Outspoken Crusader
Leavitt rarely missed an opportunity to put across his message. Speaking to the graduating class of his alma mater Kenyon College in 1896, for instance, Leavitt titled his commencement speech "The Civic Duties of College Graduates." Two years later, Leavitt delivered an address he called "American Institutions and Political Machines". Nor did Leavitt always take up the most popular causes. In one of his polemics, entitled To What Extent Should Insane Persons Be Amenable to Criminal Law?, Leavitt examined the issue of mental illness and legal culpability. (At the time Leavitt served as the chairman of the committee on Criminal Procedure of New York State Bar Association. Afterwards, Leavitt chaired the Bar Association's Committee on Commitment and Discharge of the Criminal Insane.) Leavitt became a pioneer of New York State laws relating to the criminal culpability of those adjudged mentally ill.
In 1910, Leavitt spoke to the graduating class of 18 women at the Woman's Law Class of New York University. "I regret to say that many of the criminal lawyers of this city," Leavitt told the newly-minted attorneys, "do not reflect much credit on the profession, for far too often are they criminal in both senses of the word." If the jury system were removed, Leavitt told the 18 women who were among the first of their sex to practice law in the city, "in twenty-five years you will have a corrupt judiciary."
Like many reformers, Leavitt rarely passed up an opportunity to convey his message, and he was a frequent contributor of letters to the editor of The New York Times and other New York City newspapers. The New York attorney was a contributor to the book Everyday Ethics, a collection of essays on professional ethics published by the Yale University Press in New Haven.
Among the progressives of the era, even during the era of President Theodore Roosevelt, there was widespread skepticism that things would change for the better. In a letter to John Brooks Leavitt of January 26, 1900, for instance, E. L. Godkin told the New York attorney that barring extraordinary events, he was happily removing himself from public service in the face of the greed and corruption of elected officials. "At the time in question I was under the delusion," Godkin wrote to the reformer Leavitt, "from which I have recovered, that deliverance might come for this City from our respectable classes.... Thank God I am out of it. Such a condition of things among the instructed classes needs at least a generation to be reformed."
Leavitt held no political offices, and expressed gratitude that he felt compelled towards none. (For many years, Leavitt was a member of the Citizens Union party, headquartered at 34 Union Square in lower Manhattan. Nor did he serve on any corporate boards of directors. In 1893 he was persuaded to run for Assemblyman on the 'Good Government' reform ticket, but failed to win election, which the crusading lawyer said came as a relief. Leavitt served on committees for reform of the Bar Association, where he proposed novel plans including reconstituting the United States Circuit Court of Appeals with a different composition of federal judges.
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