THE LAWYER IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS and so high the character that if, upon a given day, the President of the United States should receive the resignation of every judge of all the Federal courts, of every member of his cabinet and all other officials the performance of whose duties required a legal training, he could fill their places with full regard to the interests of the public service, and with popular acceptance, without drawing a single appointee from any one of the great centers of population. In other words, what is sometimes known as the country lawyer, is so well grounded in his profession, so completely a student of his country, so deeply interested and so well instructed in its politics, and of such high character, that, by intelligent selection, it would be possible to carry out such a plan in its completeness and with safety. Nothing could speak better for the modesty and reserve of the lawyer, or show more thoroughly how sound are the foundations of our legal training or the safety of the conditions which inhere in our life and society. NEITHER THE BOSS NOR THE DEMAGOGUE
While the lawyer is almost a dominant force upon the higher table lands of our politics and in congressional and state legis lative bodies, while he has fairly adapted himself to the change of methods, it may with truth be claimed of him that he has never yet become what is known as the great boss, that peculiar character incident to the later development of our practical politics. In many instances, he has been able to command leadership, but it has never in a single instance involved depen dence on politics for livelihood or fortune, or the use of power for personal or im proper ends. Nor have prominent lawyers been found, in public life or out, who were willing to stand behind men who bore this relation to our politics and to share with them the spoils which are supposed to be the incidents of their position. In like manner, thus far in our history,
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no really great lawyer, whose reputation was both made and earned in the practice of his profession, or by experience on the Bench, has attached himself to dangerous or demagogic movements. It is the very essence of the man well grounded in the law that he shall stand in his vicarious re lation to his client and hence to public life and to society for stability, for cer tainty, and for assured protection to life, liberty, and property. The lawyer belongs so essentially to a profession which has been a gradual growth and evolution that even revolution, to be acceptable to him or to attract his support, has been com pelled to conserve those interests and poli cies which commend themselves to the average man as safe and as making certain the absence of any possibility of assault upon the earnings of industry. HOW
PRIVILEGES HAVE CREATED OBLIGA TIONS
As great privileges amounting almost to monopoly have been granted to the lawyer, it has been only natural, only human, only Christian, that he should render conspicu ous public service in return, and that he should have looked upon this as making it incumbent upon him to accept responsibili ties commensurate with the powers conferred upon him. His duties and obligations are the incident of progress and as this cannot go on without stability in the laws, respect for the great work already done by man, so the lawyer stands now as ever, and he must so stand in the future, for everything that promotes these great objects. As no lawyer ever attains a position so commanding that he may not be assigned by the court, whose servant he is, to defend the prisoner of the lowest grade and of most probable guilt, so he carries with him through life the obligation to do all that lies in his power to save the institutions of his country from the harm that may be done by the reckless agitator who would destroy what is, merely because it exists,
