confidence of the people who, with the instinct of selfpreservation, look jealously upon many professional activities. The people will look for help and for the strengthening of every public cause to the men who, because of their training, because of their capacity for sound judgment, because of their experience in affairs, owe it to the people to support the public interest with enthusiasm. May it not be said that in the twentieth century there was any lowering of the professional standard which even in the decadent days of Rome illuminated the empire. (Applause.)

The President:

Gentlemen, I shall next have the honor of presenting to you the orator of last evening. He professes to hail from the State of Illinois, but he really belongs to the great temperance State of Tennessee. (Laughter.) He has been telling me about Tennessee. It seems that by law it is there established that no liquor shall be sold within four miles of any school house. That is a law different than that of our State of New York, where we only keep them 200 feet away. Well, I hope you all heard his magnificent address last evening,— whether you agree with all that he said does not matter. We owe him an infinite debt of gratitude for dropping his occupations and giving all the time that was necessary to prepare and to come and present to us that splendid address. (Applause.) I read between the lines of his address that he was a little nervous about construction, the noblest occupation in which lawyers and Judges have ever engaged. (Laughter.) And I think that a nation that went through all the perils of reconstruction can stand all the construction that we have had hitherto and a little more yet. (Laughter.) It is all the work of the lawyers and the Judges, our compound

profession, by which we rise from the bottom to the Chief Let me remind you and history and law of this

Judge of the Court of Appeals. our friend, the orator, of the country which needed a great deal of construction to develop the commerce and the progress of the country. It is about a hundred years ago that the State of New York undertook to give an exclusive grant to Livingston and Fulton, I believe it was, for the navigation of the waters of New York, and it was claimed that in the face of those grants it was unlawful for a vessel to come from New Jersey and land and tie at our door, and it seems impossible to believe it, but the Supreme Court of the State of New York I believe unanimously decided that that was the law. But, fortunately, we had a great Judge at Washington and a great lawyer in Massachusetts, and the case of Gibbons, decided in the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, reversed that decision and held that the harbor of New York could be locked against nobody and it was free for the ships of all nations to come and go. So we have been going on from that time to this until we have reached our present state of expansion, and the Constitution has been held thus far to cover the country and the case. Well, these are halcyon days for lawyers. President, Governor, Congresses, Legislatures and Courts seem to be conspiring to give us all the highest and best employment for twenty years to come. I understand that last year Congress alone passed five thousand laws, and the forty-five Legislatures passed among them some fifteen thousand laws. What splendid opportunities for construction! (Laughter.) We have got our hands full of the best possible occupation and we are indebted to these great and chief magistrates of State and nation for putting our occupation upon a high pedestal where it belongs. (Laughter.) Now, gentlemen, I know

the orator of the day will excuse me in giving voice to my feelings a little on that subject, because I had no opportunity last night. (Laughter.) I have the honor to present to you Judge Dickinson, to whom we are all so gratefully indebted for what he has done for us. (Applause.)

Judge Dickinson:

Mr. President and gentlemen, I am not at all surprised to find an advocate of liberal construction in a gentleman who in his argument of the Income Tax Case asked the Supreme Court to overrule a case of nearly a hundred years' standing and reverse all the precedents (laughter), and that he exalts that system of construction on account of the success that he achieved. Naturally I feel somewhat handicapped by the very handsome introduction given to me by Mr. Choate. Any one would appreciate it coming from that source. I have too great respect for him to deny it. (Laughter.) Indeed, I feel somewhat in the attitude of a corespondent in a crim. con. case who was very much complimented in regard to his winning ways. (Laughter.) In his answer he said, "The defendant neither admits nor denies such allegations in regard to himself, but magnanimously waives all proof." (Laughter.) It would have given me very great pleasure, gentlemen, to speak of the great State of Illinois in which I have been living for some time past and which has received me with a hospitality beyond my deserts, but it was expected that a distinguished son of Illinois would be present on this occasion and would respond to that toast, and therefore I was remitted to my old State of Tennessee. It gives me unfeigned pleasure to speak of the State of Tennessee, a State to which I owe so much, in which my youth and manhood were passed, a State in which my

One is Like a

forebears have been since even before it became a State. There is a broad latitude in speaking to a State. not limited to any particular line of discussion. wild colt running over a boundless prairie, he has no limitations, save the horizon and the sky. I feel that whatever line I may pursue it still will be pertinent to the subject. We of the State of Tennessee come to New York, read the New York papers, know the great names of New York, its distinguished lawyers, those who have helped make the history of our country, but generally information, tradition and reputation travel westward and southward. But very little travels eastward, and still less travels to the north. Tennessee is almost terra incognita to most of the people of the north. I did not find the explanation until to-night, and your President has given it. It is because we have a four-mile law that excludes liquor, and so we are shorn of a great attraction. If we had more license in that respect, doubtless there would be a hegira to the State of Tennessee, for I frequently observe when I meet strangers here, that the first thing they ask me is about the moonshiners and the wildcat distilleries of the State of Tennessee. If time permitted, I might tell you about:

a Boozy Range of mountains Edging by the River Rum,

Oozing springs of amber color

Whence the flowing liquors come,

Rippling softly over pebbles,

Rushing on to you and me,

Dashing, splashing, effervescing -
In the State of Tennessee."

(Applause.)

In reference to that particular product I am reminded of an old mountaineer who, when some one asked him what sort of a corn crop he had that year, said: "Why, the

corn crop was first rate; I had enough to make fifteen barrels of whisky besides what we wasted on bread." (Laughter.) I am tempted to tell you a story of one of those mountaineers, and will venture upon your patience.

They cultivate corn, the water comes dashing down the mountain and they think that there is no harm in combining the two. Under a very drastic revenue law, they are taken far away from their mountain homes, arraigned and tried by a government which most of them heroically sustained throughout the Civil War. Not long ago in Nashville one of our United States Judges was trying one of them. The Judge had but one child, a little girl, to whom he was fondly devoted. The mountaineer was convicted of making illicit whisky, and the Judge said to him: "You were convicted here a year ago. I dealt with you very leniently then, inflicting the lowest penalty known to the law, and now I am going to break up this business of making illicit whisky and make an example of you to your neighbors. I sentence you to the penitentiary for five years. Now, what have you to say why judgment should not be passed upon you?" He replied: 'Judge, I don't see why a man should be carried off to prison simply because he takes the water from his own spring and corn growing on his own ground and applies a little heat to it and then sells it in the market; still, I suppose I am guilty under the law and have nothing to say." "Well," the Judge said, “have you any family?" He said: "Judge, I have no wife, but I have a child." "Is that child a boy or a girl?" 'Judge, it is a little girl." "How old is she?" "Your honor, she is twelve years old." That was just the age of the Judge's child. "Where is that girl?" "Well, Judge, I don't know where she is. When I was arrested and taken from my mountain home I left her in my cabin. I have been here

66