Gaston, Joseph.  "Portland, Oregon Its History and Builders."  Vol. 2. 
Chicago and Portland, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1911. p.  204
 
MILTON W. SMITH

     Milton W. Smith, for twenty-nine years a practitioner at the Portland
bar, has gained prominence and success in his profession and his record is in
contradistinction to the old adage that a prophet is never without honor save
in his own country, for Mr. Smith is a native of the state in which he has so
directed his labors as to win an enviable position as a representative of the
profession to which life and liberty must look for protection. He was born on
a farm where the town of Aurora, Oregon, now stands on the 15th of July, 1855,
and manifested special aptitude in his studies as he pursued his education in
the public schools and in the Pacific University, which conferred upon him
the Bachelor of Arts degree at the time of his graduation, and three years later
made him Master of Arts. His literary course completed, he at once entered upon
the study of law with Judge Deady, of the United States district court
at Portland as his preceptor, and under the direction of that eminent jurist
continued his reading until he was admitted to the bar in March, 1881.
     A brief period of rest and of preliminary preparation for his life work
brought him to August of the same year, when he opened an office and entered
upon active practice. There has been nothing spectacular in his professional
career. It has been devoid of those dazzling and meteoric qualities which claim
the attention and rivet the gaze of the public but only for a brief period. His
salient qualities have been rather those characterized by continuity and
manifest in continuous progress, each year finding him further in advance than
he was in the preceding year, his talents and abilities gradually unfolding and
growing. He is conspicuous among lawyers for the wide research and provident
care with which he prepares his cases. In no instance has his reading ever been
confined to the limitations of the question at issue. He has gone beyond and
encompassed every contingency and provided not alone for the expected but also
for the unexpected, which happens in the courts quite as frequently as out of
them. His logical grasp of facts and principles of the law applicable to them
has been another potent element in his success and the remarkable clearness of
expression and precise diction, which enables him to make others understand not
only the salient points of his argument but his every fine gradation of meaning,
may be accounted one of his most conspicuous gifts and accomplishments.
    In 1890 Mr. Smith was chosen treasurer and one of the directors of the
Portland Library Association and so continued for eighteen years, acting also as
chairman of the book committee, managing the library. Since 1894 he has been a
director of the Multnomah Law Library and through much of this period has served
as its president Deeply interested in the cause of education, he has labored
earnestly to promote the interests of his alma mater and to this end accepted
the position of secretary of its finance committee and also became a director of
the university. He was at one time president of his alumni association, and he
has been vice president of the Portland free kindergarten. His labors have been
most effective as a champion of education and he has done much to secure the
adoption of high ideals in that field. Aside from his efforts for educational
progress and his activity in the field of law practice, he has served as a
director of the Columbia & Northwestern Railway extending between the town of
Lyle and Klickitat in the state of Washington. Mr. Smith was married in
Washington county, Oregon, in 1881, to Miss Alice Sweek, a native of that county
and a daughter of John and Maria Sweek, who in 1852 came from Missouri to
Oregon. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are parents of three children, Ruth, Josephine and
Marion. Theirs is a hospitable home and the center of a cultured society circle.
     Mr. Smith belongs to the Arlington and the University Clubs and also holds
membership with the State Bar Association. His political allegiance is given to
the republican party and, while he has never been a politician in the sense of
office-seeking, he keeps in touch with the issues of the day and is abreast with
the best thinking men of the age on sociological and economic questions. His
opinions are never hastily formed but are rather the conclusion of deep
consideration and earnest thought so that in matters of public concern as well
as in the law he is able to give wise and valuable counsel. He is a man of
earnest purpose, inflexible in his adherence to what he believes to be right and
yet he accords to others the same privilege of honest opinion.
 

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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in February 2009 by Diana Smith. Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.