Ralph
W.E.
Donges

RALPH WALDO EMERSON DONGES was born in Donaldson, Schuylkill County PA to Dr. John Washington Donges and his wife Rose Marguerite Renaud Donges on May 5, 1868. His father was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania who practiced medicine in Pennsylvania before coming to Camden NJ. His mother was born in France. Ralph Donges was the second of five children, coming after Clarence and  before Miriam, Raymond, and Evelyn Donges.  Dr. John W. Donges moved his family to 1801 Broadway in Camden in 1875. The family remained there until the mid 1890s, when they lived at 525 Broadway. By 1920 Ralph W.E. Donges and his parents had moved to 805 Cooper Street.

After seeing John W. Wescott try a case at the Camden County Court House, Ralph Donges prevailed upon his father to allow him to study law. After studying under Wescott, who went on to a long and distinguished career as a judge in Camden, Ralph Donges went into the practice of law, and practiced alongside older brother Raymond R. Donges, who had passed the bar in 1895 after studying with Judge Howard Carrow. 

Ralph W.E. Donges, like his father, also became involved in politics and community affairs. On September 23, 1904 hew was named secretary of the First Congressional District branch of the Democrats. He had served as a legal aide to Woodrow Wilson prior to his election as president. Ralph W.E. Donges was an active member of several fraternal and professional organizations, especially Camden Lodge 111, Loyal Order of Moose. He was already quite prominent in the Moose organization when he met the Vice-President Thomas Marshall on, Sunday, July 27, 1913. The purpose of the meeting was to arrange for Marshall to speak at the dedication of a home for fatherless children being started by the Loyal Order of Moose. Ralph Waldo Emerson Donges was presiding that year as Supreme Dictator. (The title of the fraternity's presiding officer was not changed to Supreme Governor until 1940.)

“I detest orphanages,” Marshall had irritably responded to Donges in initially trying to get out of the assignment. “When I was Governor of Indiana I was forced in the course of duty to visit a number of orphanages. I thought they were terrible places, and I won’t help you lay the cornerstone for another one.”

Donges, then 38 and a lawyer from Camden, NJ, reassured the Vice President. “It will never be that kind of orphanage,” he said, referring to the dreary urban warehouses of abandoned children then common in the U.S.; places that got their income via donations from couples who would come to view children before selecting one to adopt. That’s not at all what the Moose were planning, Donges insisted: “It will be a home and school for the children of our deceased members.”

 The orphanage the Moose opened up in 1913 is the Mooseheart Child City and School, a residential childcare facility owned and operated by Moose International. Located on a 1,200-acre campus 38 miles west of Chicago, the Child City is a home for children and teens, from infancy through high school.

Ralph Donges was still practicing law in Camden when the United States entered World War I. Along with brother-in-law  Dr. Grant Elmer Kirk, he served on the Camden City Draft Board. Ralph Donges also was a member of the Public Safety Committee before being called to service in May of 1918 in the United States Army during the war, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

After the war Ralph Donges served as a judge in the New Jersey legal system, first as a circuit judge from 1920 to 1930, then as an associate justice of New Jersey state supreme court for 18 years, from 1930 to 1948, and finally as a superior court judge from 1948 through 1951. He also was involved in banking, and was the first president of the South Camden Trust when it opened for business at Broadway & Ferry Avenue on April 2, 1921.

Ralph W.E. Donges was a member of the American Bar Association,  the  Freemasons, the Elks; and Moose. During the later years of his life he made his home in Oaklyn NJ. Ralph W.E. Donges passed away in September of 1974. He was entombed in the family mausoleum at Harleigh Cemetery, Camden, NJ.

After his death in September of 1974, the Honorable Ralph W.E. Donges Memorial Scholarship Award, an annual scholarship of $1,000 to be given an evening student at any of the following law schools: Rutgers-Camden, Rutgers-Newark, Seton Hall, Penn, Temple, Villanova, or Widener, was established. Applicants must demonstrate a bona fide intention to practice law in Camden County. Applicants also should demonstrate genuine financial need as well as scholastic achievement.

Where Dr. John W. Donges
and family lived
from
1875 through the early 1890s

Click on Images to Enlarge

CAMDEN FAMILY WINS $2500 FROM TAXI FIRM

A suit instituted by a Camden family against the Yellow Cab Company for $65,000 growing out of a collision between an automobile in which they were riding and one of the concern’s cabs was settled out of court today for $2,500.

CRASH VICTIM SEEKS $135,000 DAMAGES
Philadelphia Sportsman Sued by Camden Trio In Circuit Court 

Damages aggregating $135,000 are asked of a prominent Philadelphia sportsman in suits being heard by Judge Donges and a jury in Camden Circuit Court today.

The plaintiffs, who are represented by attorney Albert S. Woodruff, are Charles Klopp, 1152 Sycamore Street, brother of Henry Klopp, who died as a result of an accident last spring; Miss Helen Groczyk, 1079 Van Hook Street, who was injured in the same crash, and her father Josef Groczyk. Klopp asks $50,000 for compensation for his brother’s death; Miss Groczyk seeks $75,000 for her injuries and her father wants $10,000 for medical expenses incurred by his daughter’s hurt.

The suits were brought against William Poultney Smith, of Cynwyd PA, and are a result of an accident early on the morning of May 11, 1927 on Black Horse Pike at Bellmawr.

According to Miss Groczyk, who went on the witness stand yesterday afternoon, she went for an automobile ride with Henry Klopp, Joseph Klosterman, and Mrs. Esther Rieder. They had been to Chews Landing and were returning to Camden, she said, when she became ill in the smoke-filled sedan. She left the car, aided by Klopp, and was standing directly behind when another machine, driven by Smith, crashed into them, crushing them against their car. The plaintiffs contend that Smith had been playing golf at Pine Valley, had afterwards been drinking, and was in a stupor while driving his machine, thus causing the accident. Klopp was taken to the Went Jersey Homeopathic Hospital, where a leg was amputated, and where he died seven days later.

The girl, who is now 18 years old, had both legs broken and suffered other injuries. She appeared in court with a brace on her right leg and limped to the stand. She testified that their car was fully lighted when they stopped on the road.

The defense will contend that the Klopp car had no lights, and will deny all responsibility for the tragedy.

Klopp was a World War veteran, his brother testified and had been the only support for his mother, Mrs. Julia Klopp, his brother and a sister, Ida..  

TRIAL HERE BEGINS IN ALIENATION SUIT
City Fireman Seeks $200,000
From Manufacturer for Loss of Wife 

Hearing in the suit of a city fireman demanding from a Camden manufacturer $200,000, alleging alienation or his wife’s affections and defamation of his character was scheduled to start before Judge Ralph W. Donges and a jury in Camden Circuit Court late this afternoon.

Samuel Oshushek, 30 years old, 1639 Pulaski Street, asks $150,000 for the loss of his wife’s love, which he says was stolen by Peter Malinowski, 47 years old, of Drexel Hill PA, proprietor of a concrete block factory at Mt. Ephraim Avenue and Decatur Street, Camden. The fireman also seeks $50,000 for reflections alleged to have been made against his name and character by Malinowski.

According to Oshushek’s affidavit, his wife, Clara, 27 years old, also is living in Drexel Hill. He contends that Malinowski and Mrs. Oshushek became intimate in June 1926, and that the manufacturer finally induced Mrs. Oshushek to leave her husband,

Oshushek further alleges that before his wife’s purported elopement, she received letters from the manufacturer in which the latter attacked the character of the fireman.

Police court records show that the wives of the two men engaged in a quarrel on March 30, 1927 and came to blows. When a date for hearing was set, Mrs. Malinowski did not appear in court. She afterward the told police that her husband had beat her so severely that she could not appear.  

Camden
Courier-Post

February 4, 1928

Ralph W.E. Donges
William C. French
Frank F. Neutze
Peter Malinowski
Samuel Oshushek

Pulaski Street

Camden
Courier-Post

February 21, 1928

Ralph W.E. Donges
William C. French
Anna M. Lawson

Miller Street

Ralph W.E. Donges' memorial to Judge John W. Wescott
Published in the 1930 Archive,
the yearbook of the Law School of South Jersey, Camden NJ

My admiration for Judge Wescott developed early. I admired my own father greatly, and he, I discovered, regarded the militant young Judge not only as a friend, but as a heroic character.

 I went into the old Camden County Court House one day- I heard my future preceptor try a case. The picture is with me now, of the skilled, aggressive advocate, and the brilliant, splendidly poised trial judge, the late Charles Grant Garrison, who sat in the trial of cases, where I have the privilege of sitting now. From then on my ambition remained fixed. What earnest boy has not dreamed a future? I wanted to become a lawyer, a trial lawyer, a great trial lawyer if possible- and I wanted to learn the law under Judge Wescott. I think my father hoped that I would follow him in the practice of medicine- in which he was rendering a great service to the community- but when he realized the earnestness of my wish to study law, he did not try to dissuade me, but took me to the Judge’s office, and shortly thereafter my legal training began. Not, however, at the first interview. It was not enough that his good friend had a son who wanted to become a lawyer. I had to convince one, then the other, that it was no passing whim on my part. These were my first two important arguments. To me they were vital, and, having won the first, I struggled the harder to win the next. When Judge Wescott saw I that was in earnest and not to be discouraged by his warnings of the difficulties and dangers of a lawyer’s life, he, with evident reluctance, consented to try me out for a time. He told me he hesitated to take students because he had neither time nor inclination for their instruction. Nevertheless, that was a happy day for me, not only because it meant the beginning of my legal training, but because I knew that it meant an exceptionally good training. By this I do not mean that my preceptor was, in the usual sense, an exceptionally good teacher. Indeed, he had but little knack in giving personal instruction. He had neither the interest in legal technicalities nor the requisite patience for teaching by rote. But he was an inspiring example. To be with him in the office and the courtroom was a constant stimulus to exertion and the acquirement of skill in every branch of the law. The young men he took as students, developed in nearly every instance into capable lawyers. The late Judge Vroom, Francis D. Weaver, who later became his partner, Howard L. Miller, and the Judge’s own three sons, are some of these students, who either preceded or followed my apprenticeship.

 Judge Wescott was interested primarily in the character of his students. He looked first, I think, for honesty, next for courage, lastly for skill and learning. All are prime essentials, but I place them in the order in which he held them, and in which he exemplified them. Great as were his skill and learning, they rested on the greater foundation of courage; and that, in turn, rested on his essential honesty of character, which sprang from the love in his heart.

 He was a lover of all mankind and his fighting spirit was aroused whenever he believed human right was invaded. To him the financial benefit of winning a case, either to the client or to himself was not to be considered, in comparison with the vindication of a right. If he sometimes appeared adamantine or intolerant, it was only because he believed an injustice or an untruth was being perpetrated. He had no disposition to compromise or temporize with either.

By nature, then, a kindly, lovable soul, as I have good reason to know, he would become hard and merciless in his condemnation of sham, hypocrisy, deceit and attempted injustice. In the event of what he conceived to be an oppression, by whomsoever attempted, he flung into the conflict with all of his tremendous powers. I wish space permitted a narration of some instances of the exhibition of his courage, skill, and resourcefulness. None, who has heard him, can forget his matchless elegance, his compelling reasoning, his quiet commanding presence, as he sought to vindicate what he believed in the moment to be right.

 Judge Wescott was essentially an advocate, but such was his belief in the majesty of the law for the honest settlement of differences between suitors, that I believe he never took pleasure in the winning of any case, unless he believed that substantial justice had been done between the parties.

 His life is an inspiration to those following him, an exemplification, as above stated, of honesty, courage, learning, and skill. Fidelity to duty, as he saw that duty, was the cardinal principle that controlled his activities as an advocate- “With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.”

 Judge Wescott was a great lawyer, a brilliant and courageous advocate, a warm hearted, sympathetic friend, a thorough-going American, to whom Shakespeare’s words, as quoted by Dean Minturm at the end of his foregoing appreciation of our mutual friend and mentor, most aptly apply.

 Ralph W.E. Donges
 Camden NJ
April 1930

Camden Courier-Post
June 3, 1932

JURY DUTY IMPORTANCE STRESSED BY DONGES

"The greatest civic duty an upright, patriotic citizen can render his community is to serve on a jury when called and to be impartial in reaching a verdict in whatever case is brought before him."

Justice Ralph W. E. Donges made that statement yesterday in, instructing the 45 members of the second panel of the petit jury in their duties. Justice Donges substituted for Justice Frank T. Lloyd, who regularly talks to each new jury panel, but who is in Virginia recuperating from an illness.