THE BAR'S RELATION TO GOVERNMENT
"The bewildering maze and labyrinth of constitutional law is something new in the world. It has supplanted the divine right of kings. It has arisen from the American dual sovereignty and is the guardian of that dual sovereignty. It has piloted the two ships of state, state and federal; otherwise they would have collided and sunk. It is at once a vindication of the American bar and a challenge to it to live up to its principles. It ‘has no occasion for smugness. It is a call to combat: It is an alarm bell that any decadence in the profession imperils the public safety. It is a summons to the American Bar to put itself in order and keep itself in order. It demands character, learning and business ethics—ethics to temper the industrialism of the age. And the courts will do their part. They are the finished product of the bar, elevated to the bench to personify the law. * * * *
"The power of the American Bar is unorganized and unseen, but upon it depends the continuity of constitutional government and the perpetuity of the republic itself. Bacon said ‘I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto.'"—William W. Cook.
MISSOURI SPEAKS
The Missouri Bar Association's Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, in its 1925 report, replies to the contention that the disesteem into which the Bar is said to have fallen is due to the "ambulance chaser" and "other unethical practitioners" and that the remedy is expulsion of such men rather than the raising of educational requirements, by means of the following pronouncement: "In the first place, it is by no means certain that a lawyer can be disbarred for a mere violation of the canon against soliciting business. Secondly, as a practical matter it is extremely difficult, in most cases utterly impossible, to secure evidence sufficient to warrant disbarment for mere unethical practices. Finally, while one lawyer is being disbarred, a dozen equally as bad have been admitted into the profession to take his place. The remedy is not disbarment after admission but raising the standards for entrance before admission." The Committee's conclusion is that "adequate preparation means an added moral guarantee to the profession and the public."
The "poor-boy" argument against higher standards is answered by the Committee, after suggesting that no one has any vested right to practice law, by the presentation of statistics that tend to show that higher standards would mean the exclusion of but few of those whose financial standing is rather limited. It says: "Last year there were enrolled at the Universities of Illinois, Kansas, Chicago, Yale and Princeton, 31,386
