Memorial service held at U.S. District Court Friday
Of the St. Louis American
Former Sen. Thomas Eagleton has met and worked with some of the world’s finest ladies and gentlemen – first as an attorney, then as a politician and now as an honored statesman.
This is why a hush fell over the En Banc Courtroom on the 28th floor of the federal building that carries Eagleton’s name when he said Friday, “I’ve never known a finer person, a finer human being, than Clyde Cahill.”
Eagleton and other friends and colleagues of the late Judge Clyde S. Cahill gathered Friday to celebrate Cahill’s life and achievement during a memorial service. Cahill, the first African American judge to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Eighth Eastern District of Missouri, died on August 18, 2004. He was 81.
Eagleton said Cahill was the lone federal prosecutor serving under him when Eagleton headed the U.S. Attorney’s Office who came to him when he had doubts about a case.
“He was the only one to say, ‘I want to take a second look at that case,'” Eagleton said.
“I knew that when he put on the full black (judge’s) robe that he knew that the law was not only to send people to jail, but to also protect people.”
Famed attorney Margaret Bush Wilson said Cahill always exuded “character and competence.”
“Our tribute to Clyde Cahill’s memory is to be our best selves, and do as he did when he lived,” she said.
Judge Cahill attended St. Louis elementary schools and Vashon High School. After service in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, he returned to St. Louis where he graduated from the Saint Louis University Law School in 1951.
Cahill engaged in private practice until 1954 when he joined the staff of the Circuit Attorney of the City of St. Louis. In 1961, he again returned to private practice while also serving as a special assistant circuit attorney until 1964.
From 1958 to 1965, Cahill also served as chief legal advisor to the Missouri NAACP and filed the first lawsuit in Missouri to implement the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. He was also actively involved in other civil rights litigation in Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois.
In 1966, Judge Cahill was appointed regional attorney for the United States Office of Economic Opportunity in Kansas City, where he worked to implement governmental policies directed toward fighting the “War on Poverty.”
In 1968, he returned to St. Louis as general manager of the Human Development Corporation of Metropolitan St. Louis and served until 1972, when he assumed the responsibilities of executive director and general counsel for the Legal Aid Society of the City and County of St. Louis.
From 1975 to 1980, Cahill served as a circuit judge on the 22nd Judicial Circuit of the State of Missouri in St. Louis. He was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on May 23, 1980.
“He opened the door to black law clerks,” said activist and educator Norman Seay during a moving tribute to Cahill.
“He fought poverty and the evils of discrimination. The challenge that faced him is the same that faces us today. That challenge is to promote fairness for all.”
Municipal Division Judge Marvin Teer – one of many black law clerks who served under Cahill – told the courtroom audience “that not a single day went by when he did not talk of his family.”
“Nothing was more important than his beloved wife and family.”
Cahill is survived by his wife, Thelma, and their six children, V. Clyde, Lalinda, Marina, Randall, Kevin and Myron.
Congressman Wm. Lacy Clay called Cahill “an honorable man who made justice accountable for every citizen.”
“He knew that the constitution is a living document, one that protects little children who want to attend their neighborhood school.”
Clay said he is sponsoring legislation that will name a park on the east side of the Eagleton Courthouse Building for the late Cahill.
Clay said, “Judge Cahill understood that the law exists not just to punish, but to also protect.”
