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THE GREEN BAG

which the existing powers of governments ought to be extended. Yet there is also a dread of officialism, and of anything ap proaching the bureaucratic interference of continental Europe. Discontent is quali fied by doubt. The reforming spirit runs with a strong current, but it is arrested by the conservative habits of a people who value their old institutions and realize how much caution is needed in modifying them. So, again, there is a disposition to criticize state governments and city governments, and to appeal to good citizens, as voicing the best public opinion, to step in and do whatever useful work those governments are failing to do. But how is public opinion to be organized, concentrated, focussed? Who are the persons to give it that definite and authoritative expression, directed to concrete remedies, which will enable it to prevail? These are some of the problems which appear to be occupying your minds, as, under different forms, they occupy us in Europe They will, doubtless, like other problems in the past which were even harder, be all solved in good time, solved all the better because there is, here in America, little of that passion which has at other times or in other countries over borne the voice of reason. Meantime, as there is evidently a good deal of legislation before you, every im provement in the machinery of legislation and the conditions of legislation that can be made is worth making, every light that the experience of other countries can sug gest, is worth receiving and using. The great profession to which you belong has a special call to exert in this direction its influence, which has often been exerted for the benefit of the nation. You know such weak points as there may be in the existing legislative machinery. You know them as practical men who can apply prac tical remedies. If you see a public benefit in separating different classes of bills and treating the special, or local and personal, bills in a different way from the public ones,

you can best judge how this should be done. You have daily experience of the trouble which arises from obscurities or incon sistencies in the statutes passed, of the wasteful litigation due to the uncertainty of the law, with all the expense and vexa tion which follow. You are, I hear on all hands, not satisfied with the criminal procedure in many of your States. These are matters within your professional knowl edge. You can, with the authority of ex perts, recommend measures you deem good, and remonstrate against those that threaten mischief; and I understand that remon strances proceeding from the Bar are fre quently effective. Some cynical critics have suggested that the legal profession regard with equanimity defects in the law which may increase the volume of law suits. «The tiger, it is said, can not be expected to join in clearing away the jungle. This unappreciative view finds little support in facts. Allowing for the natural conservatism which the habit of using technical rules induces, and which may sometimes make you over-cautious in judg ing proposals of change, lawyers have, both here and in England, borne a creditable part in the amendment of the law. It is a great mistake to think they profit by its defects. Where it is clear and definite, where legal procedure is prompt and not too costly, men are far more ready to resort to the courts for the settlement of their dis putes. It is uncertainty, delay and ex pense that lead them to pocket up their wrongs and endure their losses. Even, therefore, on the lower ground of selfinterest, the Bar has nothing to gain by a defective state of the law. But apart from this, every man who feels the dignity of his profession, who pursues it as a science, who realizes that those whose function it is thoroughly to. understand and honestly to apply the law, are, if one may use the somewhat highflown phrase of a great Roman jurist, the priests of justice, — every such man will wish to see the law