ADDRESS OF S. S. WHEELER,

PRESIDENT OF THE OHIO STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, JULY, 1902.

Along the mighty highway of the centuries, travel-stained by the weary millions, the race has struggled toward equality and safety for life and property.

For centuries the survival of the fittest was the controlling force, and `the fittest were those having the most cunning and brute strength, but there came a time when the weaker began to combine, for existence, against the stronger, and in that hour the germ of law felt the first wakings of life.

For ages it was tossed about on the spearpoints of tyranny, or trampled in the dust by the heel of brute cruelty; but nothing can be destroyed which the Creator wills shall exist. At last this germ of the law took root and bore fruit in the fog-enveloped isles of Britain, and the sturdy Anglo-Saxon race named the fruit "Common Law" because it would give to all the people common benefits and protection.

Many things have contributed to make the Anglo-Saxon race the advance column of progress, but the greatest has been-the law-abiding spirit.

"Where law makes its home, there is the center of civilization," and the circle can be no larger than the radius of the law.

For generations the common law was still hampered by the tyranny and superstition of the centuries. It did not give common protection to all the people. The King and his favorites would be a law unto themselves.

The evolution was too slow for humanity; a new land must be found where the common people were the law makers, where

the Divine right was not in kings, but in subjects. In 1620 a little group of storm-tossed refugees landed upon Plymouth Rock, in one hand the Bible, in the other the Common Law.

The Great Ruler, set the rock, above the waves, upon which they landed the foot-stool of a new world, the birthplace of a free nation, a sanctuary roofed by the stars, in which a heroic band of men and women placed upon the altar of liberty their fortunes and their lives, a willing sacrifice, that all the sons and daughters of men might enjoy civil and religious law, not as one willed it, but as all willed it.

At last the Common Law was in a land where it could be ruler with willing subjects, expanding and developing, leading and checking the forces which would make a mighty Republic, whose greatness could only be limited by its own folly.

It is an instructive lesson in history, that no race has permanently progressed, except under the restraint and observance of the law of equal rights to all, and no nation has failed which has earnestly observed this principle.

By the law of selection a brave, simple, virtuous people are always chosen to resist the encroachments of tyranny.

In the sixteenth century the forces had culminated, which passed by the fairest portions of Europe and selected the Netherlands as the final battle-ground for human rights.

For thirty years William The Silent, Prince of Orange, devoted his life to constitutional liberty and freedom of conscience for this people, whose fortifications were dykes against the German Ocean and whose battle-grounds were dunes and marshes and tossing waves, and when he was assassinated his mighty spirit still inspired this patient heroic people for fifty more years until they finally broke the power of cruel Spain and sent it reeling toward the final end of all unjust nations-the cemetery of God's accomplished wrath and justice.

In the Netherlands the Pilgrim Fathers found refuge and from it they sailed to the New World; so the Anglo-Saxon cavalier and the Dutch Burgher co-operated to preserve for humanity the largest liberty of act and thought consistent with organized society.

The Anglo-Saxon race are a patient people; given half a chance and they are always law-abiding, and this accounts for the slow growth of the Common Law, and this conservatism of the law is the great controlling force of safe government.

This conservatism becomes indifference or incompetency when a people long submit to laws which have been enacted to suit a class or locality, and which are confessedly bad in their operation.

An English writer, who has traveled extensively in this country, says, that Americans in invention, skill, energy, intelligence, and commercial development are a most remarkable people, but they seem to have no capacity for municipal government. That our cities are badly governed is an admitted fact by all, except those who are profiting by the present conditions, and these conditions have continued so long and gradually grown worse, that a foreigner, studying our institutions, might reasonably conclude that we were incapable of proper municipal government, but are the American people ready to admit that there is anything beyond their power, which can be accomplished by brains and energy?

The present conditions may exist, because the best brain and energy in every community is devoted to business and wealth gathering. Many a man has been so absorbed in his business, that his children only knew him as the old man who paid the bills and, when regrets were in vain, the father would have given his last dollar to restore the innocence of youth to a wayward son or daughter.

It is possible to become too strenuous in commercial energy to the great detriment of home affairs. There was a time when Rome ruled the world and was so busy with conquests and spoils that it had no time or energy for home government, and for two thousand years Rome has only existed as a digging place for archæologists.

The rapid and increasing concentration of population in the cities makes municipal government one of the most, if not the most, important question of the hour.

The time is not far distant when the cities will control the state, and as home training gives the tone to society, so the local governments will give the tone to state affairs.

Municipal government is distinctly a law problem and can only be solved by the lawyers who have been trained to practical conservatism and far-seeing effects in meeting changed conditions.

Theorists, college professors, and reformers have spent much time upon this question, and I submit that it is now the sacred. duty of the Bar of Ohio, roused to action by this association, to grasp this problem and help solve it, and give to the people of Ohio a better municipal government.

Municipal navigation is now open, a brave court has cleared away the flotasam and jetsam, accumulating for half a century. Will the lawyers of Ohio now help to construct and launch a municipal craft which has the constitution in the pilot house, instead of under the coal bunkers?

The bar owe this to the people. Lawyers are honored with high positions in the government and the people look to our profession for leaders.

We ought not to always travel under the rim of the dollar. The influence of our profession is written across constitutions and