The Chairman: I declare the gentlemen named duly elected to the respective offices of the Association for the ensuing year, and I will appoint John Lowell, of Massachusetts, and R. E. L. Saner, of Texas, as a committee to escort the newly elected President to the platform. (The committee appointed to escort the President-elect to the platform performed their duty and presented Mr. Severance to the audience.) President-Elect Severance: I cannot say that I am entirely surprised by the announcement that has just been made, for certain revelations have come from the executive session of the Council that have in a way prepared me for it. Believe me when I say to you that it is difficult for me to control my emotion as I thank you for the great honor conferred upon me. I appreciate it more than any official position that could be given to me, because it comes from my brethren at the Bar with whom I have lived and worked for nearly forty years. I am very sorry that my dear friend William Alexander Blount is not here to present me to you as his successor. He was a lawyer of distinction and a kindly-hearted gentleman. I served with him in the Conference of the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and on Committees of this Association. I knew him intimately and learned to love and admire him very much. It is a great loss that we have all sustained, and it is peculiarly a misfortune to the new administration that we cannot have the benefit of his counsel in performing the duties that will devolve upon us during the coming year. The Chairman: What is the further pleasure of the Association? Joseph R. Edson, of Washington, D. C. Mr. President, I wish to file with the Secretary some resolutions and ask their reference to the Committee on Patent Law with instructions to report upon them at the next annual meeting. The President: The resolutions may be so filed. The resolutions presented by Mr. Edson were referred without reading to the Committee on Patent, Trade Mark and Copyright Law. The Association then took a recess until 4 P. M. SEVENTH SESSION. Friday, September 2, 4 P. M. George T. Page, of Illinois, presiding: The Chairman: The first item on the program this afternoon is the report of the Membership Committee, which will be presented by Frederick E. Wadhams, the Treasurer of the Association. Committee on Membership: This report was read and adopted. (For Report, see Appendix, page 478.) Committee on Change of Date of Presidential Inauguration: William L. Putnam, of Massachusetts: This report is in print and I will not read it. Attached to it is a copy of a resolution introduced by Senator Ashurst of Arizona, the object of which is to bring the inauguration of the President nearer to the date of his election. I understand from Senator Kellogg of Minnesota that he is going to introduce an independent resolution bearing upon this same general subject. It has seemed to the Committee that this Association ought to go on record in this matter-of course, leaving to Congress the details of working out exactly the date when the President should be inaugurated and when the new Congress should convene. Those seem to your committee to be matters of detail, to be matters that should be studied by a committee having power to summon witnesses. We feel, however, that we ought to make very clear that we as lawyers appreciate the great danger of having the old Congress meet again after the election. The committee has prepared a short resolution, practically along the lines of the resolution of last year, although a little more explicit, and I will read the resolution and then move its adoption: WHEREAS, The Association at its last meeting passed a resolution favoring such action as would lead to the dates of the election and of the inauguration of the President of the United States, being brought nearer together and to the abandonment of the short session of the old Congress; and WHEREAS, It is deemed desirable to express further the sense of this Association that as far as practicable there should be the shortest possible interval between the mandate of power and assumption of responsibility thereunder; Now, therefore, be it resolved, That it is desirable: 1. That Congress should come into being immediately upon its election and that the ensuing session of Congress should be a session of the new Congress and not of the old one. 2. That the electors should meet at the earliest practicable date to cast their votes for President and Vice-President. 3. That the Congress should meet at the earliest practicable date to count the votes for President and Vice-President. 4. That the President and Vice-President should be inaugurated thereafter without any unnecessary lapse of time. Richard Wayne Parker, of New Jersey: In 1910 (January 13 to 15 and May 16), when I was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, we debated a change of the date for the inauguration of the President. There was a great deal of sentiment at that time in favor of having the date made April 30, the day upon which Washington was inaugurated. Of course he was counted in by the new Congress, as there was no previous Congress. If there had been any dispute about that election, it would have been up to the members of the new Congress which were elected with him. I consider that a point of great importance. The new House should be the one that counts in the President. The old House of Federalists nearly gave us Aaron Burr instead of Thomas Jefferson as President. The Tilden-Hayes controversy is still in our recollection. It would be better to do anything to avoid uncertainty, and leaving to the opposite party the selection or determination as to who was elected. I will not attempt to argue this resolution. I do not think the details ought to be determined here, and am a little sorry that the resolution is so strong in details. It is fair to say that when we went into this matter away back in 1904, I thought we ought to have Congress sit shortly after its election, but not too soon to allow reflection. I am sure that the new Congress should have the counting of the electoral vote and that the present system is dangerous to constitutional government. It has shown the danger on three separate occasions. Beyond question there is enough merit in this resolution for us to support it earnestly. The resolutions were then adopted. (For Report, see Appendix, page 476.) Committee on the Classification and Restatement of the Law: James D. Andrews, of New York: The report which I have the honor to present is simply one of progress. It is a very brief report, and I think it will save time for me to read it, instead of attempting to summarize it. The report was read. James D. Andrews: I move the acceptance of this report, and that the committee be continued with instructions as suggested in the report. The motion was seconded and carried. (For Report, see Appendix, page 481.) Committee on Aviation: Charles A. Boston, of New York: I represent the youngest infant of the American Bar Association, in that this committee was appointed by the Executive Committee after the St. Louis meeting. Its report, therefore, was made to the Executive Committee, and I am advised that the Executive Committee has referred the report to the Association for such action as it may deem proper. I am here principally to read the recommendations of the committee and to ask your approval of them, and incidentally to call your attention to two or three of the features which tend to explain the recommendations. The man in this Association who was first alert to the situation was Simeon E. Baldwin, formerly Chief Justice, and after wards Governor, of the State of Connecticut. In 1911, seeing what was coming and having a prophetic instinct and an apppreciation of conditions, even as they then were, he asked this Association to take action in respect to the law of what has been styled in the name of this committee, " Aviation," but what is now technically, in the proper terminology called "Aeronautics." The matter was referred to the Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reform, and that committee reported that it was not then a matter of such general interest, or of such urgent importance, that any action needed to be taken on the subject by the American Bar Association. There, until this day, except for the appointment of this committee, the matter has rested. In the meantime there has been the great World War, and the covenant of the League of Nations with respect to Aviation, and the consequent Air Convention, which has been formulated by those participating in the League of Nations, and which has been made applicable in many, if not all, of its members. Though that convention was signed by a representative of the United States, it contains regulations which have never received the approval of the United States Senate, and which are not the law in this country. The United States is pitifully behind some of the smaller nations of the world in its law of aeronautics-substantially speaking, there is no law on aeronautics in the United States. There are certain state laws, there are certain federal laws, in relation to operation; there are certain local ordinances; but we are in the humiliating position now that under the Air Convention that has been signed by many of the nations, we are technically under boycott, although it has not been put into operation. The Air Convention, among other things, provides that the craft of non-signatory nations shall not be permitted to fly across the borders of the signatory nations, except under temporary and peculiar conditions. England has had air navigation laws for several years and now has a complete set of those laws regulating flight in that kingdom. Canada has an air navigation law, and has an air board and an air force, and it is only by sufferance that any flyer from this country can cross the Canadian borders today, because there is no power in the United States which is |