THE MEETING OF THE AMERI CAN BAR ASSOCIATION OW much influence the American Bar Association exerts, in directly molding public opinion, is uncertain, but its indirect influence may be incalculable. One thing is evident, the chief addresses delivered at its meetings are widely com mented upon by the press of the country, and may sometimes give rise to as much discussion as Governors’ messages or speeches in Congress. No unofficial utterances are more statesmanlike or
more helpful to the right solution of pressing public problems. These problems require something more than the eloquence ‘of the popular
Justice Brown's remarks on the pro posed popular election of United States Senators belong to a similar category and probably met with the approval of
a majority of his audience. The address of Mr. Hornblower expressed the satis faction of the conservative element of the community with the wisely constructive opinions of Chief Justice White in the Standard Oil and Tobacco cases, and a
sound constructive attitude was exhibited in President Farrar’s argument for the necessity of uniform state laws of incor
poration. of the
Constructive statesmanship
highest
order
was
apparent
throughout President Taft's address. The only possibly radical note of the meeting was sounded in Mr. Farrar’s
orator; they call for ripe knowledge and
paper, in his contentions that the hold
disciplined judgment. Leadership at the
ing company, which many think has come to stay, necessarily tends to the creation of unlawful monopoly, and that the “gentleman's agreement" must
bar, on the whole, is more likely to be at tained through intellectual than through oratorical gifts. The leader of the bar is therefore apt to be a better statesman
than politician, and for the same reason his method is oftener constructive than destructive, and he is oftener conserva tive than radical.
The atmosphere and influence of what might be called a constructive conserva tism were particularly in evidence at the
recent sessions in Boston. The proposed recall of the judiciary, that plan to de molish the barriers wisely erected by our
organic law to withstand the tyranny of the mob, was scored by more than
needs be in every case opposed to pub lic policy. In the work of its committees, the American
Bar
Association
doubtless
accomplishes all that could reasonably be expected from members whose ser vices are gratuitous, and possibly more. Here the ability to treat large questions constructively and at the same time pru
dently is conspicuous. The work of the most important committee, that to sug gest remedies for defects of procedure, goes on steadily, the committee not only
one speaker, and denounced in a reso
standing by what it has recommended
lution of deep significance.
in
Former
the past,
but earnestly
pressing
ll
