Another of the numerous successful jurists whose ancestry is Irish. He was the son of John and Mary McKenna, his father being from Ireland and his mother from England. He was born at Philadelphia, August 10, 1843, and was educated in the public schools and at St. Joseph college until 1855, when the family removed to Benicia, California, where he entered St. Augustine college and took up the study of law. Directly afterward he graduated and was admitted to the bar. In 1865 he was elected district attorney of Solano county. He served in this capacity for two terms. In 1873 he was elected to the legislature, and one year later the republicans nominated him for congress, but he was defeated, and not only on this occasion but again in 1878. In 1884, however, he was elected, and a year later entered congress, where he remained, by re-election, until 1891. As a member of the ways and means committee he had a great deal to do with important tariff legislation. In 1892 President Harrison appointed him circuit judge. In 1897 he entered McKinley’s cabinet as attorney-general, but in December of the same year was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Justice Field. He was married in San Francisco, 1869, to Amanda Borneman. ALTON BROOKS PARKER. Alton Brooks Parker comes from good old New England stock. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, May 14, 1851. Later his family moved to Cortland, New York, in which place he was educated, graduating from the normal school at that place. He spent three years in teaching, and then entered a law school at Kingston, New York, and afterward took a course at the Albany law school, where he was graduated in 1872. After being admitted to the bar, he formed a partnership with W. S. Kenyon at Kingston, New York. In 1877 Mr. Parker was elected surrogate of Ulster county, and was again re-elected in 1883. Two years later he was appointed, by Governor Hill, justice of the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Hon. Theodoric R. Westbrook. At the end of the year he was elected justice for the full term. In January, 1889, the second division of the Court of Appeals was created, and Judge Parker was appointed to it, he being the youngest member who ever sat in the Court of Appeals in New York city. The second division court was dissolved in 1892, and at that time Governor Hill appointed him member of the general term of the first department, where he continued until 1895. He has always been active in politics and has been a delegate to nearly every state convention, and also to the national convention in 1884 which nominated Grover Cleveland. In 1895 he was chairman of the Democratic state executive committee. In 1897 he was elected by a majority of over sixty thousand to the office of chief justice of the Court of Appeals, the highest judicial office in the state of New York. He has often been mentioned as a possible candidate for president by the Democratic party.