The Life and Occasions of a Nation Lawyer: Chapter 7

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My return home from World War II was delayed because I was a member of the 91st Medical Gas Treatment Battalion, one of the last units to depart Europe after the war. Headquarters had correctly given priority to combat troops, and we did not arrive back in the United States until late 1945. I will never forget our entry into New York harbor. We were aboard a lowly Liberty ship, which had been converted for troop transportation. The interior of the ship was filled with bunks, thousands of them packed closely together. We had departed Marseille, France, on the Mediterranean Sea, on the 25th of October 1945, plowed across a rough Atlantic Ocean and entered New York Harbor before dawn on the 4th of November 1945.

For months, night and day, troop ships from European and English ports had preceded us. The stamina of the New Yorkers was unbelievable. Every horn in the harbor blasted with full force, the New York fire-fighting tugs surrounded our ship, spraying millions of gallons of water into the air, and lights were turned on in the tenement houses on each shore, where people were waving towels and sheets out their windows. One would have thought that our lowly ship was a battered man-of-war returning from a critical victory at sea. Since I was returning home for the first time after over 23 months of continuous overseas duty, such a reception was very emotional for me.

Given liberal leave from duty, I went to Washington where my parents lived. In a quandary as to my future, I thought peacetime army life might be interesting.  However, I knew that at the rank of captain I might be discharged if the army was downsized, because regular army commissioned officers would be more likely to survive the reduction. The fact that I had not practiced law for five years and did not know what my situation would be in Sherman bothered me.

When my battalion was in Belgium, in February of 1945, my father sent me a copy of the “Handbook of the Law of Torts” by William Prosser. It was a recent textbook (published in 1941), which I studied, but nothing could replace the experience and training I could have had if I had not been drafted. I had only slight experience with court martial proceedings during the war, and it had little relevance to peacetime law practice. My father, a division Judge Advocate during World War I, had spent several years after discharge obtaining the release of soldiers from prison who had been convicted by military courts during the war. His experience, as well as mine, caused me to wonder if my long absence from legal practice might jeopardize my return to a career in the law.

To jump forward to my return to Sherman after the war, I found myself aboard a northbound Interurban with the same old uncomfortable seats. My anxiety consumed me, as the car swayed and bumped along its worn roadbed. Having no home or relatives in Sherman, I felt there might be no one there glad to see me. My closest friend, Clifford Hardwick Jr., had been killed during the war. Judge Webb, the senior partner of the firm I had worked for, was now dead. His son, Spearman, although a brilliant trial lawyer, was an alcoholic and I didn’t know the status of the Webb law office.  Most of all, I had no idea whether that firm or any other law office could use me, given the question about my competence as a lawyer.

The practice of law depends on familiarity with a constantly changing mass of rules, and the competitive lawyer must keep abreast of changes. Five years’ absence was a long time. When the Interurban stopped opposite Sherman’s Grayson Hotel, which had been the launching point of my five-year military odyssey, I disembarked.  Slowly I entered its east entrance and registered, fearful of the future.  But my fears proved to be baseless.  

I was to experience the beginning of a era in the history of Sherman like no other. Before the war, while struggling out of the great depression it had gradually become an industrial town. Cotton gins produced by Hardwick-Etter were being shipped abroad, and The Washington Iron Works had built up an international reputation. The war had forced these and other Sherman businesses to reshape their products and services to support the military, as my hometown went through an era of sacrifice. A shortage of the essential goods normally required by the civilian population and its infrastructure had taken its toll.  Some of the wealthier citizens of Sherman had found it desirable to sell their homes and move into the Grayson Hotel, which became an extraordinary institution.

Now World War II was over, and my almost five years in the army had sped me through the ranks of private, corporal, sergeant, second lieutenant, first lieutenant and captain. Uninjured, with no serious illness, I felt good and was greeted everywhere as if I had done something important. My hometown was exploding with a feeling of joy, well being and optimism for the future. I returned to the law office I had left and was immediately advanced as a partner in the firm of Webb, Elliott and Rogers. My pre-war duties with the firm of Webb and Webb had been relegated to minor responsibilities, almost forgotten.

During the years of my military service I had been assigned to the Army’s Medical Corps, providing me with no legal experience. Now, however, the fact that I had forgotten much of my previous law training did not seem to matter. The euphoria of the times thrust me forward for no explainable reason.

This sudden elevation of status began in Washington, DC. My mother and father lived there during the war and I went there when I first returned home from Europe. My father immediately arranged for a Congressional Judiciary Committee Chairman (Cong. Hatton W. Summers of Dallas) to introduce me to the Supreme Court of the United States, resulting in my being licensed in that court. It didn’t matter that I had never had a case before that court, and no one cared about my recent absence of legal study and experience.

Immediately thereafter, I was presented to and was licensed before the United States Tax Court and the United States Court of Claims. I would never have a case before either court, but when I arrived in Sherman I was one of the very few lawyers in North Texas who was so accredited.  Accordingly, clients who would not have hired me before the war now sought my services. I was accepted in the legal profession beyond my capabilities, while my senior partner, Spearman, continued my legal education, protecting me from errors and enhancing my skills in the courtroom.

Before the war I belonged to the Woodlawn Country Club and played golf occasionally. Not a good golfer, I was generally unnoticed by the membership. After the war I was almost immediately elected president of the club.

Fearing a loss of competence in the legal field, I needed to talk to Spearman Webb. My trip to Sherman was unusual. In the fall of 1945, immediately after attending the Army-Navy game, I hitchhiked a ride on a medium bomber which two Air Force colonels had flown to Washington (so that they could attend the game) and flew with them back to their base in West Texas. From there I managed to take the bus to Dallas.

Texas had never been like this. Soldiers, freed from duty, were everywhere, trying to get home or trying to move to some other place. All hotels and transportation facilities were full. Unable to find a room in Dallas I managed to get on the last northbound interurban to Sherman. Fearing the hotels in Sherman would be full, I got off the interurban at McKinney. My uncle, Horace Neilson, never locked the doors of his house. I walked to his home, and without waking him or his wife, I went to sleep on the divan in their front room. A little after midnight his son, who I had not seen since a few days after D-Day when we enjoyed a bottle of wine in Normandy, came home and awakened me along with his mother and father. Because of his extensive combat duty, Horace Jr. had arrived home much earlier than I. For the first time after the war I felt welcome in my home state and hopeful for the future.

The next morning I returned to Sherman and was welcomed by Spearman. The Webb office has survived the war and continued to be staffed by the two great secretaries, Ms. Goldie and Miss Ruth. Spearman was still the leading plaintiff’s lawyer in the county, although during the war the practice of law had been difficult in North Texas. He decided to organize a firm of Webb, Elliott and Rogers. Ralph Elliott had also returned from military service and the three of us became partners. Almost immediately Ralph Elliott was elected county attorney and withdrew from the firm. The firm became Webb and Rogers and my education as a trial lawyer shifted into high gear.


Neilson Rogers practiced law in Sherman for almost 60 years, from 1938 until 2002, except for the five years he was in the U.S. Army during World War II. In 2007 he was recognized by the Grayson County Bar Assn. for seven decades of service to the legal and judicial communities. In retirement he wrote this memoir, which will be serialized in the North Texas e-News. Before his death, Mr. Rogers asked Dr. Jerry Lincecum to edit the memoir and gave him literary power of attorney to make decisions about publishing his writings.