NEW YORK COUNTY LAWYERS' ASSOCIATION felt most among its younger members, although by no means confined to them. It is an association of great prestige but little real power and no initiative. That it has been and is a great conservative body of essential usefulness and. high purposes none will be found to question. A large percentage of the lawyers who have joined the new and more democratic Association, and areuponits most important committees, are its members and they have joined the lawyers' association not because of any lack of loyalty to the old association but because they see the uses of the new, and believe it will form a potent ally and not a rival in the common cause of maintaining high standards upon the bench and at the bar, and promoting the efficiency of the courts of justice. Such are the principal if not the only reasons why New York County has tivo bar associations. If there is an essential differ ence between the two it consists in this, that the policy of the Association of the Bar has been to distrust the profession as a whole and guard against action by it, while the policy of the Lawyers' Association is to trust, it and encourage it to action, in the belief that the real leaders will lead and the just cause triumph, and that any thing is better than supineness, — a differ ence, perhaps, after all of method. The experiment is one of great importance to the New York bar, and will be watched with deep interest, no doubt, by the bar of the entire county, for standards set up
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here are seen afar off and have a farreaching influence. " A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid." Will the new Association succeed? The answer is, it has already achieved a large and unprecedented measure of success considering its very recent origin. • It is today one of the large if not the largest lawyers' associations in the country. Its principal officers are men of national reputa tions. It membership of 3000 will, it is anticipated, be increased to 5000 by the end of the year; and there appears to be no reason why it should not soon include every reputable member of the bar of the county; for as soon as it is in full working order its advantages to members of the bar will be so manifest as to make it indispensable to all. This will insure it a very, large income with which to carry on its work. But its greatest promise of success is the enthu siasm of its members and the unselfish devotion which they have thus far shown to its interests. Few movements. such as this achieve the full measure of their anticipations, although it is given to some to far exceed them. But it may be said in all reason and moderation that the New York County Lawyers' Associa tion has the promise of becoming one of the most powerful and influential bodies in the land — a new force in the legal world to help ennoble and uplift the profession and inspire it with devotion. NEW YOEK, N. Y., July i, 1908
