Page:Address as the ABA president.pdf/5

 spent in the important business of changing names, granting divorces, the removal of county seats, the remission of fines for minor penalties, the alteration of county roads, and the amendment of road laws, the legislature becomes unexpectedly impressed with the idea that very grave and important affairs of the state have been wholly neglected, and that an adjourned session to the following year has become absolutely necessary. Of course an adjournment takes place, and the resolves and enactments of the next session become more interesting and important than those of the preceding year.

Lawyers everywhere feel the necessity for a prompt and thorough reform of modern state legislation. A paper of great ability was read by Mr. Simon Sterne, of New York, at our last meeting on "The Prevention of Defective and Slip-shod Legislation," for which this Association owes him their gratitude. Its strong, clear, and vigorous suggestions have attracted the legal profession everywhere, in and our of this Association, to its importance, and whether all who heard that address agreed or not entirely in its suggestions, I am sure that the profession everywhere concur in the need of a total change in the character of our present state legislation.

"Who better qualified than the members of the American Bar Association," says Mr. Sterne, "to draw attention to the evils of prevailing legislative methods, to judge of the efficacy of, and if persuaded of its feasibility, to promote, the remedy?"

Permit me now before proceeding with what I have to say, to tender my acknowledgment to my brethren of the General Council who have been so thoughtful as to send me abstracts of the noteworthy changes in the statute law of their respective states; and I am deeply grateful to our worthy and valued Secretary (Mr. Hinkley), and to our honored Treasurer (Mr. Rawle), for their kindness in having forwarded to me the session laws of more than twenty-five states. Their invaluable aid has enabled me to digest and classify, even imperfectly as I have attempted to do it, the dry material of these legislative enactments upon so great a variety of subjects.