JACKSON HARVEY RALSTON
RALSTON, JACKSON HARVEY. Born in Sacramento, California, February 6, 1857, Jackson H. Ralston has had a somewhat varied career, which may be briefly epitomized. Of Scotch-Irish descent, he is the son of James H. Ralston, a man of high intelligence and ability, who served in both houses of the Illinois legislature and in the senate of California, and was United States circuit judge in Illinois. His mother, Harriet (Jackson) Ralston, exercised an uplifting influence upon his early life, which was passed in different cities of California and Nevada, and at Oyster Bay and Ithaca, New York; his elementary education being completed in the San Francisco high school. He entered a printing office at Ithaca in 1870, and worked at his trade with some persistence till 1878, in which year he represented the International Typographical Union at the Paris exposition. Meanwhile, led by family influence and personal inclination, he had studied law at the Georgetown law school, where he was graduated in 1876.
In 1878 he opened an office in Quincy, Illinois, removing to Washington, District of Columbia, in 1881, where he has since practised law. Among the events of interest in Mr. Ralston's legal career may be named his service as counsel for Felipe Agoncillo, who represented the Philippine Republic in Washington before the war of 1898-99. But much more noteworthy was his work as agent for the United States in the Pious Fund Arbitration between California and Mexico before the Hague Court of Arbitration in 1902, and as umpire for the Italian claims against Venezuela at Caracas and Washington, 1903-04; in both of which he did highly commendable work. He reported the decisions of all the commissions there operating, in a volume, "Venezuela Arbitrations of 1903."
Originally a Republican, Mr. Ralston left that party for the Democratic on the free trade issue. The most influential agency in his career, however, has been his perusal and study of Henry George's famous economic work, "Progress and Poverty." Its arguments converted him to a belief in the single tax theory, and he was presi-
