Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/60

 The

Volume XXI

Green

Bag

February, 1909

Number 2

The Lawyer's Livelihood By Francis Lynde Stetson The Annual President's Address Delivered before the New York State Bar Association, Buffalo, January 28, 1909 THE first decade of the Nineteenth Century fixed upon the Republic of Thomas Jefferson for nearly one hun dred years the paramount idea of indi vidualistic liberty. The first decade of the Twentieth Century witnesses a fierce assault upon that idea, by the crusaders for collectivism. Before a general in sistence upon the duties of men, the rights of man are losing support. A growing sense of the superior right of the Community threatens to submerge personal prerogative. But the movement, helpful though it has been to the development of a collective conscience, will not continue indefinitely. Our republic founded upon the right of all men to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" has flourished largely, if not chiefly, because of this ideal which is not likely to fade away or to pass wholly into obscurity. The phrase, possibly of more generous import, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" is the motto of another re public, not of our own. We recognize indeed that the safety of the people is the supreme law, but heretofore the good of all has been sought by us with an anxious desire to cause the least pos sible disturbance of the right of each.

To live and to pursue happiness it is essential that there should be no abridg ment of the rights to labor, and to realize the just rewards of labor. These rights are not more precious to the men of any calling than to those of the socalled learned professions, and in par ticular to the gentlemen of the bar. As a class lawyers may be said to live from hand to mouth, and not infre quently within sight of want. Years of preparation without recompense must precede years of toil for a daily wage, which only by prudence and self-denial may be nursed into a competency. The right of the lawyer by the gainful exer cise of his professional skill to earn an honorable living, is an absolute right subject to limitation only by the law of the land or by moral principle. How far it is thus limited is the subject of our present consideration. At our annual banquet in New York last January Governor Hughes, reply ing for our Empire State, declared that there is no organization of the state with whose members he comes in such close fellowship and with such a feeling of cordial sympathy as members of the bar, and then he added some pertinent disclaimers :