Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/110

 98

The Green Bag

[Professor fie-my T. Terry—Continued.] it is impossible to explain the real reasons or what seems to me the real merits of the plan. If I can be of any assistance in furnishing more full statements on particular points, I shall be glad to do so. Hon. L. S. Rowe, President of the American

Academy of Political and Social Science; mem ber of the Commission of three appointed by President McKinley to codify and revise the Laws of Porto Rico,- Chairman of the American Delegation to the last Pan-American Con gress:— I ﬁnd it difficult adequately to express my views as to the far-reaching importance of the plan that you have outlined for a Corpus juris. Such a plan, if properly carried out, would be a most important factor in securing more uniform legal standards throughout the United States. It would not only give us a view of the existing jurisprudence but would contribute immensely toward the further development of our legal system. From an educational point of view such a digest would also tend to broaden the train ing of the American lawyer in facilitating a ready comparison between foreign systems and our own. This is a matter of far more than theoretical interest. Its importance was drawn to my attention with great force when, as a member of the Commission to Revise the Laws of Porto Rico, we were con fronted with the problem of bringing the Spanish legal system into closer harmony with the American. A work such as that which you propose would have greatly facili tated this task. With each year we are being drawn into closer touch, both commercially and intellectually, with the Far East and

with the republics of Latin America, and we are beginning to appreciate the fact that their legal systems contain much that would be of value to us. Our greatest difficulty at the present time is to ﬁnd the proper basis for fruitful comparisons. The work that you have outlined would furnish us what we sorely lack in this respect. I sincerely hope that the means will be found to carry out this plan, as I feel certain

that it would mark an epoch in the history of American jurisprudence. The opportunity is presented of performing a great national service and I hope that the means will be found to have this service per formed.

Hon.

Alfred

Hemonway,

President

Bar

Association of the City of Boston :— The expressed purpose of your great under taking commands my unstinted approval. The fountains of the law are many, but its rivulets are innumerable. It is laborious for the practising lawyer to seek the fountains and impossible for him to follow all the rivu lets. An individual can master a limited area of the vast domain of American law, but a practical command of the whole ﬁeld is at present beyond individual mastery. It can be satisfactorily accomplished only ' by combined efforts. A sufficiency of com petent men can make a harmonious whole of the disjecta membra of American law. Were this accomplished all these fountains and rivulets would make an accessible reservoir of learning of inestimable value to the lawyer and the layman. It would realize the aspirations of Blackstone and of Kent. Your plan seems feasible. I have no other to suggest. Be cause ours is a government of laws and not of men, the pecuniary means necessary for this important work should be forthcoming from those who are able among the lovers of good government. I know of no worthier cause. Hon. Joseph H. Ohoate, former President American Bar Association:— I have not the slightest doubt that your project, if it could be carried to completion in the spirit in which you have planned it, would be of incalculable beneﬁt to the profession and to the community.

General Thomas G. Jones, twice Governor of Alabama, former President of the Alabama State Bar Association and now United States judge for the Middle and Northern Districts of Alabama :— You and your collaborators have adopted the only plan of finally surmounting the diffi culties which have baffled the professional for more than a century in its efforts to secure an

adequate statement of the Corpus juris. In their work of administering justice the Courts, unless a question is most common

place, are always met with a mass of con ﬂicting precedents. which it is impossible to reconcile and from which no governing prin ciple can be extracted. Public opinion makes and unmakes our laws, and ﬁnally interprets the meaning of the written constitution. The efforts which society makes, under the forms of law, to