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in any of the districts, three may be rather a small number, and perhaps the committee can see its way to recommend the increase of that committee from three to five in each district so we might have a representation which should be more nearly representative upon the committee. I shall be quite willing to follow the lead of the committee on that point, although I do not feel myself sufficiently familiar with the question to make a recommendation or an amendment.

The President:

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The question is on Mr. Field's amendment to insert after the word "prevent as nearly as possible." Are you ready for the question on that amendment?

E. T. Lovatt, of Tarrytown:

Mr. President, how does Brother Field propose to have that prevention take effect, in what manner?

The President:

The amendment shows.

Mr. Lovatt:

I ask what he had in mind. I don't see anything in the proposed amendments that meets that proposed

emergency.

Frank Harvey Field, of New York:

I had this in mind, Mr. President. The section as it reads at present is, it shall be their duty "especially" to prevent the nomination, etc. I propose, by the amendment, to leave out the word " especially." Their duty is the same throughout. It is not especially directed to any one part, and the amendment would make it their duty,

as far as possible, to prevent, etc., which is as far as they could go.

Simon Fleischmann, of Buffalo:

That was not the idea, as it occurs to me. The idea was they were not to positively suggest names or try to control nominations. It was to be emphasized that they were to prevent bad nominations. That was to meet the suggestions that have been made here to-day that we should not actively participate in those things, it is only when something negatively is threatened.

E. T. Lovatt, of Tarrytown:

The question was asked for information as to how this resolution, or proposed amendment, is to be made effective. I happen to belong to the grand old party to which the distinguished President of our Association belongs and which has been so highly honored by him in the magnificent appointment which he filled with such distinction and which has added a little bit to the lustre of his name. Is this committee going to the conventions held by the Republican party, the Democratic party, or whatever the party may be that is about to nominate? Are they to sit in the judiciary committee while the nominations are being made? It cannot be ascertained who will be nominated until after the nominations have been made by the respective delegates at the various judicial conventions. Now, the nominations having been made, what is this amendment, what is it to reach? After your convention has been held and the candidates for the high office of Supreme Court Judge have all been named, for instance, by the Republican party, pray tell me, what are these twenty-seven gentlemen going to do in the district to get rid of a candidate if they think he is not quite

what he ought to be? How are they going to get rid of that name? Are you going to have a conference beforehand with your judiciary nominating conventions and the delegates, or are you going to wait until the nominations are made and then put the black spot upon some particular one of those nominees? That is the thing that seems to me to be in the way. Last fall in the city of New York, headed by our distinguished President, they made out a list of candidates that they thought were men for that position, as good as could be made, and they refused to name one lawyer who was nominated for the position of Judge of the Court of Sessions, and the only man on the ticket that was elected on our side was the man that these distinguished gentlemen refused to endorse. He was elected by some thirty thousand majority and our splendid nominees all went down with a few thousand votes to their credit. I was invited to take the stump for the nominees of the lawyers of New York city. I said I could not do it. I did not think it was quite the way to do business and I advocated the election of certain men for that office. If you are going to have the same thing repeated that is what made me ask my good Brother Field how he was going to make this amendment effective. I can't see how you are going to do it unless there is something in this amendment that authorizes this committee to meet with the convention that is to do the nominating, and talk it over with them as to who the candidates ought to be, acting in an advisory capacity, rather than wait until that convention has named its candidates and then seek to destroy any one of them. by declaring that in the judgment of these twenty-seven men of the State Bar Association they are incompetent or not fitted for that office. Do you know that a man in the Ninth Judicial District who was nominated

for Supreme Court Judge - and I have the honor to claim him as a warm, personal friend and who was attacked by just such an element as that, came out of the Ninth Judicial District with the largest majority of the three that were running, and will no doubt make a most. excellent judge? Don't understand me for a moment while facing you that I am not in favor of a pure judiciary. No man knows the necessity for it more than the active lawyer who practices in the Courts and who knows what it means to stand before a judge who ought to be pure, upright, honest and able and shows no favoritism while you are presenting your side of the case. We have had some experience to our disadvantage in the past. We have entered the judicial chamber and we have known, when we came in, for a certainty that whether we were young lawyers pitted against older lawyers, or whether we were of local reputation as against lawyers of national reputation, we should have a patient, fair and honest hearing and a fair and honest decision. Other times we have walked in when we knew we were entering the den of the tiger, and if we were known to be enemies of the tiger, we might feel its claws before we left the Court room. Those things do happen. We are human. The elective system, the appointive system, cannot be perfect. I will go as far as any one, Mr. President, in standing by anything that will keep our Bench pure, clean and upright, but I do not think that this proposed amendment can do what it is proposed to do. That is the position that I have taken that caused the question from my good friend.

The President:

Let me say the only question now is on Mr. Field's amendment to strike out the word "especially especially" and

insert after the word "prevent," the words "as far as possible."

Everett P. Wheeler, of New York:

If I may be allowed to answer the question that the gentleman has put, the way our committee has done in New York is to send to the political parties before they made their nominations and ask for a committee of conference. Of the first committee of conference we ever had, a gentleman whose picture hangs before me, Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, was a member, and they conferred with us and when he was elected Governor and Mr. John Kelly became the head of Tammany Hall, we used to have a committee of conference thereafter. We have also had many from the G. O. P. to which my friend belongs. Sometimes they have followed our advice and sometimes they have not. That is the practical way it has been worked out. Afterwards we were at liberty either to say nothing, or to approve, or to condemn.

The President:

The question is on Mr. Field's amendment.

Frederic W. Hinrichs, of New York:

That amendment was accepted, was it not?

Simon Fleischmann, of Buffalo:

Yes.

The President:

Then the question will be on the general amendment to the Constitution as proposed by the committee.

John D. Lindsay, of New York:

Mr. President, I rise to make a suggestion as to the number of the committee; but before that I want to make

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