guarded against the menace of the most modern form of communism; and the authority of our courts must be preserved against the invasion of novel and destructive theories, particularly those which seek to impair the steadying influence of the judiciary. We must solve the questions of international law which will become incident to the provisions of any peace treaty that may be made. And we cannot abate our vigilance in seeing to it that fundamental rights are not submerged by great combinations of capital, and that, on the other hand, no class in the community, however powerful, shall set at naught the rights and convenience of the general public, or unduly interfere with its pursuit of happiness. None of these great questions can be solved without constant reference to vital principles of constitutional law. Lawyers and associations of the bar better than any other class in the community can contribute to their solution; and that fact carries with it a corresponding duty. President Wilson, then Governor of New Jersey, in an address to the Kentucky Bar Association in 1911, used these words: "For the notable, I had almost said fundamental, circumstance of our political life is that our courts are, under our constitutional system, the means of our political development. Every change in our law, every modification of political practice, must sooner or later pass under their scrutiny. We can go only as fast as the legal habit of mind of our lawyers will permit. Our politics are bound up in the mental character and attitude and in the intellectual vigor and vision of our lawyers. Ours is so intensely and characteristically a legal polity that our politics depend upon our lawyers. They are the ultimate instruments of our life." Just seventy-five years ago, Rufus Choate, in an address delivered to the Harvard Law School, expressed the same idea, saying that it had been the office of the American lawyer of his day to interpret, administer and maintain the constitutions of the country, and that they had thereby "shared in the dignity of founders of states, of restorers of states, of preservers of states. I said and I repeat that while lawyers, and because we are lawyers, we are statesmen. We are by profession statesmen. And who may measure the value of this department of public duty?” While James Bryce has made a similar observation, he has also pointed out the fact, which it would be futile to deny, that while the influence of lawyers still remains potent in legislative bodies and in public office, "taking a general survey of the facts of to-day as compared with those of sixty years ago, it is clear that the bar counts for less as a guiding and restraining power tempering the crudity or haste of democracy by its attachment to rule and precedent than it did then." extent With the more general diffusion of opportunities for education and the increase of professional and commercial specialization, members of the legal profession no longer enjoy to an great as they did formerly, intellectual and social leadership. The prestige of lawyers (and the same may be said of other professions) has suffered in influence through the increasing importance of the gigantic commercial and financial undertakings of to-day, whose originators and managers must necessarily possess qualities, intellectual and otherwise, which equip them for leadership. Practical developments in science and the arts have so contributed to the comfort, convenience and health of mankind, that the chief actors in these fields have deservedly occupied positions of wide influence. With the concentration of wealth in great enterprises, the Lawyer has frequently become attached to particular business interests, by which his opinions in relation to great questions of the day are affected and his freedom in the performance of his duties as a citizen more or less fettered. Living in the atmosphere of private interests, such a lawyer finds it increasingly difficult to move out of the narrow channel in which bis employment confines him. It results that the exhibition of courage, initiative and constructive leadership is by no means so easy or natural for some of the most competent members of the bar as under the simpler social and industrial conditions existing seventy-five years ago. And yet now more even than then the social, industrial and political questions before the. people are intertwined with questions of constitutional or international or municipal law. While the bar must always continue to be the great conservative force in our system, we lawyers should not hesitate to ask ourselves from time to time whether we have not become too conservative; that is, whether the forces of progress have not created such a transformation in the body politic as to require us to become more aggressive if we would play the part for which our training and our experience has fitted us. RESPECT FOR THE LAW The crowning service of the American lawyer is to teach. respect for the law because it is the law. Some student of our institutions has said that the American people have a talent for legality, that is, for adjusting themselves to the law as it is and not as it ought to be. We Americans, in the words of Tennyson, have "Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made; Some patient force to change them when we will; The possession of the spirit speaking in these lines has no doubt saved the American people at critical junctures. It is not that we withhold our protest against the policy, and perhaps against the wisdom and justice, of existing laws, for more frequently and more freely than most peoples of the world we denounce them and seek their repeal. But we are attached to the idea that in the long run order will be better preserved, a larger measure of justice will prevail, and the stability of our institutions will more certainly be perpetuated, if we accustom ourselves to accept for the time being the existing law as our guiding force. It is this genius of the American people which has enabled them to accept as a rule of action a constitution which was itself a compromise, and which has worked only through accommodations suggested by the common sense of the people. We may with some pride of race compare this experience with that of the South and Central American republics, and even of France, which have from time to time adopted constitutions, sometimes on the model of ours and no less perfect in form, but which in many cases have proved to be little more than an exhibition of the imitative faculty or an expression of lofty aspiration. With knowledge and experience in self-government, however, the American people have known that no system could be devised which would be perfect to meet every exigency, and they have realized that laws, and even constitutions, must be made to bend to meet practical situations; but they have also known that if they did not give a certain deferential adherence to the law because it is the law, they would encounter risks, the effect of which could not be predicted. They have believed that a part of the self-restraint required for the successful working of a democratic form of government was to obey an unfit law so long as it was the law, to demonstrate its unfitness by its enforcement, and then to repeal it. We are now witnessing a protest on the part of many people. who assert that the prohibition amendment is not the expression of the will of the people. But whether they be right or not, the American habit of respecting the law will ultimately prevail. I am not unmindful of some of the great crises of our history where there have been fundamental differences concerning vital questions, such, for instance, as those which arose in connection with slavery. No greater strain could have been placed upon the patriotism of any citizen than that which weighed upon Abraham Lincoln when the Supreme Court decided the Dred Scott case. With all of the fervor of his moral nature he condemned the principle underlying the law, if it was as the Supreme Court interpreted it to be. With all the force of his intellectual nature he believed it to be an unsound interpretation of the Constitution. So far as he was at liberty to disregard it as a political rule, he adopted every proper method to see to it that it should be corrected. But he never denied the binding effect of the decision. He met it by asserting that new views of the question should be presented to the Supreme Court, in order that they might be induced to put a different interpretation upon the Constitution, or he urged that the Constitution be amended saying that by so doing "I disturb no rights of property; create no disorder; excite no mobs." And he added: "We believe * in obedience to and respect for the judicial department of the government. We think its decisions on constitutional questions when fully settled should control not only the particular cases decided but the general policy of the country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution as provided in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution. Adelbert Moot, of Buffalo: Without any formal motion I rise to offer our thanks to our President for his notable address. The President: We will now take up the report of the Committee on Law Reform, of which Mr. Boston is the Chairman. Charles A. Boston, of New York: The Committee on Law Reform submits a more voluminous and searching report on this occasion than has been recently. made. The time allotted for the making of the report and the |