The Legal World one has not been finally disposed of, and as the House did not draw up articles of impeachment against Judge Hanford it is well to withhold judgment on the merits. The case for the im peachment of Judge Archbald having been completed by the House, and the adverse vote having been practically unanimous, the character of the judge already stands impeached, even though he may still be entitled to the legal presumption of innocence. These two proceedings have intensified the demand for more expeditious procedure in impeachment cases on the part of the more sober-minded, and for the recall of judges on the part of our more impetuous popular leaders. The bar cannot help coming under the influence of this movement. Law yers continue to denounce the recall as subversive of the independence of the judiciary, quite rightly, but there is perhaps less of a disposition to ignore the intricacies of the situation leading to this popular demand than there was a few months ago. The inclination of bar associations, for example, to adopt a negative rather than a constructive attitude on the question, to which we referred last month, is perhaps less marked. To illustrate, the request of the committee of the Pennsylvania Bar Association that the subjects of the initiative, referendum, and recall be referred back to it for further con sideration may have some significance. There are lawyers of the calibre of Fredderick N. Judson who recognize the need of simplifying and expediting impeachment proceedings, and this ques tion will figure in the approaching Presidential campaign. Plans for com pulsory retirement of incompetent judges not by popular recall but by responsible official action, such as that proposed by
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T. S. Tyng in the Political Science Quarterly, are likely to receive more earnest consideration in future. A state bar association rarely ac complishes more productive work of importance that the Pennsylvania Bar Association did recently at its annual meeting. Action was taken to bring about such things as a new codification of the state statutes, a codification of the law of decedents' estates, and the abolition of appeals based on merely insubstantial error. The tendency of the state associations to adopt the American Bar Association measure, re cently enacted into law by Congress, to remedy the evil of appeals in insub stantial error evinces a sincere desire to promote the cause of procedural re form through the greater part of the country. A bill to expedite trials, for example, has been approved by the North Carolina Bar Assocation. Disbarment proceedings throughout the country are frequent and are not often noticed in this column. The activity of the Chicago Bar Associa tion in purging the ranks of the pro fession of those guilty of unethical practices is especially noteworthy.
The 'Pennsylvania fF}ar Association
The eighteenth annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Bar Association was held at Cape May, N. J., June 25-27. The address by the President, George R. Bedford of Wilkes-Barre, upon "Some Suggested Changes of the Law," urged that the legislature should confer upon the citizen a right of action against the Commonwealth, and should reverse the rule now in force by which, in cases of insolvency, debts due the State are paid first. He recommended that a stringent law should be passed and enforced forbidding the possession of
