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not wholly satisfactory. It is a pleasure to me, in greeting you this morning, to be able to say that I understand this tendency has never affected the American Bar Association and I trust you will agree with me in the opinion that least of all should anything of the sort be permitted now. Your opportunities for doing good in a multitude of ways are at all times so fine and inviting, but especially so at present, that I am sure you feel the strongest incentives to make the great profession you represent a vital and powerful agency for the advancement, not only of judges and lawyers, but also of society as a whole.

In the few minutes allotted to me I wish, therefore, to say a word concerning the relation of the legal profession to the great problems of the day. Chief Justice Winslow has recently pointed out that for the first time in the history of America there now exists a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction with the administration of the law. This he traces to two causes: The tendency of the courts to lose sight of the merits of a case in their anxiety to enforce mere niceties and technicalities of procedure, thus subordinating justice to professional formalism; and judicial usurpation of legislative power so often manifested in some decision which holds a wise and humane Taw void by applying to it a narrow construction of constitutional provisions more than a generation or even more than a century old, and never intended to be used for any such purpose.

Can there be any doubt of the correctness of this diagnosis? I think not. Nor is there room for dispute that the disease is quite well advanced. It has now reached a stage where the people are awakening to the menace it imports to the cause of social and industrial progress. Soon they will be thoroughly aroused. When this point is reached they will very properly insist that no department of government shall be permitted to set itself above the popular will. They will not hesitate to say that the courts must not be allowed to remain a stumbling block in the pathway of human progress.

Already the disposition of free society-living, growing, and full of energy as it is, like a young giant just roused from sleep -from some of its cast iron legal restraints is manifest in more ways than one.

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First, let me mention an increasing demand for constitutional change. Professor Gilmore, of our state university, recently collected the facts respecting this tendency in Wisconsin. reports that during the first fifty years under the present constitution, eighteen amendments were adopted, several of which, however, related to the same subject; while in the last ten years, there have been adopted eleven amendments, relating to as many separate and distinct objects. During the first fifty years there were in all 101 amendments proposed, while last year 50 amendments were offered-one-half as many in a single year as in the former half-century. Four such amendments will be voted upon at the general election this fall, and eleven more will be submitted for popular approval two years hence, should the next legislature concur in the recommendations of the last one. Summing up the number of such amendments, he concludes that we have amended the constitution as frequently during the past ten years as we did during the preceding half-century. Recent amendments, moreover, are much broader and more fundamental in scope. Most significant of all, possibly, is the proposal now pending to amend the amending clause of the constitution so as to facilitate future changes in fundamental law. It goes without saying that the amending clause of the Federal Constitution should be overhauled in the same way.

Then there is the demand for the recall of judges, which has frightened so many good people. I am willing to concede that there is some danger here of impairing the independence of the judiciary; but not much. This government is the people's government in all of its departments. It has never been seriously impaired by being too representative. Indeed the independence of judges has sustained many more serious shocks from other quarters without arousing any protest whatever from the men who now say they fear the people are about to intimidate the courts. If adopted this plan may also work injustice and oppression in particular instances. But the principal objection to it is that it is likely to prove ineffective as a remedy for the evils it is intended to correct. Good or bad, however, it is quite certain. to be applied unless these evils are otherwise abated.

There is also the proposed recall of judicial decisions. The object to be attained by this device is precisely the same as that of the other two. Its advantages over the customary method of amending the constitution is that it will avoid long and vexatious delays. Think what a recall of the decision in the Ives case would mean to the cause of labor and of industrial peace in the state of New York. Unlike the proposed recall of judges, it is not open to the objection that it will impair the independence of the bench, prove unfair to particular individuals or fail of effectiveness. Nor is it in any respect revolutionary in nature. It is in fact but a new application of an old, well settled method of judicial development. It proposes to make the constitution flexible and to adapt it to the needs of a rapidly growing civilization in much the same way the common law developed for centuries in England-by the decision of concrete cases one by one as they arose. And of course no one will question the right or the ability of the people to make and unmake constitutional law.

Understand me, gentlemen, I am not here to advocate any of these proposals. I merely call them to your attention in connection with the obvious fact that the courts were made for man, not man for the courts. Something must be done and these remedies have proved attractive to a large number of people. The issues thus raised are here. What are you going to do about them? What position will this Association take? What attitude will the lawyers of America assume toward the fundamental problems to which these specific remedies are addressed? I know very well what is the natural impulse of every member of this association when criticism, such as I have here suggested, is leveled at his profession and its work. It is to rally valiantly to the defence of the courts. But ignoring evils will never remedy them. If the Bar through professional bias will not see, the people can and will. A Bourbon policy will only make a bad matter worse. Let us not imitate the ostrich which thinks by burying her head in the sand to elude her pursuer.

It is a tradition of American politics that lawyers have a right to lead in public affairs. Such has been the practice from the

beginning. Lincoln's cabinet was composed of the leaders of the American bar. This privilege should not now be voluntarily surrendered. Let the lawyer in these later days look upon his work broadly. Let him study something more than law. Let him become familiar with the daily life of men who labor with their hands and so fit himself to interpret correctly the social and economic movements of the time. Instead of surrendering himself to the narrowing tendencies of daily practice, let him strive to make the jurisprudence of his country a vehicle for the advancement of the race; and whether upon the Bench or at the Bar he will thus accomplish his part toward solving the problems that confront him as an American citizen.

That the spirit of the legal profession is as high now as at any time was demonstrated during the last session of the Wisconsin legislature. The workmen's compensation act was up for passage. If enacted into law, it was perfectly clear it would seriously injure the business of every attorney in the state, reducing the income of some almost half. Nevertheless only two members of the Bar in all Wisconsin arrayed themselves against it and they did so clandestinely and half-heartedly. Scores of other attorneys enthusiastically championed it. It is safe to say that it will be many a year before business and commercial interests are likely to rise to the same plane of unselfishness and altruism.

But my mission here is neither to eulogize the profession of the law nor to criticize it; but on behalf of the people of Wisconsin to welcome the members of the American Bar Association to the metropolis of our state, to express the hope, entertained by all our citizens, that its deliberations may be pleasant and profitable, and to wish, when its sessions are over, all who have come from beyond our borders a safe and happy return to their homes.

The President:

Mr. Rollin B. Mallory, President of the Milwaukee Bar Association, will add a word of greeting.

Rollin B. Mallory, of Wisconsin:

Something like a year ago the suggestion was made to the Milwaukee Bar Association that it was within the realms of

possibility the American Bar Association might come here for its next convention. Our Executive Committee was instructed to obtain the convention by all honorable means-and it did so, not swerving for an instant from the paths of rectitude. His Excellency, the Governor, has intimated to you that more of the professional and less of the social be injected into your annual gatherings.

As the executive head of the Milwaukee Bar Association, I simply desire to say that I disagree with him in so far as our arrangements for your entertainment are concerned.

Only yesterday a committee of your Association and a like committee of our local Association held a joint meeting at which two forces were actively at work: One the centripetal, and the other the centrifugal. The former was advocated by the members of your committee in their zeal to enhance the literary and professional program, the latter by the members of our committee to carry out the program of its entertainment as well. Indeed, it reminded me of the old lady and gentleman who had lived together for nearly half a century in a state of anything but quietude, the difference between them being that the wife wanted tea for dinner and the husband coffee. Finally, after forty years of bickering and dispute, they "compromised" on tea. So in our meeting yesterday the local committee insisted upon holding the reception at the Deutscher Club at 8 o'clock this evening, and your committee insisted that 9.30 should be the hour. We "compromised" on 9.30.

I coincide with his Excellency, the Governor, who has preceded me, in everything he has said concerning your welcome here, and I do not know that I can add anything to his words of welcome. I simply desire to say that the official emblem of what we think a pretty city, a wholesome city, and almost a spotless town, is a disc with the words inscribed thereon "A Bright Spot."

When you return to your homes and take up your daily duties we sincerely trust and hope the "Bright Spot" will be so deeply engraved upon your hearts that it will never be effaced.

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