Alameda County Biographies

HON. MORTIMER SMITH

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 

	Hon. Mortimer Smith, judge of the police court of Oakland, adds to his comprehensive 
knowledge of the law in the performance of his judicial duties a thorough familiarity with the 
forces and conditions which foster crime. He has made an extensive study of the many social 
evils that come under his notice and has in this way founded upon experience and knowledge a 
practically invaluable work of public service.
	Pennsylvania numbers him among her native sons, his birth having occurred in Venango 
county, that state, June 9, 1872. His parents came west in 1876, taking up their residence in 
Oakland, where Judge Smith has remained continuously since that time. He acquired his 
preliminary education in the public schools of this city and after he had decided upon a legal 
career began the study of law in the office of his father, James Hume Smith, one of Oakland's 
foremost attorneys. He showed a strong natural aptitude for the profession and passed a 
creditable examination, being admitted to the bar August 7, 1894.
	As a general practitioner he handled a number of important cases with exceptional skill, 
and it was his high rating as a rising young lawyer which led to his being offered the 
nomination on the republican ticket for the office of judge of the police court, to which he was 
elected in 1898, at the age of twenty-six, and in which he has served by re-election since that 
time. He is probably the youngest man who was ever entrusted with the duties of this responsible 
position, and during the period of his service he has discharged these duties in an unusually 
intelligent and far-sighted manner, making a special study of criminal law and of the conditions 
which foster the evils which every day come to his notice. He fully appreciates the fact that our 
present social evils present a problem which has not yet been solved by the leading minds of the 
country, but in his administration of justice and in his bench decisions he has conscientiously 
sought to give every one a square deal and absolute justice according to the law.
	Judge Smith is well known in fraternal circles, being past president of Oakland Aerie, No. 
7, F. O. E.; past master of Oak Leaf Lodge, No. 35, A. O. U. W.; a member of Oakland Camp, No. 94, 
W. O. W.; Bay View Lodge, No. 401, A. F. & A. M.; Oakland Consistory, No. 2, Scottish Rite of Free 
Masonry; Aahmes Temple of the Mystic Shrine; Oakland Pyramid, No. 2, A. E. O. S.; Oakland Lodge, 
No. 171, B. P. O. E., and No. 324, Loyal Order of Moose. He also holds membership in the Nile Club. 
He is a representative and valued citizen of Oakland and is without doubt one of the most popular 
and able men connected with the municipal government.

Past & Present of Alameda County, California � Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914, p. 454