Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/487

 American Editorial Comment upon the Corpus Juris Project As is said by Chief Justice Clark, of North Carolina, the project is a proposal "to dofor this country what Justinian did for Rome, and Napoleon for Western Europe." . . . The proponents of the plan estimate the cost at upward of one million dollars. . . . With such a foundation, it is believed the ablest talent could be secured, and that the entire body of principles controlling the administration of our law could be exhibited in approximately twenty volumes of a thousand'pages each, not as a code nor an encyclopedia, but in the form of a well balanced and proportioned body of legal principles. It is apparent that this work, when pub lished, would be a necessary part of the equipment of every judge and practising lawyer. “It would be," as the late James C. Carter declared, "the one indispensable tool of his art." Such a statement of princi ples would be cheap at any price. . . . The plans have been submitted to a large group of the ablest lawyers in this and other lands, and have been enthusiastically ap proved. Among those endorsing the project are Justices Brewer, Day and Moody, of the Supreme Court of the United States; Judge Dillon, the Nestor of the American bar; John G.

Milburn, Senator Root, Alton B.

Parker, Governor Hughes, Joseph H. Choate; Ambassador Bryce and Sir Frederick Pollock, of Great Britain; William B. Hornblower, Senator Manderson, Attorney-General Wicker sham, Secretary of War Dickinson, Solicitor General Bowers, United States Circuit Court Judges Gray, Dallas and Grosscup; the deans of the Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Yale and other law schools, and many chief justices of the different states. It is doubtful if such a galaxy of professional opinion has ever before been expressed upon one subject and with so much enthusiasm. The success of the project is contingent upon the establishment of the suggested foundation for the advancement of jurispru dence. Here is an opportunity which should satisfy the highest kind of altruism. Greater service can hardly be rendered to our nation or civilization. Washington Post: EPITOMIZING THE LAW It is curious to observe how the great philanthropists of the world usually balk at the opportunity to do their fellow men

a real service.

461

They donate libraries to cities

that take them under protest, and give large

sums of money to universities which are not really in want, but when it comes to a sensible suggestion for remedying a growing evil they become strangely economical. Attacks on the law's delays have become popular lately, and, in sharp contrast to most attacks on public institutions, an actual remedy has been suggested. Lucien Hugh Alexander, a leading lawyer of Philadelphia, who is taking :in active part in the movement for reform, has suggested the practical solu tion of an American Corpus _]uris——a complete and comprehensive statement, in a philo sophical and systematic form, of the entire body of American law. Such an epitome of American law, re sembling in a manner the embodiment of the old English common law, is the real remedy for the delays in legal procedure. The

courts,

which

are

the

safeguards

of

American liberty, have been for years in a very bad way. They are congested and befogged. . . . Nearly all arguments of lawyers and the decrees of courts are based on precedent cases, the more recent the better. The result of this tendency has been to get away from the fundamental principles of logical justice. Fifty years ago a great judge may have interpreted an important law. Because of his reputation that judge's decision may have been accepted, not merely as an interpretation of the law, but as the law

itself. Although honest, the judge's opinion may have been a triﬂe in error. Another judge, later on, may have been called upon to decide a similar case. Instead of interpreting the original law he bases his decision almost entirely upon the precedent. And this judge may have swerved a triﬂe further toward error. Continuing this process through ﬁfty years would result in the com plete warping of the law, giving it a meaning it was never intended to have. Mr. Alexander's suggestion for an American Corpus juris would do away with this growing danger to American institutions. It would give America a deﬁnite form of law, a code for the government of all cases, meeting all modern conditions. Judges would then be called upon to apply this clearly deﬁned law. . . There would be no tendency to drift along in the path of error. The new plan would do away with the day of technicality and quibble.