selves, and if you allow the Germans to (excuse the word) "bully" the world, your time would come later on; you knew if France was crushed, England's turn would come, the liberty of the seas would be gone, and the United States would face the Kaiser. You came in a generous and beautiful spirit but also because of the necessity of defending yourselves, and you came in the most marvelous manner, for which we have the greatest admiration, and for which we shall be everlastingly grateful to you. At this moment you have transported almost a million men to France, and they didn't swim! You have transported these magnificent soldiers-the splendid boys we have seen in the camps-to fight, and they have shown their mettle, shown who they were strong, brave, courageous Americans, who will fight on to the end and not return until it is finished "Over There." That is what you have done for us, and that is what you will continue to do, and you will be side by side with us, not only in the trenches, but in the open, to fight the good, great struggle for liberty and democracy. You might have come a little earlier, and if you had come earlier the struggle would have been ended now, but you were not ready, and the President has acted in the most wise and politic manner all the way along. I ask permission to tell a little story, if it be true. It is of General Pershing in Paris. It is said that he ordered an automobile and the chauffeur arrived two minutes late. The general was very much annoyed and he gave it to the chauffeur, and the latter said to him: "Yes, general, you are right; I am two minutes late, but you are two years late. No matter, you have come at the moment you could come. You are in with us, and you are going to stay." I am sure that after the difficulties of the present moment there will be for us a glorious victory. You see, the good news from Italy will spread in Austria and Germany, and it will have its effect, and the result will be a complete and decisive victory for the Allies at the moment that God has decided, because God will be "mit uns" now. THIRD DAY-MORNING SESSION THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1918 The Association convened at 10 a. m., President McLean presiding. The President: The meeting will come to order. Gentlemen, as you all know, the judges of the Supreme and Superior courts are honorary members of this Association. We have all been very much gratified to observe the interest manifested in the work of the Association by our judges, both of the Supreme and Superior courts. It seems to me they have been just as loyal and active in all the work of the Association as the active members of the Bar, and this has been one of the pleasing features in connection with the Association. The Executive Committee in arranging for the program has tried to secure one of the judges to address us at the annual meeting. We have been very fortunate in securing for an address at this meeting one of the ablest and one of the most popular and most learned men of the Superior Court Bench, Hon. W. J. Adams, of Carthage, who will now address us on the subject, "The Democracy of Today, and the Democracy of Tomorrow." (Applause.) THE DEMOCRACY OF TODAY, AND THE ADDRESS BY HON. W. J. ADAMS Herbert Spencer, approaching the study of society under the influence of conceptions derived from the study of physical organisms, concluded that the union of men in society is itself an organic structure, having parts and functions corresponding to the parts and functions of an animal or a plant. This analogy he held to be the basis of social life, and the office of government, represented by the regulative functions of a living organism, to be merely the protection of men's rights. In his theory of government the conspicuous element is that of regulation. But government is more than the mechanical regulation or adjustment of social life, for its essential characteristic is authority. In truth, government has been defined as organized force vested in that portion of society which attends to the business of the whole. Not necessarily a force that is armed, or seen, or always exercised, but a force compact in the will of the ruling power in a social and political organization. It may be the power of the patriarch, the tribal chief, the despot, or the conqueror; it may be that of the many or the few; it may be the people's inbred submission to authority; but in all governments there must be coercive power. In a democracy like ours the ruling power is the latent force of sound, intelligent, wholesome, public opinion. Here those who occupy exalted position by the grace of the people are leaders and guides, not kings and princes; and the people are citizens and not subjects. The AngloAmerican believes in the kind of individualism that is inspired by a voluntary obedience to law-the law that inheres in the common will. It is the vital thought of a nation which determines the form of its government, and it is the form which illustrates the sanctions upon which the government rests, and indicates with approximate accuracy the duration of its tenure in the public confidence. Discussing the merits and the defects of the various forms of government, a thoughtful student in statecraft uses this language: "It has been common for writers on politics in speaking of the several forms of government to rewrite Aristotle, and it is not easy to depart from the practice. For, although Aristotle's enumeration was not quite exhaustive, and although his descriptions will not quite fit modern types of government, his enumeration still serves as a most excellent frame on which to hang an exposition of the forms of government, and his descriptions at least furnish points of contrast between ancient and modern governments by observing which we can the more clearly understand the latter. Aristotle considered Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy (Ochlocracy) the three standard forms of government. The first he defined as the rule of One, the second as the rule of the Few, and the third as the rule of the Many. Off against these standards, and, so to say, healthful forms, he set their degenerate shapes. Tyranny he conceived to be the degenerate shape of Monarchy, Oligarchy the degenerate shape of Aristocracy, and Anarchy (or mob rule) the degenerate shape of Democracy. His observation of the political world about him led him to believe that there was in every case a strong, an almost inevitable, tendency for the pure forms to sink into the degenerate. He outlined a cycle of degeneracies and revolutions through which, as he conceived, every State of long life was apt to pass. His idea was this: The natural first form of government for every State would be the rule of a monarch, of the single strong man with sovereign power. This monarch would usually hand on his kingdom to his children. They might confidently be expected to forget those pledges and those views of the public good which has bound and guided him. Their sovereignty would sink into tyranny. At length their tyranny would meet its decisive check at some Runnymede. There would be revolt; and the princely leaders of revolt, taking government into their own hands, would set up an Aristocracy. But aristocracies, though often publicspirited and just in their youth, always decline, in their later years, into a dotage of selfish oligarchy. Oligarchy is even more hateful to civil liberty, is even a greater hindrance to healthful civil life than tyranny. A class bent upon subserving only their own interests can devise injustice in greater variety than can a single despot; and their insolence is always quick to goad the many to hot revolution. To this revolution. succeeds Democracy. But Democracy, too, has its old age of degeneracy—an old age in which it loses its early respect for law, its first amiability to mutual concession. It breaks out into license and anarchy, and none but a Cæsar can bring it back to reason and order. The cycle is completed. The throne is set up again, and a new series of deteriorations and revolutions begins." Aristotle's analysis, founded upon his observation as well as upon the experience of ancient governments, is not to be accepted as an accurate estimate of governments that are modern. The monarchy of today is not the monarchy of the past. If the olden monarchy was in essence the edict of the ruler, the monarchy of the present professes at least to be limited by popular assemblies. Nor is the democracy of today the democracy of the ancient world. In the Athenian state, for instance, Solon granted the common people the right to vote laws in their own person, but his object was "to curb the old aristocracy by setting up a plutocracy, controlled in some degree by the votes of a democracy." The democracy of Athens embraced only the free citizens, and excluded a multitude of slaves whom the fortunes of war had reduced to their abject condition. At one period in the history of Rome every citizen had the right of franchise, but there the administrative powers of the government were in the hands of a bureaucratic assembly which was recruited from those who held public office, and democracy was a class government—a government by the minority. But through the intervening centuries, particularly the last century, there have been both a gradual advance of democratic opinion and a marked expansion of democratic institutions. The author whom I have quoted further says: "These agencies have destroyed almost all pure forms of Monarchy and Aristocracy by introducing into them imperative forces of popular thought and the concrete institutions of popular representation; and they promise to reduce politics to a simple form by excluding all other governing forces and institutions but those of a wide suffrage and a democratic representation-by reducing all forms of government to Democracy." Democracy is the antithesis of autocracy. The chief concern of the latter is organization, order, and the subordination of the individual to the State as the supreme virtue. In democracy, the prime object is to attain the highest efficiency and service of all by attaining the highest individual efficiency and service: the construction of a social order that shall make |