considered to have waived it. Then the case will go direct to the Commercial Court. Also in the Commercial Court there shall be a simplification of pleadings.

I ask that these recommendations shall be adopted.

The motion was seconded and carried.

(For Report, see Appendix, page 309.)

Clarence W. DeKnight, of Washington, D. C.:

Mr. Chairman, I offer the following resolution and ask its reference to the Committee on Commerce, Trade and Commercial Law:

Resolved, That the Standing Committee on Commerce, Trade and Commercial Law be requested to consider the bill now pending in Congress, entitled: S. 77, to provide for the payment of interest on judgments rendered against the United States for money due on public work and the committee is further requested to report its conclusions and recommendations thereon at the next annual meeting of the Association.

Committee on International Law:

The Secretary:

The committee has sent in its report, and it has been printed. Mr. Charles Noble Gregory, Chairman, has written that he cannot attend this meeting.

(For Report, see Appendix, page 366.)

Committee on Insurance Law:

Arthur I. Vorys, of Columbus, Ohio:

The report of your Committee on Insurance Law will be oral. I will merely state that the committee has brought before the Association its proposed code for the regulation of insurance, and requests that the bill now pending in Congress, which has met with the approval of this Association at its meeting in St. Louis, be urged for passage. Matters of more vital importance to the country prevented Congress, the Sixty-Sixth Congress, from taking up this bill. But it has again been introduced in the Sixty-Seventh Congress, in the Senate, and we have the assurance of influential members of the Senate that shortly after

the recess they will take up the matter. We hope to get action upon it at this coming session of Congress.

I move the adoption of this report, and that the committee be instructed to urge upon the members of the Sixty-Seventh Congress the enactment of this bill.

The motion was seconded and carried.

Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reform:

Everett P. Wheeler, of New York:

We desire to express our thanks for the assistance that has been given to us by the various members of the Association during the past year. You have observed already from what Mr. James said that we have found suggestions that we thought proper to make to his committee and we have collaborated with his committee on the subject of declaratory judgments; and I think we may say that we have profited by our collaboration. I feel that the Association generally ought to appreciate the situation. This committee is a lineal descendant of a committee, with a longer name, of which the distinguished Presiding Officer was Chairman, which was formed about 15 years ago. Our work gradually developed, and the lawyers throughout the country seem to appreciate that there is such a committee. We have been getting throughout the legal year, as I may term it, a great many communications from various sources, of reforms and changes that were thought to be expedient to make.

The report which we present is a result of all this colloquy between the various members of the Association, committees of the Association and lawyers throughout the United States as well as members of Congress who have sought our aid in legislation that is pending.

The first recommendation that we make is in regard to the removal of causes. I do not feel, in the temperature that is existing here today, that I ought to speak at any length upon this. We have drawn a bill, and, in the recommendation which we are now submitting, our proposition is to insert the words:

In all cases of removal, where the defendant is not a resident of the district where the suit is brought, the proper district shall be the one having jurisdiction in the district or division where the suit is brought.

That will remove the conflict of decisions which we refer to in our report. We thought it advisable to add the words:

Notwithstanding any provision of Section 51 of the Act.

The second recommendation concerns the subject of declaratory judgments. It has been suggested that the bill should contain the express statement that these petitions shall be presented in cases in which, if suits were brought, the courts of the United States would have jurisdiction. That is, perhaps, unnecessary, but on the whole it seemed to us advisable, in view of the conflict of opinions on the subject that has arisen in regard to this very matter.

The third recommendation is in regard to the review in the Supreme Court, whether it shall be in a particular case by appeal or by writ of error or by certiorari. It seemed to us that the reforms in that respect which have been adopted in so many of the states are a distinct advantage. In my State of New York no one would think of going back to the old practice. Whenever, in the federal court you have to draw a petition of appeal and an assignment of errors, and then get the appeal allowed by the judge, this is just so much machinery that seems to us entirely unnecessary. We therefore ask the adoption of a bill in reference to writs of error which shall substitute for that method of review, a notice of appeal, served on the adverse party, and filed with the clerk.

We next recommend for adoption a bill in reference to the loss of civil rights. Under the present law a person who is convicted of a crime, the punishment for which may be imprisonment for more than a year, loses his civil rights, although the crime may be purely a technical offence, and one for which the court will not sentence him to imprisonment. Yet the provision that it may be imprisonment for more than a year is sufficient to debar that man from his civil rights.

We recommend that the loss of civil rights in such a case shall not be effective unless there is an actual sentence to imprisonment for more than a year.

Then we recommend an amendment to a joint resolution now pending in Congress in reference to the creation of a joint commission to revise the federal procedure; that this committee be

authorized to confer and recommend such an amendment to that resolution as shall make it clear what the object of the proposed commission is; that it is not to repeal the Judicial Code, but to bring about amendments which I suppose we are all agreed ought to be effected.

Since this report was printed we have had considerable conference with certain persons, among them the Chief Justice of the United States and the Attorney-General of the United States in regard to the plan to have an addition of 18 federal judges. This is under advisement in Congress. The plan commends itself to your committee.

We have another matter referred to us upon resolution offered at the St. Louis meeting by Levi Cooke of Washington, D. C. It seems to the committee that we should with the consent of this body, make this additional recommendation, and we offer it in the form of a resolution:

Resolved, That it is the sense of the American Bar Association that the Congress of the United States should increase the compensation and allowance for travel of grand and petit jurors of the District Courts of the United States, and of witnesses summoned to attend such courts, in order that they may meet the present increased cost of travel, subsistence and lodging.

There is still another matter with reference to which Senator Nelson, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, has been in correspondence with your Chairman and upon which he did the committee the honor to request its suggestions. That matter has never been formally referred to the committee. We now offer the following resolution on this subject:

Resolved, That it be referred to the Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reform to consider the legislation pending in Congress in reference to the Court of Claims, with power to confer with the appropriate committees of Congress in reference thereto.

We also present a resolution to amend the Judicial Code by adding a new section to be numbered 274-d, as follows:

Sec. 274d. In cases of actual controversy, in which if suits were brought the courts of the United States would have jurisdiction, the said court, upon petition shall have jurisdiction to declare rights and other legal relations on request of interested parties for such declarations, whether or not further relief is or could be prayed, and such deciarations shall have the force of final decrees and be reviewable as such.

The other clauses of this proposed act are given in Schedule D annexed to our report.

I move the adoption of these various recommendations and resolutions.

The motion was seconded and carried.

(For Report, see Appendix, page 384.)

Committee on Publicity:

Martin Conboy, of New York:

The report of the Publicity Committee is in writing and is now submitted to the Association. No action on the report is required.

(For Report, see Appendix, page 484.)

Committee on Memorials:

The audience arose and remained standing during the reading of the report by the Secretary.

(See Report in Appendix, page 487.)

The Association then took a recess until 8 P. M.

FIFTH SESSION.

Thursday Evening, September 1, 8 P. M.

George Sutherland, former United States Senator from Utah, presided at this session.

The Chairman:

Before beginning our proceedings this evening, I want to announce to the members of the Association that after the address of Senator Thomas there will be other important and interesting business, so that I hope the audience will remain after the conclusion of the Senator's address.

The two essential qualifications for useful public service are wisdom and courage. I mean by wisdom not mere information, not mere knowledge. I mean by courage not merely that fortitude which enables a man to stand in the face of physical danger. I have known many men of fine learning and great scholarship to