Page:Bench and bar of Colorado - 1917.djvu/16

12 a compromise, perhaps, between a level-headed man and a lunatic, whose only qualification was his availability or his wealth. But the lawyer who contents himself with being a lawyer, who neither desires nor seeks anything else than that, and who, thus seeking, attains a standing at the head of his profession, reaches that place, not by accident or by wealth, or by the fostering care of interested partisans, but by reason, and by reason alone, of a combination of great ability, untiring industry and fair moral character, truthfulness and honesty. No man has attained, and no man ever "will" attain, to such a place, who has not all of these in more than ordinary measure. No lawyer has ever made a reputation as such, by mere "smartness," much less by trickery, untruthfulness or dishonesty, and no profession ever opened fairer fields for the exercise of all the essentials of character and ability than does the legal profession.