The Progress of the Law ment in the time of the stage coach and
sailing vessel has been applied to the successive development and application of steam and electricity. The necessities of a commercial age led to the introduc tion of the Law Merchant through Lord
Mansfield into the common law. The fundamental principles of the law of contract have been applied to the modern intercourse through the telegraph and telephone. The common law of the innkeeper is applied to our great modern caravansaries; the law of the road to the motorcycle and the automobile, and the
law of trespass to the modern air ships. When we turn from this progressive
development of the law through legis lative activity, and the judicial construc tion and application of the rules of the common law and the words of our rigid constitutions, and turn to the actual administration of the law, we hear on
every side complaints that the progress of the law is not commensurate with
that of human society. At no time in the history of the world have such means of thorough and systematic education been afforded to lawyers as in our time, and yet we hear on every side the com plaint that the actual administration of
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defects of our municipal government, that it is our failure to secure expedition and thorough ness in the enforcement of public and private rights in our courts."
This sentiment has been repeated by him in public addresses and in ofiicial messages to Congress since his election. Thus in his first annual message to Con gress, the President said: “In my judg
ment, a change in the judicial procedure with the view of reducing its expense to private litigants in civil cases and facili tating the dispatch of business to final decisions in both civil and criminal cases constitutes the greatest need in our American institutions."
No one in the United States was bet ter qualified to speak on this subject, as President Taft had rendered many years
service on the federal bench, and as Gov ernor of the Philippines had observed the practical working of different systems of jurisprudence. These words, chal lenging the efliciency of our judicial system in the practical administration
of justice, have made aprofound impres sion upon public as well as professional opinion and deserve our most thoughtful attention.
It is obvious that the delay of justice
the law, both as to public and private rights, is unsatisfactory. Not only has this been voiced by popular journals, but by the conspicuous leaders of our
is in effect a denial of justice. This was true in the time of Magna Carta, which contained a solemn promise of the King, for himself and his heirs, that he and
profession, in our legal journals and in our American and state bar associations It is a very grave situation, when the
they would not sell or deny or defer right or justice to any men. Shakspere makes Hamlet enumerate the law's de lays among the unsupportable ills of
administration of the law of the country and the efficiency of our judicial system are distinctly arraigned by our foremost citizen, the President
of the
United
States, who said in an address shortly before his election as President: .‘If we are asked in what respect we have fallen farthest short of our ideal conditions in our whole government, I think we would be justified in answering, in spite of the glaring
life. Yet we are told that in our own time, under our boasted free American institutions, the delay of justice, in civil as well as criminal causes, is greater than in any other civilized country of the world. The subject of delay and uncertainty in the administration of justice was ex haustively considered by the American
