Let us do our part then manfully and courageously to promote the enforcement of law, confident that that alone. will banish most of the ills the public flesh is heir to.

The Statutory Deluge

The almost perfect efficiency of our present laws suggests another spot where the Tribunes of the People may be of service. We have an overplus of new legislation. Much of it is not needed, much ineffective and much confusing and expensive. A little more deliberation, a little more care and the volume of new laws could be greatly reduced to the infinite comfort of all of us.

The trend is all the other way, but now and then there should be a protest against paternalistic legislation. There ought to be a little freedom left for a few feeble efforts to help ourselves. A government is not a charitable

institution.

Many other fields are open to the work of our associations. And the opportunities for helpfulness will multiply year by year.

The Call of the Bar

The call of the bar to the performance of these tasks does not arise because these subjects receive no other attention. Many individuals and organizations prompted by altruistic or selfish motives are interested and at work on these matters with more or less wisdom.

The call of the bar to the work comes because of their better qualification by training and experience to perform the necessary toil, and the assumption which arises by consequence that the bar will wisely discharge its duty.

You are all familiar with the adage that warns us that the pavement of a celebrated penitentiary is wholly of good intentions. If the adage speaks true it does not speak the

whole truth because our earthly way is strewn also with these Belgian blocks. And many of them are stumbling blocks.

The best intentions the human mind can muster will not justify some of the political and socialistic oratory and devices with which we are constantly deluged. Many have no visible virtue but the altruism which inspires them and most are violently revolutionary.

Altruistic Service

Altruistic service can accomplish a world of good for our people if it be wise as well as altruistic. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, that you render to your country a service that is wise, altruistic and patriotic.

If you protest that the task set The Tribunes of the People, to be performed without reward or hope of reward, is a thankless task and an endless one, you will receive no denial from me.

Who serves the world and his people for gratitude will never be paid. The only consideration to him in hand paid and moving is the satisfaction that comes of participation in the advancement of the race. If the world is better for your effort, let the knowledge of that fact content you. Leave the applause and adulation to those dazzling performers who excite it by daring and graceful and aerial gymnastics under our political canvas.

The Long Lane with no Turning

The endlessness of the work is not food for discouragement. Progress is essentially a task without termination, and those devoted to its promotion must be ready to follow each step with another, for there is always another to take.

Probably each of you have felt at times this discouragement that will occur in the contemplation of altruistic ser

vice, for like Jacob's ladder it stretches away from here to Eternity with a limitless perspective that might dismay the stoutest heart.

All of you probably have seen the moment you could sympathize with a foreman of mine who discharged a ne'er-do-well after a considerable employment. When he told me of it, having no other ground, I protested that it was pretty hard to turn off a man with six children. He replied, almost petulantly: "I know, Boss, but he's always got six children."

Great emergencies breed heroic sacrifices, but many a hero could not be faithful through a task that called for diligence, patience and interminable effort. The man the world needs to-day, however, is the man who can obscurely, faithfully, laboriously and wisely serve in the great effort to lift the human race to a higher plane, which when reached reveals another step to take, a still higher point to attain.

Who so devotes his energies need never yield to Great Alexander's grief. For him there are and ever shall be other worlds to conquer.

Compensation

And however great the sacrifice of time and effort there is always ample compensation in the knowledge of work well done. All your toil and mine is worth while if because of it our association lives close to the great heart of the world, and in near relation to the popular mind, so close and near that the contact reveals to us every hope and aspiration of the universal heart of man and enables us to inspire in the mind of our people the wise choice of trustworthy and fit instrumentalities to accomplish those advances and betterments that humanity most earnestly craves.

All our thoughtful planning, our deep consideration and our patient remonstrance will be repaid if by that effort we help to make

*

"the world a fit abode for greatness.

And the men who yet may be.”

Francis Lynde Stetson, of New York:

(Applause.)

Mr. President, may I ask the unanimous consent to introduce a brief resolution which I know will command unanimous approval?

The President:

Consent is granted.

Mr. Stetson:

Mr. Choate, I am glad to say, is recovering from the illness which has detained him and prevented him from entertaining his friends on his eighty-second birthday, and I would like to offer this resolution:

Resolved, That this Association has heard with regret of the illness of its honored and beloved mem.ber, and former President, Joseph H. Choate, and gladly takes the opportunity offered by its assemblage in this city in annual session to extend to him the assurance of the affectionate esteem in which he is held by all his brethern of the Bar, and of the gratification in the belief that he is recovering his health and his greatly admired vigor of body and mind.

I move the adoption of the resolution.

The President:

Before putting that motion I want to say that I have a note from Mr. Choate which concludes with these words:

"I hated so to have to stay away from all the meetings and the banquet of your State Bar Association, but there was no hope for it. I can only say in extenuation of my offense that I am rapidly getting better and will do the right thing next year.' (Applause.)

All in favor of the resolution offered by Mr. Stetson will rise.

The resolution was unanimously adopted.

The President:

Report of the Committee on Civil Practice, Judge Rodenbeck.

A. J. Rodenbeck, of Rochester:

Mr. President, the report of your Committee on the Simplification of Practice will be very brief, but you must not conclude from that fact that the committee has not been working hard upon this important and extensive subject. You remember that at the last meeting of this Association the committee presented a plan for the simplification of practice and it has been so presented to the Legislature, and the Legislature authorized the committee to carry out substantially the plan which it presented to the Association. Since that time the committee has been busy actually drafting the practice provisions, both those that go into the practice act and those that will go into the rules of court. It is not prepared to present to you at this meeting the draft of any of these provisions. Obviously they cannot at this time be put into final form, but are subject to changes as the work progresses. I am authorized to present this brief report of the work of the committee to the Association.