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THE GREEN BAG
and the common law systems, as illus trated by the attitude of the attorney toward the court. And yet, it must be borne in mind, that the controversy is car ried on before a judge; that the judge will see to it, not only that the rules of the con test are observed, but that the party who fairly wins, according to the rules of the game, will get the decision; that the judge has no interest nor concern as to which way the decision shall go, save only that the prize shall be awarded to the one making the more meritorious showing; and, finally, and most important of all, that the rules of the contest are those which have, in the course of ages, and as the result of the ex perience of the ablest minds, been selected as the rules in accordance with which such contests may most righteously be decided and justice effectually administered. The judge is administering the rules of law. He is impartial between the parties. He is zealous only with reference to a right re sult in that particular case. The attorney has for his function the presentation in the strongest possible form of the case of his client. The duty of deciding is not with him, but the duty of presenting. His duty to his profession is his highest duty, and it is one not wholly mercenary. He feels toward it the devotion which any honest and ambitious man feels in regard to the discharge of an undertaking which involves his mental faculties, and the exercise of the greatest human gifts. His client is not his master, and yet, his business is to represent to his utmost ability the cause of the client, whoever he may happen to be. He is the real contestant, and his skill is the skill which will largely affect the result of the contest. The client is entitled to this kind of a champion, and, if he has confidence in his representative, will be satisfied in the end, if unsuccessful, that he has been legiti mately beaten. He may have personal feel ings with reference to his opponent, but he
submits to t.ie result of the wager. If this picture is not theoretically and practically drawn with the lines and painted with the colors which most strongly appeal to the sentiments, it at any rate has the merit of being true to life, that life with which human beings are endowed by their Creator and sent into the world. Human beings were not created simply to admire the clouds, and the trees, and the beautiful river. They have capacity for activity and for struggle, arid somehow the life of the beautiful and the good survives and is strengthened by contact with the actual realities of the ex istence which is imposed upon them. And so it is with the law as it is administered. The intensity of contest is there, the ex hilaration of victory, the bitterness of de feat. But out of it all grows a calm assur ance of soul that God is in his world, and that the right will triumph. Not the right as you, or I, or any other may individually see it, but the right as it may result from the wisdom and the judgment and the strug gle and the victories of all. And to this ultimate triumph none contribute more greatly than the members of the legal pro fession. And under no system of law are they more potent than under that system which we know as the common law. The judges and the lawyers who have assisted in the administration of justice under that system, have, by reason of the nature of their functions under the common law been men of greater stature, greater mental ca pacity, greater breadth and depth and earnestness than those developed under any other system; and the respect for and devo tion to the law, which they have exhibited and inculcated, has done more to develop the self-restraint which is essential to successful self-government than any other influence which has been brought to bear in the his tory of the world. DF.S MoiN'ES, IOWA, May, 1905.
