Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/723

 The Green Bag PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT 14.00 PER ANNUM. SINGLE NUMBERS 50 CENTS. Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, S. R. WRIGHTINGTON, 31 State Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities, facetiae, and anecdotes.

THE appointment of a committee of the American Bar Association to draft a code of professional ethics has been hailed by the press as the most important action in its his tory. The committee appointed by Presi dent Parker is as follows : Henry St. George Tucker, Virginia; David J. Brewer, justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; William Wirt Howe, Louisiana; Francis Lynde Stetson, New York; James G. Jenkins, Wiscon sin; Ezra R. Thayer, Massachusetts; Franklin Ferris, Missouri; Lucien Hugh Alexander, Pennsylvania, and Frederick V. Brown, Min nesota. Though the composition of this committee insures its success in the difficult task of re ducing honesty to working formulas, it will hardly be expected that the promulgation of this code will directly effect the elevation of professional standards, but its efforts will be of inestimable value, if by demonstrating the existence of moral ideals in the law they silence the philistines, who through genera tions of satire have bred such distrust of law yers that men of otherwise unimpeachable sanity and fairness frankly avow their belief that the lawyer is expected to cultivate a different standard of morals from that of other men, and that just as a lifetime on the stage tends to create an artificial character in the actor, so the partisanship of the advocate unconsciously warps his moral fiber. The proposed code moreover will doubtless strengthen the influence of our active re formers of the many specific abuses which only the conservatism and preoccupation of the pro fession have permitted to cast disfavor upon the law. The removal of these would clear the ground for a more discriminating criticism of individual standards. As an example of this one thinks first of the importance of plac ing the selection of jurors in the control of the

courts, thus diminishing opportunities for improper influence; and next of the adoption of some sensible system of adjustment of claims for personal injuries to wipe out the present artificial but profitable business of the whole sale tort lawyer and relieve our trial judges and^courts of appeal from the labor of classify ing and distinguishing what are really pure matters of fact under the guise of decisions on points of law. Any impetus in the direc tion of these reforms will be worth the effort spent to gain it. THE publishers of THE GREEN BAG, in thenquarterly advertising paper "Legal Biblio graphy," for October, asked an expression of opinion from lawyers who received it, as to who should be appointed to the next vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States, — in view of proved legal ability and judicial qualities, aside from prominence in politics. If the response had been general it was in tended to analyze and tabulate the vote, and try to determine whether a national reputa tion is possible for a lawyer who confines him self to practice and does not get publicity through participation in affairs outside of the law. The answers received, while coming from such prominent lawyers, and from so many states, as to be representative, were not numerous enough to form the basis of a formal article, or of a table of comparative profes sional rank. No judge or lawyer received more than about one tenth of the votes cast. The three favorites — the only ones who got anywhere near a tenth of the votes — were (in the follow ing order) : Hon. Wm. H. Taft, Hon. EHhu Root, and Judge Lurton. It will be noted that the first of these made