Si8
THE GREEN BAG
young men coming forward." In Jefferson's day all Federalists believed the country ruined; in Jackson's day the Whigs knew the country was ruined; and in the days of the Mexican War rascality and fraud were rampant. Lord Kenyon, the successor of Mansfield, arguing for the right of testamen tary disposition of property,, declared if dis appointed in that, "the great and main pur suit of men in society was disappointed." The outcry against monopolies was raised by Aaron --Burr when Alexander Hamilton procured a charter for the Bank of New York. It caught the people, and he was elected to the legislature. In turn he pro cured a charter for a water company with powers so broad that the Manhattan Bank wa.s incorporated under its provisions. We are not degenerates. To-day is better than yesterday. The people are honest; their instincts are right. They are slow to believe in the corruption of those in high places, but once believing they always "turn the rascals out." There is no new crime under the sun. The love of money, the peril of the rich, hypoc risy and all forms of vice have flourished since recorded time. The decalogue is not new. The story of Eden is short. Goldsmith, whose revels irritated Blackstone, while writing those commentaries which are still classic in spite of modern criticism, truly wrote: "111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
Wealth is accumulating, but there is no moral, intellectual, or physical decadence, in the American people. We are told that commercialism has per meated the learned professions. Is it true of the ministry? Are the clergy less char itable, less earnest, less learned than a gen eration ago? Are 'not these tests? Is it true of the medical profession? The dis coveries of modern science, the numerous dispensaries and hospitals, where the best service of the most skilled is rendered gra
tuitously, the care of the sick and wounded, the attention to sanitation, the care of the feeble-minded and insane, the exactness of modern medical learning as compared with former generalities, leave na room for the charge of degeneracy. As to the legal pro fession, its scholarship, is broader and deeper than ever before, its ethics more exacting. The quaint advice of Jeremiah Gridley, born two hundred years ago, and sometimes called the father of the Boston Bar, is still followed. "Pursue," he said, " pursue the study of law rather than the gain of it; pursue the gain of it enough to keep out of the briars, but give your main attention to the study of it." No longer does a priest inform the king's conscience in matters of equity. It is the composite conscience of the people as in terpreted by the Court, that now dictates its decrees. Equity acts by injunction, and so the ad captandnm phrase, orginated hy Governor Altgeldt, "government by injunc tion," has found its way to the platform — a phrase containing a half truth, and to the layman, ignorant alike of legal principles and the administration of law, full of illomen. He forgets or never knew that equity came to ameliorate the hardship of the common law. He has never learned that a system of procedure which can deal only with past infractions of the law and is powerless to prevent further infractions is unworthy of civilization. Equity defeats unaccomplished fraud. He thinks with Seiden that equity is a "roguish thing.' But every lawyer knows better. He knows that equity is merciful. Daniel Webster admired the "searching scrutiny and high morality of a court of equity." To join in the outcry against government by injunction is in the lawyer a violation of his oath. It is not fidelity to the courts; it brings discredit upon them and excites mob law and anarchy. It makes the law-abiding discontented. They confound liberty with license. Mistaken in their interpretation of its meaning, they believe that resistance to
