Charles Evans Whittaker

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Monograph I: Charles Evans Whittaker On February 22, 1901, future Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Whittaker was born near Troy, Kansas. At the age of 16 pain struck Charles, due to the loss of his mother forcing him to quit high school and submerge himself to a full-time farm work. By describing this difficult stage of his life Whittaker commented to the Senate Judiciary Committee many years later: "I rode a pony to school through six miles of mud night and morning for about a year and a half. When my mother died, it broke my heart; she died on my birthday, 1917. I felt I couldn't go on and I quit high school."(“Charles Evans Whittaker Facts.") His family noted that Charles had an intense interest in the law from an early age. According to his brother, Charles held his own simulated trials and lectured to the horses in his farm as it were a jury. Charles had a deep aspiration to become a lawyer, but he was not known to have academic accomplishments. After the ninth grade, Whittaker dropped out of school to pursue a second profession in farming that literally stank. He would sell skunk pelts for $3 apiece. By 1920, he’d managed to save money and went to Kansas City to pursue his dream of becoming a lawyer. He worked as an office assistant at the local law firm Watson, Gage & Ess and spent two years completing high school. In agreement to be tutored in high school subjects Whittaker took advantage of his connections at the law firm and was accepted into a night program at the University of Kansas City Law School in 1921 and received a degree in 1924. Whittaker then joined the law firm, where he had been working part-time as an office boy during his student years and became a senior partner after 2 years. Through the years he gained a strong reputation for his work as a trial lawyer where he principally represented both national and local

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