Grover Cleveland, of Buffalo, N. Y., was beginning his second term as U S President when a man named Walter Platt Cooke, recently come of age, put his legal services in the Buffalo market. He knew Buffalo—it was about the only city he did know. It had supplied his crib, his rattle, his roller skates, his education— everything except an LL. B. degree which he had obtained from across the hills, at Cornell University.
Grover Cleveland was leaving office never to return when Mr. Cooke—now married to a Buffalo girl, May Louise Perry—was admitted to the firm of which the President had once been a member a firm named, 1897, Bissell,
Carey & Cooke. Horizons broadened. Buffalo grew. The Marine Trust Co. became a mighty institution. The red-fronted bazaars of F. W. Woolworth began to make annual fortunes. Mr. Coote, in the fullness of years became chairman of the board of the former, a director of the latter. B. F. Keith's theatres prospered at the chief railroad junctions. Cornell University acquired international fame. Mr. Cooke is director of the former, trustee of the latter.
Last week was announced the appointment of the Buffalo lawyer—his firm is today Kenefick, Cooke, Mitchell & Bass—to be supreme judge in the financial affairs of Europe. He is henceforth President of the Arbitral Tribunal of Interpretation, a court which will be judge and divider between the Reparations Committee and the German Government. How and when and what reparations Germany must pay under the Dawes Plan are supernational questions to be determined in de- object to Mr. Gilbert's dictation. Germany may on some occasions object to Mr. Parker's dictation. What then? There is but one court of appeal, a tribunal of five over which Mr. Cooke will preside.