TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

FORTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING

OF THE

American Bar Association

HELD AT

CINCINNATI, OHIO

August 31, September 1 and 2, 1921

The Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association convened at the Hotel Sinton, Cincinnati, Ohio, at 10 A. M. with Acting President Hampton L. Carson, of Pennsylvania, in the Chair.

FIRST SESSION.

The President:

Wednesday, August 31, 10 A. M.

The Association will please come to order. As a mark of respect to the memory of our late President, William A. Blount, I ask that the members rise and stand respectfully for a moment in silence.

(The entire assembly arose and remained standing for one minute.)

The President:

I yield the floor to the Vice-Mayor of the City of Cincinnati. He will take the place of Mayor Galvin who is detained by illness.

Vice-Mayor Carl M. Jacobs, of Cincinnati, Ohio:

I cannot tell you how I regret that our Mayor is unable to be with you today and extend the welcome of the City of Cincinnati and of the Cincinnati Bar Association. When it was suggested

last winter that we endeavor to secure this meeting of the American Bar Association for Cincinnati, a committee was appointed to go to New Orleans to confer with the Executive Committee of the Association at its midwinter meeting there, and after stating to the Executive Committee why he thought the meeting should be held here, Mayor Galvin said he would then be entering upon the fourth year of his term of office, and he knew of no more fitting way in which he could close his service as Mayor than in extending the welcome of the city to the American Bar Association. It is unfortunate for both you and him that he is not able to be present on this occasion. He has not been well for some time, and he asked me to extend to you his deep regret and his felicitations and good wishes.

We appreciate the courtesy of your coming to Cincinnati, but I feel that it would be a mistake to take up too much time in extending my remarks in view of the great amount of work before you. Many of us here in Cincinnati are not unfamiliar with your meetings. I, myself, have received much inspiration and instruction from them. It, therefore, gives me a great deal of pleasure to call your attention to some of the leading lawyers that Cincinnati has given to the legal fraternity. We claim many of them as our own, and some by adoption: Salmon P. Chase, former Chief Justice of the United States; Stanley Matthews, Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court; George E. Pugh; Jacob Burnet; John McLean; George Hoadly, and many others, including our beloved William Howard Taft; former Justices Lurton and Day of the U. S. Supreme Court, were elevated to that bench from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals which sits in this city and where these two able jurists did much of their valuable and important work.

The Cincinnati Bar Association takes great interest in its professional standing, and as a result of the work of that organization, I want you all to see the new court house which we have built here, finished about two years ago, at a cost of over four million dollars, and which, we believe, has no superior in the country. It shelters one of the finest law libraries in the world. Our law library was the first one incorporated west of the Allegheny mountains, on June 5, 1847.

We have sitting here the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States; a United States District Court; the First Appel

late District Court of the State of Ohio, nine Common Pleas or County Courts; three courts of the Superior Court of Cincinnati; the Probate Court of Hamilton County; the Court of Insolvency; four Municipal Court Judges, and a Court of Domestic Relations. So you can see our professional work is very well taken care of. This is the first time when we have had the pleasure of a joint meeting of the American Bar Association with the Ohio State Bar Association, and we feel that it will result in great good. The Cincinnati Bar Association has cooperated in every way to make this convention a success. Mr. Pogue, the President of the Cincinnati Bar Association, and Mr. Iddings, the President of the State Association, and their committees, have been earnestly at work arranging for your meeting.

I want you to believe that everything in this city is at your disposal. We are honored to have you here, and we trust that this meeting will last in your memories for a long time, even though you spend but a few days here. We greet you with open arms and with the warmest of hearts and wish you God-speed in your work.

The President:

Mr. Vice-Mayor, on behalf of the American Bar Association I thank you for the cordiality of your reception, and, in behalf of the legal profession, I desire particularly to express our appreciation of your having pointed out to us not only the great names which shine in the legal firmament as the fairest stars of the profession, stars of the first magnitude, but also for having indicated the character of their work in connection with the legal profession, which has been accomplished by the sons of Ohio.

I desire to read a letter received from the President of the United States, which is in the nature of a message to this Association:

MY DEAR MR. CARSON:

It is with the greatest reluctance and regret that I am writing to say that it is impossible for me to accept the invitation to the annual meeting of the American Bar Association some days hence. As you know, when this occasion was first brought to my attention, with a cordial invitation to be present, I feared that my attendance would not be possible, but was unwilling finally to decline, hoping circumstances might change. That hope has been disappointed and I am now definitely notifying you of the fact.

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION.

Not merely because this year you will present an especially notable program of discussions and addresses, but because as a body the American Bar Association is one of the great constructive forces in behalf of the reign of law and equity everywhere, I would like to be with you. Nowhere is there crystallized, I believe, a finer conception of freedom under the law, a broader, more human and unselfish purpose of service, progress and betterment, than in this organization. Here we find attested the highest ethics of a noble profession. These are the only ethics that have ever found expression in your activities; and from your annual meetings they have been reflected to court, consultation and bar everywhere. They have lighted the way to legislative achievement, administrative advance and a constant, conservative measure of social progress. Not only in our own country but in all others which live under the ever-developing institutions of democratic impulsion checked and tempered by judicial process, the American Bar Association has earned exalted repute for unswerving idealism coupled with sound discretion. You have never failed to recognize that the community of lawyers owes a peculiar responsibility to the community of all men who must live under the law. You have understood that, socially as well as biologically, man must either progress or retrograde; he cannot stand still, and no more can his institutions. So your aspiration has always been for a worthy part in leading the evolutionary development that human relations must always be undergoing if there shall be avoidance of avulsive, perhaps revolutionary, changes.

It will not overstep the proprieties of such a note as this, I trust, if I suggest how greatly the nation and the world-indeed, our very civilization-at this time need a firm adherence to these lofty aims, by those who like yourselves are particularly equipped to help direct these social and political operations. We would be blind indeed if we did not recognize that there is a tendency to examination and inquisition even of traditions and institutions that once were held elemental, almost sacred. No greater influence than your own could be arrayed in favor of open-minded, disinterested inquiry into the justification for these criticisms; and if you adopt a liberal attitude toward such inquiries, you will be the more potent in safeguarding the good that we possess and rightly shaping the measures of progress that we must have.

It is because I look upon the American Bar Association as second to no agency in qualification for this high usefulness, that I most keenly regret my inability to be with you and receive the inspiration that I know would come from a participation in the intellectual feast that your program promises.

Most sincerely yours,

WARREN G. HARDING.

The Secretary then made certain announcements concerning the details of the meeting.

The Secretary's Report was then read by Secretary Kemp, and was received and filed.

(See Report at end of minutes, page 99.)

The Treasurer's Report was then read by Treasurer Wadhams, together with certificate of a public accountant. Upon motion the report of the Treasurer was received and filed.

(See Report at end of minutes, page 102.)

The Secretary then presented the report of the Executive Committee, which was received and adopted.

(See Report at end of minutes, page 108.)

The President:

It is my personal, as well as official, privilege of presenting to this audience the Solicitor-General of the United States, the Honorable James M. Beck.

James M. Beck then delivered his address.

(See Appendix, page 167.)

The Association then took a recess until 4 P. M.

The President:

SECOND SESSION.

Wednesday, August 31, 1921, 4 P. M.

This is to be a joint session of the American Bar Association and of the Ohio State Bar Association. I, therefore, yield the Chair to the President of the Ohio State Bar Association, Mr. Iddings.

Chairman Iddings:

This is indeed an auspicious occasion, this "melting pot" of two great organizations of the Bar of the United States. We in Ohio are happy to think that in addition to having the President of these United States, we have what the lawyers hold equally dear, an Attorney General of these United States, and greater still a Chief Justice of these United States, notwithstanding the fact that he is accredited to Connecticut.

As President of the Ohio State Bar Association, on February 22, 1921, it gave me the utmost pleasure to send the following telegram:

Hon. Warren G. Harding, President-elect,

St. Augustine, Florida.

Please accept heartiest congratulations over appointment of Honorable Harry M. Daugherty as Attorney-General. No greater compliment could be paid to the Ohio Bar and no worthier member of our Bar could have been chosen.