The Downward Spiral of Halsted Ritter
Halsted Ritter was a young attorney and a member of the Denver Lions Club when he took the floor of the 1919 Chicago Lions International Convention to give a stirring speech on citizenship and safeguarding our nation’s security. With the conflict of World War I ending the year before, patriotism was very much elevated and concerns for the future was foremost on the minds of the people. Using the organizational name as a reference to get across his point …LIONS …the created acronym was acclaimed by the delegates and the official slogan was born: Liberty…Intelligence…Our Nation’s Safety…and continues to be honored to this day.
Not much seems to be known of Ritter’s Lions history, but the record indicates he was at one time his clubs’ vice-president, and at the Denver convention in 1920 he filled in for the club’s president to introduce International President Jesse Robinson of Oakland, California to the delegates.
Nevertheless, Halstead Ritter had been making a name for himself long before his Lions activities. In 1907 he was listed as the State Railroad Commissioner of Colorado. And the ‘Denver Rocky News’ of June 26, 1912 headlined RITTER TO OPEN CAMPAIGN, being the Republican candidate to run for governor of Colorado. He came up short in the election.
Born in 1868 in Indianapolis and living mostly in Denver, Ritter decided to relocate to West Palm Beach, Florida in 1925 for the benefit of his wife’s health. President Calvin Coolidge appointed Ritter to a federal judgeship in 1929, but in 1933 a long series of investigations began concerning a number of his judicial decisions. Ultimately, the House of Representatives voted for impeachment for “misbehavior, and for high crimes and misdemeanors” (March, 1936).
The following month (April 17, 1936), the U.S. Senate tried the 65-year old jurist and found him guilty on the last of seven counts, a generalized summary of various charges made against him. The finding states that “his actions as charged brought his Court ‘into scandal and disrepute.’” The vote was 56 to 28, the exact two thirds needed for conviction. Automatic removal from the bench was the only penalty provided by the congressional trial. In 1937, the Supreme Court denied his appeal.