Because he revelled in the way country lawyers abused each other when arguing cases before the Jus-e of the Peace, he began studying law, and after a year in the University of Michigan law school, and a brief apprenticeship in Youngstown, Ohio, he was admitted to the bar at 21. He opened an office in Andover, Ohio, obtaining no clients, and moved to Ashtabula, Ohio, where he married Miss Jessie Ohi.
Mr, Darrow was elected city soli for of Ashtabula at $75 a month end entered private law practice. A few years later he moved to Chicago, where his first year's earnings were less than $300. He attracted attention, however, in political speeches, soon was appointed special assessment attorney for the city at $3,000 a year, and rose rapidly to assistant corporation counsel, then corporation counsel, a position from which he resigned to become general attorney for the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company, It was while holding this position that Mr. Darrow appeared in the first of a succession of nationally important legal battles, which were to bring him ultimately that reputation of being the greatest crimine! lawyer in the United States,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.