rickert was left to perform the official duties of the executive office. The news of this appointment of a Democrat by a Republican spread through-out the state, being the first time that a Democrat had held this position since 1857, and probably the first time in the history of the state that a Republican official had ever appointed a Democrat for this position.

The best known of several bills drawn by Senator Rickert was one authorizing a commission to purchase land at Fort Gage to which the bodies buried at Kaskaskia could be moved before the cemetery was destroyed. In 1891 the Mississippi River, having rapidly changed its course, threatened to sweep away the entire village of Kaskaskia. The interest in the fate of this old and historic town, founded in 1703 and chosen the first state capital, was easily aroused. Mr. Rickert himself sponsored the act in the senate, winning an appropriation of $10,000, and Emory P. Murphy secured its passage in the house.

In 1900 he represented the home district of William Jennings Bryan as a delegate to the national convention in Kansas City, where the latter received the Democratic nomination for President of the United, States. In 1904 he was made the Democratic presidential elector from the 22nd congressional district of Illinois.

Local as well as state honors were conferred upon Mr. Rickert. Several of these offices he still holds: President of the Waterloo Commercial State Bank, President of the Monroe County Bar Association (member of State and American Bar Associations); President of the Monroe County Fire Insurance Company and also President of the Wind Storm Insurance Company; Director of the East St. Louis, Columbia and Waterloo Railway. All social and educational under-takings have had his support and leadership; through his efforts the waterworks system and the Harrisonville Telephone Company were introduced into Waterloo. The Waterloo Milling Company and the Waterloo Literary Society count him among their charter members.

These then briefly are the outer events and accomplishments of Mr. Rickert's life. A more lengthy description would only confuse and complicate the picture. One who talks with Joseph Rickert today is made quickly aware of the underlying channels of strength and wisdom which have carried his life through good and fruitful lands. One looks into those penetrating, keen blue eyes and knows that they look out upon the world of 1937 with tolerance, humor and understanding They are not, however, the eyes of a mere observer. By the alert expression on the scholarly and handsome face, the quizzical smile and roughish chuckle, one recognizes a man closely attuned to the cries and shouts and laughter of a people seeking, as they have always sought, a new concept of civilization. He who as a child was startled by the speed of a Mississippi steamboat, who as a youth walked from Tiptown to St. Louis to school, who as a young man rode horseback through muddy roads to inspect the county schools, who campaigned in a spring-wagon drawn by a pair of mules for his law partner in 1868, has lived to have seen the "Spirit of St. Louis" take off thirty miles from his home. In like manner, he who in the 1860’s heard the cries for Negro emancipation, while at college having seen Negro slaves sold at the east door of the old St. Louis courthouse, today feels the heart throb of both black and white races struggling for the freedom and right to earn their own bread. Joseph Rickert is a true democrat.

His loyalty to his political party is thoroughly consistent with his philosophy of living. Leaning back in his swivel chair, while the soft wind from the prairie gently rustles the papers on his desk, Joseph Rickert might be persuaded to give out a few maxims, if a bit reluctantly. The fundamental principle is that we're all fellow human beings and we all have certain equal rights…" His patriotism is founded on this basic belief. A traveler. in foreign lands, an appreciator of European culture, he takes off his hat to the United States for the freedom and opportunity it offers to all men who obey its laws.

Freedom through order is the concept under which Mr. Rickert has guided his own life. This most clearly evidenced in his career as a lawyer. Careful study and preparation of each case, refusal to accept any in which, in his opinion, the facts and the law do not tally, deliberation, and honesty in the courtroom, have won for him the respect of every judge before whom he has practiced. To use his own words: "If you have an official duty to perform, do it, or resign". In the case of a murder charge against the son of an old friend, he as prosecuting attorney practiced what he preached. The one instance in which he really lost his temper in the court room, Joseph Rickert enjoys telling. Ruffling his white hair with a characteristic motion of his hand, and prefacing the story with his inimitably vehement, "Ha!" he describes the Belleville lawyer who intimated that he, Rickert, was a liar. Rickert saw red and picking up an enormous legal tome on the desk hurled it at the head of his opponent with all the strength his practice on the Waterloo baseball team had given him. The lawyer ducked and the book sailed out the fortunately open window. The two men were forcibly separated before a real battle could get under way. In the afternoon when they both came to apologize and pay the fine of $10.00, the Belleville lawyer asked the Judge's pardon first. Then Mr. Rickert stood up, bill in hand, and said that since it was a rule of the court, he would gladly pay the fine and furthermore wou1d be happy to do so again should any similar circumstance arise in the future. With a sly chuckle, he concludes: You've got to be a fighter to get anywhere. Usually you can do it quietly, but sometimes you want to tell the other fellow that you're also a member of the human family.

Realization of the rights of others and respect for those rights Mr. Rickert has never forgotten. His efforts to improve the conditions of his hometown have been not those of an aloof philanthropist, but of a fellow member of society, seeking to raise the level of human welfare not through dictation but cooperation. The modesty of scholar and a seeker after the right way is more the attitude of Joseph Rickert than the self-assertiveness of a reformer. No sharp angles protrude in his personality. The whole pattern of living is to him more important than the small piece he has aimed to make more pleasant.

His interest in the growth of Waterloo is partly that of an historian anxious to know what the next chapter will contain. The study of the settlement of Illinois from its earliest beginning, when Father Marquette and Louis Joliet first traversed it in 1673, has always held a strong fascination for him. Today an occasional pastime is to sit around in the court room and exchange stories of the early days with fellow lawyers. One of these legends, concerning the naming of Waterloo, has been so often repeated it is familiar to every boy and girl of Monroe County; it may, however, amuse those in other parts of the state.

In 1782, just south of the present site of Waterloo, on the old Kaskaskia Trail, James Moore, one of the soldiers of George Rogers Clark, who came to Illinois with such pioneers as Robert Kidd and Shadrach Bond, built a stockade at Bellefontaine. Years later Peter Rogers established a settlement north of Bellefontaine which was named after him, Peterstown. The two towns were separated by a creek. As they grew closer and closer together and the submersion of one or the other was foreseen, rivalry for each newcomer ran high, until an Irishman, Charles Carroll, appeared upon the scene and made up his mind to end the argument. Building his house on one side of the creek, his barn on the other, he declared: "It won't be Bellefontaine, and it won't be Peterstown, but Begorra, I'll give you both your Waterloo!”

In September of 1903 Mr. Rickert delivered an address at the unveiling of the Lemen Monument at New Design, on: "The Exploration and Settlement· of the Mississippi Valley, and the Early Pioneers of Monroe County." At the same time a satisfying sequel to his friendship with Judge Bryan was completed. he had the honor to welcome and to introduce the keynote speaker, William Jennings Bryan, who had come to fulfill the promise made by his father to the Baptists of Southern Illinois that he would return some day to New Design to honor the memory of the Rev. James Lemen, pioneer Baptist minister. The celebration resembled rather a harvest festival, with long tables set out under the trees for the banquet preceding the speeches. Several thousand people gathered on that occasion to hear "the Great American Commoner."

As a boy of sixteen, "Billy” Bryan often visited the Monroe County court with his father, the presiding judge. In the memory of Mr. Rickert, the son at this time was as modest and retiring as the father was striking and picturesque. Mr. Rickert paints the picture of Judge Silas L. Bryan entering the courtroom: "Enwrapped in an old-fashioned mantle, an unusually high, well-worn stovepipe hat upon his head, his feet encased in buffalo shoes, he greeted the members of the bar, approached the bench, and kneeling a moment in silent prayer, arose and directed the sheriff to open court.” To this description he adds the story his admission to the bar. Rickert, who had come up to Waterloo from Chester to appear before Judge Bryan, who was asked to appear at the old Ditch Tavern at eight o'clock in the evening. When he arrived, Bryan and two cronies were swapping yarns which they continued to do for the next two hours, seeming to take no notice of the young man who nervously kept his silence in the back of the room. Finally, Bryan raised his eyes and looked at Rickert as if seeing him for the first time. Running his hand over his bald head, he yawned: "Well, Me. Rickert, it's been a long day and I've got a little headache. Mr. Johnson's talked to me about you, and I know you've got the knowledge. You just get your certificate of a good moral character, and I'll send in your recommendation to the court."

Other now traditional figures Mr. Rickert has the power to pull back into reality. While living at Springfield during his term as state senator, among the many interesting and distinguished men he recalls meeting are: President Hayes, Governor Fifer, Judge Sidney Breese, Lieutenant Governor Koerner, Senator Cullom and Governor John P. Altgeld. He was invited by the last mentioned to run on the same ticket with him, for lieutenant-governor. However, the illness and death of a member of his family at the time determined his refusal. 

His intense devotion to his family preceded any political aspiration that might tempt him from his home circle. Upon the death of his wife in 1900, he assumed the parental responsibility of both father and mother to his young children, six of whom grew to maturity and received a liberal education in the best schools of this country and abroad. To dine with his family, to listen to the comparisons of places visited throughout the world, to hear their discussions of problems national and international, one has difficulty in realizing that only a quarter of a mile away the farmlands of Illinois are rolling toward the Mississippi River and that just across the sun is sinking behind the Missouri bluffs. 

Mr. Rickert devotes most of his leisure time to reading. French and English literature interests him as much as the intricate workings of the law and its philosophy. His daily routine is leisurely and moderate; his habits of eating and smoking unchanged since early manhood. At a political meeting only a few months ago in giving his theory on the cause of his long life, he said he thought it was because he "always went to bed with a clear conscience.

Faith and hope are to Joseph Rickert the bases of all religion. In this age of changing values, of meteoric flights to success and as sudden descents, the existence of one who, after ninety-six years of vigorous living, faces this chaotic world with gallantry and composure and holds fast to a faith in the realization of the ideals of our nation, should be a reassuring and challenging fact.