American judge
Curtis Grover Shake
(July 14, 1887 – September 11, 1978), was a
jurist
,
politician
, author, and a member of the
Indiana Senate
that served as a Justice of the
Indiana Supreme Court
from January 4, 1938 to January 7, 1945, serving as Chief Justice three separate times (1939, 1941, and 1944). During his career, he was the presiding civilian judge over the
IG Farben trial
, one of the
Nuremberg trials
the United States convened at
Nuremberg
,
Germany
from 1947 to 1948 following
World War II
.
A native of
Knox County, Indiana
, Shake attended
Vincennes University
for two years and earned a law degree from
Indiana University
in 1910. He initially established a law practice in
Bicknell, Indiana
, but relocated his family and law practice to the county seat at
Vincennes
in 1916. Shake was elected as a
Democrat
to represent Knox and
Daviess
Counties in the
Indiana Senate
in 1926, but lost his bid to become
Indiana Attorney General
in 1928. Shake presided as a Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court for 7 years; refusing to run for re-election in 1945. Between 1938 and 1946, Shake was also involved at the national level in mediating labor disputes, including service on six presidential emergency boards charged with settling railroad strikes.
In 1947, Shake was appointed presiding judge over the Farben trial at Nuremberg. News reporters harshly criticized the relatively light sentences imposed on those found guilty of war crimes. Years later Shake remarked that although he accepted the legitimacy of the tribunals, he thought an impartial trial from neutral countries using neutral judges would have been preferable. After his return to the United States in 1948, Shake continued to practice law in Vincennes, where he was also a longtime member of Vincennes University's board of trustees from 1923 to 1966. Shake was elected to the
Indiana Academy
in 1975 for his contributions to Indiana and the nation.
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Curtis Grover Shake, the son of Arminda and Daniel Shake, was born in
Monroe City
,
Harrison Township
,
Knox County, Indiana
, on July 14, 1887. Daniel was a farmer and music teacher; Arminda worked as a
midwife
.
[1]
[2]
Shake completed eighth grade in Knox County's public schools. In 1903, because there were no public high schools in the area, Shake began studies at
Vincennes University
, where he attended classes for two years to earn a teacher's license.
[1]
At Vincennes he was a member of
Sigma Pi
fraternity
.
[3]
Shake taught in a one-room schoolhouse for two years before deciding to pursue a law career. He moved to
Vincennes, Indiana
, in the spring of 1907 and began law school at
Indiana University
in
Bloomington
that fall. Shake, an avid storyteller, later recalled that while he was living in Vincennes, Jacob Gimbel, owner of a Vincennes department store that later became
Gimbels
in New York, offered to pay for his law studies at IU as long as he agreed to help another student in a similar manner in the future. Shake agreed to Gimbel's proposal.
[1]
Shake earned a law degree from
Indiana University
in 1910. Among his classmates were
Paul V. McNutt
, a future
governor of Indiana
;
Sherman Minton
, a future Associate Justice of the
U.S. Supreme Court
; and
Wendell Willkie
, the
Republican Party
's nominee in the
1940 presidential election
. Shake also met his first wife, Anna Selesky, a
Czech
immigrant and a fellow law student, while attending IU. Shake and Anna married in June 1911; their son, Gilbert, was born the following year.
[1]
Career
[
edit
]
Early years
[
edit
]
Shake established a law practice in
Bicknell, Indiana
, following his graduation from law school in 1910. After six years in Bicknell, where Shake served as city attorney and as Knox County's deputy prosecuting attorney, he moved his family and law practice to Vincennes in 1916 and formed a law partnership with Joseph W. Kimmel.
[1]
[4]
While living in Vincennes, Shake also held positions as city attorney, U.S. commissioner for the southern Indiana judicial district, and Knox County attorney.
[4]
In 1926 Shake was elected as a
Democrat
to represent Knox and
Daviess
Counties in the
Indiana Senate
. Shake was an active state senator who coauthored the Lindley-Shake-Johnson law that reduced tax assessments on Indiana farmland.
[5]
In 1928 Shake became the Democratic Party's nominee for
Indiana Attorney General
, but lost the race. A week before the election, John Rabb Emison, a Vincennes lawyer, announced at a
Republican Party
gathering in
Indianapolis
that Shake was a former member of the
Ku Klux Klan
. Emison asserted that Shake had joined Knox County Klan Number 75 on September 30, 1924, and produced a membership book to support the claim. Emison also proclaimed that the Klan had provided Shake with support during his campaign for the Indiana Senate in 1926, but Shake had discontinued paying his membership dues when the Klan organization became unpopular.
[5]
It is not known with certainty whether or not Shake was a Klan member. Shake never fully denied Klan membership in his speeches,
[5]
but he did label the claims "insinuations and false charges."
[4]
Newspapers of the time did not report that he refuted Emison's claims. Shake blamed his loss on
New York governor
Al Smith
's nomination in the
U.S. presidential election of 1928
. Nearly the entire Indiana Democratic slate of candidates, including Shake, were defeated in the elections that year.
[4]
[5]
After his defeat in the race for Indiana attorney general, Shake continued to practice law in Vincennes for the next ten years. His primary client was the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
. Shake represented the railroad in litigation within a four-county area of southern Indiana. Known as a skilled orator, Shake also delivered speeches in support of Democratic causes and wrote books about Vincennes.
[4]
[5]
Indiana Supreme Court justice
[
edit
]
In December 1937
Indiana governor
M. Clifford Townsend
appointed Shake to the
Indiana Supreme Court
to fill a vacancy that was created when
U.S. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
appointed Indiana Supreme Court Justice
Walter E. Treanor
to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
in
Chicago
.
[5]
Shake completed the remaining year of Justice Treanor's term on the Indiana Supreme Court and was elected in his own right to a six-year term in 1938. Shake served on the Court from January 4, 1938, to January 7, 1945,
[6]
and presided as chief justice three times (1939, 1941, and 1944).
[4]
[7]
In the
Warren v Indiana Telephone Company
case, Shake's opinion resolved a longstanding debate about the
Indiana Court of Appeals
. Shake rejected the
Indiana General Assembly
's authority to limit the Court's powers, made the state's Court of Appeals an intermediate court, and brought Indiana's court system into alignment with court systems of the majority of other states.
[8]
Shake decided not to run for re-election because he believed that the state's voters would choose Republican candidates in the upcoming election and he wanted to avoid a defeat. At the end of his term on the bench in 1945, Shake returned to Vincennes to practice law with his son, Gilbert.
[4]
[7]
Shake's first wife, Anna, died on November 2, 1946.
[9]
Between 1938 and 1946 Shake became involved at the national level in mediating labor disputes. He mediated an estimated 400 labor disputes as a National Mediation Board referee. Shake gained a national reputation when he served on six presidential emergency boards charged with settling railroad strikes, chairing three of these boards from 1944 to 1949.
[7]
War crime trials in Nuremberg, Germany
[
edit
]
In early 1947, Shake was appointed presiding judge over the
IG Farben trial
, one of the
war crimes
that U.S. authorities held in
Nuremberg
,
Germany
, after the end of
World War II
. Shake, a widower at the time, went to Nuremberg alone. The Farben trial began on August 27, 1947, and concluded in mid-June 1948. The case was primarily based on the Farben defendants' "knowing participation" in "Nazi plans for conquest,"
[9]
even before the war began, and for the Farben firm's use of slave labor in manufacturing synthetic rubber during the war. The company's production site used laborers from the adjacent German concentration camp at
Auschwitz, Poland
. Shake presided over the tribunal, which rendered its verdicts on July 29?30, 1948, more than a year after the trial began. Ten of the defendants were acquitted on all counts; the remaining thirteen received prison sentences that ranged from two to eight years, considered mild punishments compared to the gravity of the indictments.
[9]
News reporters harshly criticized Shake for the relatively light sentences in the Farben case and made allegations that he had been partial to the German defendants, which he denied. Shake countered the criticisms by arguing that the tribunal "had worked hard to apply international law" in the trial.
[9]
Shake returned to the United States in 1948.
[10]
Many years later Shake remarked that he accepted the legitimacy of the tribunals, but thought an impartial tribunal from neutral countries using neutral judges would have been "preferable" in avoiding a case where "the victor" tried "the vanquished."
[11]
Later years
[
edit
]
After Shake returned to the United States from Germany in 1948, he continued to practiced law in Vincennes, Indiana, until his retirement at age eighty-eight.
[11]
Shake married Alice Killion Hubbard on January 2, 1952. They had one child, Susan. Shake's son, Gilbert, died in 1968; Alice died in 1970.
[10]
Death and legacy
[
edit
]
Shake died on September 11, 1978, at the age of ninety-one.
[10]
His funeral and burial took place at Vincennes.
[11]
Shake is known for his service as an Indiana Supreme Court judge (1938?45)
[6]
and as the presiding judge of the tribunal that heard the Farban case in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1947?48. Shake was also remembered for his "wisdom, wit, and warmth" and as a "masterful" orator.
[10]
In addition, Shake was dedicated to serving Vincennes University, where he was once a student, as a member of the university's board of trustees from 1923 to 1966. He was also actively involved in
Sigma Pi
fraternity throughout his lifetime. He served on the fraternity's grand council four times between 1908 and 1964, including the fraternity's first grand council in 1908.
[12]
Shake, a devotee of
Abraham Lincoln
, helped to establish a memorial to Lincoln along the Illinois banks of the
Wabash River
near Vincennes.
[13]
Honors and tributes
[
edit
]
- The 14,000 square-foot Shake Learning Resources Center, located on the Vincennes University campus, was dedicated in 1960 and named in Shake's honor. A 5,000-square-foot addition was dedicated in 1967, and a 20,000-square-foot expansion was dedicated on November 16, 1986.,
[14]
with another expansion in 1999 (including the addition of a second floor) and a complete renovation in 2018.
- In 1975 Shake was elected to the
Indiana Academy
, an organization honoring people with a
Hoosier
background who have won national recognition for their contributions to the state and the nation.
[2]
[11]
- Sigma Pi
fraternity's Curtis G. Shake Scholarship, named in his honor, is awarded to members of his fraternity who excel in legal studies.
[15]
He was awarded the fraternity's Founders' Award in 1962
[16]
and is one of only six men who have been named as an Honorary Grand Sage (President).
[12]
- Shake wrote that he had spent several evenings discussing the Nuremberg trials with
Abby Mann
, writer of the film
Judgment at Nuremberg
(1961), a fictionalized version of the Nuremberg trial of German judges. The film did not cover the Farben case. At the end of the film an aide to the presiding judge, who is portrayed by
Spencer Tracy
, asks if he had heard that the verdict in the Farben case had been announced.
[10]
Selected published works
[
edit
]
- A History of Vincennes University
(1928)
[2]
- The Old Cathedral and Its Environs
(1934)
[2]
- A Naval History of Vincennes
(1936)
[2]
- Historic Vincennes
(1961)
[17]
- Vincennes University: A Brief History 1801?1951
(1951)
[18]
- Vincennes, The Old Post on the Wabash: Its Place in American History (1965)
[19]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Suzanne S. Bellamy (Fall 2008). "Hoosier Justice and Nuremberg: Judge Curtis Shake".
Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History
.
20
(4). Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society: 21?22.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
M. C. Browning, R. Humphrey, and B. Kleinschmidt (1997).
"Biographical Sketches of Indiana Supreme Court Justices"
(PDF)
.
Indiana Law Review
.
30
(1): 373. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2017-02-09
. Retrieved
2017-01-19
.
{{
cite journal
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
"Shake Boomed for Attorney General"
(PDF)
.
The Emerald of Sigma Pi
. Vol. 15, no. 1. April 1928. pp. 20?21.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Suzanne S. Bellamy, "Curtis G. Shake" in
Gugin, Linda C., and James E. St. Clair, eds. (2010).
Justices of the Indiana Supreme Court
. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press in cooperation with the Indiana Supreme Court. p. 288.
ISBN
9780871952882
.
CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Bellamy, "Hoosier Justice and Nuremberg," pp. 23?24.
- ^
a
b
Bellamy, “Curtis G. Shake”, p. 287.
- ^
a
b
c
Bellamy, "Hoosier Justice and Nuremberg," p. 25.
- ^
Bellamy, "Curtis G. Shake," pp. 288?89.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Bellamy, "Hoosier Justice and Nuremberg," p. 27.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Bellamy, "Hoosier Justice and Nuremberg," p. 29.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Bellamy, "Curtis G. Shake," p. 289.
- ^
a
b
"Past Grand Council Officers"
. Sigma Pi Fraternity. Archived from
the original
on 2018-05-09
. Retrieved
2018-05-08
.
- ^
Bellamy, "Hoosier Justice and Nuremberg, " pp. 22?24.
- ^
Dedication: Sunday, November 16, 1986: Shake Learning Resources Center: College Walk: Welsh Administration Building
. Vincennes, Indiana: Vincennes University. 1986.
- ^
"Scholarships"
. Sigma Pi Educational Foundation.
- ^
"Founders' Award Recipients"
. Sigma Pi Fraternity. Archived from
the original
on 2018-05-09
. Retrieved
2018-05-08
.
- ^
Curtis G. Shake (1965).
Historic Vincennes
. Vincennes, Indiana: I.A. Ernst Advertising Agency.
OCLC
10446232
.
- ^
Curtis G. Shake (1951).
Vincennes University: A Brief History 1801?1951
. Indianapolis: Society of Indiana Pioneers.
OCLC
61185816
.
- ^
Curtis G. Shake (1965).
Vincennes, The Old Post on the Wabash: Its Place in American History
. Vincennes, Indiana: Vincennes University Press.
OCLC
21569066
.
References
[
edit
]
- Bellamy, Suzanne S., "Curtis G. Shake" in
Gugin, Linda C., and James E. St. Clair, eds. (2010).
Justices of the Indiana Supreme Court
. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press in cooperation with the Indiana Supreme Court. pp. 287?90.
ISBN
9780871952882
.
CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Bellamy, Suzanne S. (Fall 2008). "Hoosier Justice and Nuremberg: Judge Curtis Shake".
Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History
.
20
(4). Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society: 20?29.
- Browning, M. C., R. Humphrey, and B. Kleinschmidt (1997).
"Biographical Sketches of Indiana Supreme Court Justices"
(PDF)
.
Indiana Law Review
.
30
(1). Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2017-02-09
. Retrieved
2017-01-19
.
{{
cite journal
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- Dedication: Sunday, November 16, 1986: Shake Learning Resources Center: College Walk: Welsh Administration Building
. Vincennes, Indiana: Vincennes University. 1986.
- Shake, Curtis G. (1965).
Historic Vincennes
. Vincennes, Indiana: I.A. Ernst Advertising Agency.
OCLC
10446232
.
- Shake, Curtis G. (1965).
Vincennes, The Old Post on the Wabash: Its Place in American History
. Vincennes, Indiana: Vincennes University Press.
OCLC
21569066
.
- Shake, Curtis G. (1951).
Vincennes University: A Brief History 1801?1951
. Indianapolis: Society of Indiana Pioneers.
OCLC
61185816
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Bellamy, Suzanne S. (2010).
Hoosier Justice at Nuremberg
. Indiana Supreme Court Legal History Series. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society in cooperation with the Indiana Supreme Court.
ISBN
9780871952813
.
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