Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/252

 The Legal World men can be properly fed and clothed with the amounts expended for such purposes. Speaking before the Society of Medi cal Jurisprudence at its annual dinner in New York, Feb. 3, Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman, president of Cornell Univer sity, took the legal profession to task for its failure to keep up with the great strides made by medicine and the other professions in the last few years. "Law has not made the progress, either in a scientific or humanitarian direction," he said, "that medicine has made. I believe that the legal profession in this country is falling far short of the demands the public has a right to make. Lawyers are helping their clients to accomplish ends, generally selfish ends, by advising them how to keep within the law and out of prison. Just as the medical men are lifting their practice to keep step with the latest discoveries, so the lawyers must try to lift the legal profession to meet the demands and changed conditions of our time."

The President has expressed his ap proval of the legislation proposed in the report of the Congressional Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensa tion Commission, and in a special mes sage urges that it be enacted. The bill eliminates the common-law doctrine of negligence and the defenses of assump tion of risk, fellow-servants' fault and contributory negligence. Compensation with a general basis of an equivalent to one-half wages, is to be paid in every case except where the injury or death is caused by the wilful intention of the employee to injure himself or another or in case of intoxication on duty. The bill declares that it is the policy of Con gress to consider the burden of payments

223

for personal injuries as an element of the cost of transportation and directs the Interstate Commerce Commission to recognize and give effect to this policy. The bill would provide that every com mon carrier engaged in interstate or foreign commerce by railroad shall pay compensation to any employee who sus tains personal injury in line of duty or to his dependents in case of his death. It makes the remedy exclusive by reason of the compensation being complete satisfaction. It abolishes all existing common-law and statutory remedies, and applies to all railroads in the District of Columbia as well. Jury trial rights are preserved, but are to be deemed waived except on demand. Obituary

Blake, Ed.ward, K.C., who led the Opposition in the Canadian Parliament from 1880 to 1887, died in Toronto March 1, aged seventy-eight. His political career began in 1867, when he entered the House of Commons, where he soon be came powerful as a Liberal leader. Cutting, William Bayard, who died March 1, on a train on whichhe was being rushed home from El Paso to New York, was appointed Civil Service Commis sioner by Mayor Strong of New York, and was especially prominent because of the attention which he devoted to civic movements and to various chari table causes. Educated at Columbia College and Columbia Law School, he was elected president of the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railway Company seven years after his admission to the bar, and he was a director in many large corporations, and a trustee of many im portant institutions in New York City, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Columbia College, and the American Museum of Natural History.