Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 25.pdf/440

 The Legal World 77.53 per cent of the decisions of the Ohio Supreme Court are reported with out any reason being given. Judge R. M. Wanamaker spoke in support of a resolution urging the adoption of an amendment to the constitution requiring the Supreme Court to give opinions in writing and cite the authority upon which it bases its deductions. The association, however, was not in sym pathy with Judge Wanamaker's plan for the removal of judges failing to comply with the proposed requirement. The resolution was adopted only after this feature had been eliminated. An address on "Workman's Compensation" was delivered by Wallace D. Yaple, of Columbus. The following officers were elected : President, Harlan F. Burkett of Findlay; secretary, Charles M. Buss, and treasurer, Clement Gilmore of Dayton. Texas. — The thirty-second annual meeting of the Texas Bar Association was held at Corpus Christi, Tex., July 1-3. Judge John T. Duncan, president of the association, delivering the annual address, outlined many of the bills passed by the last legislature, and stated that it was the opinion of the lawyers that it would be good policy for a committee to be appointed from the bar association, whose duty it would be to attend each session of the legislature to aid in secur ing the passage of new laws and the amendment of older ones that would affect the development and progress of the state and the administration of justice. Judge W. C. Morrow of Hillsboro, discussing law reform, said that the need for new laws is not so pressing as the demand for better administration of those in existence. The new pro cedural laws of Texas were discussed at length.

415

A paper was read by Hon. O. L. Stribling of Waco on "Trial by Juries in Civil Cases Should be Abolished." In the course of an address on "The Bar as an Institution of the State," Judge Nelson Phillips of the Texas Supreme Court referred to the present attitude of the public as follows:— "This is peculiarly a critical age. We read and hear a great deal of the lawyer's shortcomings, the obsolete and archaic quality of his make-up, his ultra-con servatism, his disposition to refine and his persistence in appeal, the appro priate waning of his power and the just decline of his influence. He is pic tured as the solitary human survival of the technical learning of the Schoolmen, a constant impediment to progress and a kind of continuous peril to justice. He is derided for his defense of those charged with crime, though his duty as an officer enjoins it upon him, in much the same fashion that the Master was scorned as the friend of publicans and sinners. One fault with this arraignment is that it is too general. Another is that it usually exaggerates the conditions upon which it is predicated and is there fore untrue. Like the rains of the heav ens, it descends alike upon the just and the unjust." The report of the Committee on Law Reform and Jurisprudence advocated, among other things, that the various courts of civil appeals remain as they are now, with their present functions and establishments. The plan out lined in the pending constitutional amendment to provide additional judges was indorsed by the committee. It was voted that a committee of seven be appointed to prepare a bill at an early date, which will be printed and mailed to each member of the association, looking toward judicial reform; the bill to be submitted to Governor Col