THE CONGESTION OF LAW licity of all committee hearings and the report of their proceedings in the press have also contributed much to promote this result. While our complicated system of local government will account for a consider able part of our vast volume of legisla tion, the greater part of it is due to causes such as I have suggested. Now, it is clear that a cure is needed, and while, of necessity, it must be grad ual, it must at the same time be drastic. But, as is usual and natural in all such cases, not only the initiative, but also much of the effective work toward the ac complishment of that end, must come from the great body of American lawyers. Their training, ability, and patriotism have cast upon them such tasks from the begin nings of our government to this day. This record in the past justifies the confidence that they will not fail their country in the future. In this matter a systematic movement should be entered upon by the Bar Asso ciations of the country, from the greatest to the smallest, having for one of its ob jects the education of the public mind to the point where it will understand its
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need, and demand it. In such a movement I believe the press would earnestly join, for the great majority of the men who conduct that mighty engine of power in this country are high-minded and patri otic, having the public welfare always at heart. The duty of the lawyer in the premises is imperative, for he understands the dan gers better than any one else. His daily work enables him to appreciate in large measure the wrongs the people are now suffering, and to see the rocks in the distance ahead, toward which we are steadily drifting. Therefore, he ought to take up the task, and carry it on with energy, until our current legislation shall simply properly supplement such part of our present law — whether common or statute — as has justified its existence. Our Association, it seems to me, cannot better justify itself, or more effectively exert its influence in our society, than by taking up this work, and placing itself at the head of all well-devised movements for the correction of evils which have be come so obvious. NEW YORK, N.Y., August, 1906.
