While serving in the Judge Advocate General’s Office, Wigmore was involved in drafting the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act (SSCRA) of 1918. The SSCRA protected those serving in World War I from certain civil lawsuits, including repossession of property, bankruptcy, and foreclosure. Similar legislation was passed during the Civil War, although as a more severe moratorium on all civil actions brought against service members. Through these laws, Congress aimed to relieve soldiers’ obligations at home so they could devote their full attention to their military duty.
Wigmore felt that Congress did not bring prompt enough attention to this matter, noting in his critical pamphlet “The Conduct of the War in Washington: A Critique of Men and Methods”: “Be it remembered then, that wherever there may have been any record of inefficiency during the War administration, a large percentage of the cause must be attributed to the inefficiency of Congress.” That sentiment is clear in this letter, as Wigmore urges soldiers to appeal to Congress personally. The SSCRA would be passed almost four months later, on March 8, 1918.
The SSCRA expired shortly after World War I, and then was repurposed during World War II as the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act of 1940. Substantial revisions had to be passed in 1942 to account for the economic and legal shifts in American life since World War I, and a version of the law persists to the present day.
Wigmore was an early proponent of legal aid work. Beginning in 1907, he served as the president or vice-president of the Legal Aid Society of Chicago, the predecessor of Northwestern Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic. Wigmore went on to advocate for legal aid on a national and even global scale, serving on the National Committee on Legal Aid Work and proposing an international legal aid service to the League of Nations. That program was in the early stages of development when the League was disbanded, and a fully realized version of the idea did not come together until the International Legal Aid Association was formed in 1960.
This item is generously on loan from the Northwestern University Archives.
Transcription of the Letter from John Henry Wigmore for the Legal Aid Society of Chicago
Washington, November 20, 1917
To All Soldiers in Cantonments:
Your attention is invited to the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Rights Bill, now pending before the U.S. Senate. This bill was drafted in the office of the Judge Advocate General, was sent to Congress on August 29 with recommendation by the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, and was unanimously passed by the House of Representatives on October 6. The undersigned was one of the drafting committee, and is thus fully acquainted with the provisions.
The object of the bill is to protect soldiers and sailors, while absent from home in military service from property and pecuniary losses to themselves and their families, due to their inability, while absent sent, to take care of their business affairs and their legal rights and obligations.
During such absence, a soldier may find that a lawsuit has been decided against him, or his property attached and sold, or a mortgage foreclosed, or a claim barred by lapse of time,or an installment contract cancelled, or an insurance policy forfeited, or a homestead right or public land claim lapsed, or his family evicted from home for non-payment of rent. The Bill attempts to prevent these hardships, while at the same time safeguarding the just claims of the creditors.
To enable Congress to learn what the facts are, and how great the need for such a Bill may be, it is suggested that each one of you who knows the need of it in his own affairs should sit down and write a letter to Congress telling the facts. What is wanted is not general expressions of approval, but concrete facts, illustrating how the Bill would affect you.
Make it concise, and put in the facts. Do this before December 3, or thereabouts, and send it to the Chairman (Mr. Webb) of the House Committee on Judiciary, Washington, D.C. The Bill will come up for debate in the Senate in December.
John H. Wigmore
Vice President of the Chicago Legal Aid Society.