The PRESIDENT: That may be, but reading printed matter is much easier for the eyes than typewriting.

Mr. THAYER: Certainly no one could undertake to arrange the details of a plan off hand at a meeting like this. Those of us who take the view that I have been expressing would be satisfied with a declaration that the existing system was unfortunate, out of date, and could be improved. The details of the improvement are obviously, as the Chairman suggested, for a committee. For the purpose of presenting that idea in accordance with the President's suggestion, I move that this subject be referred to the Legislative Committee, with the recommendation that it struggle with the problem.

The PRESIDENT: And formulate a bill.

Mr. ARTHUR LORD: Mr. President, may I add an amendment to Mr. Thayer's motion that the Committee report a bill if they deem it advisable, and that that bill and the reasons which lead them to reaching the conclusion be printed and sent to the members of the Association, so that the Association another year shall proceed upon some definite measure and the members will be advised as to the arguments.

Mr. ENSIGN: I second that amendment.

The PRESIDENT: It is moved and seconded that the Legislative Committee be requested to prepare such a bill as they would recommend for the consideration of the Association, and have it printed with the reasons for the change which they recommend, and to distribute it among the members of the Association.

The motion was put to vote and unanimously carried.

THE ANNUAL DINNER.

At the annual banquet Hon. Moorfield Storey was the toastmaster and the speakers were Hon. Arthur P. Rugg, Hon. Thomas J. Boynton, Hon. Roscoe Pound, and Hon. Leslie C. Cornish.

The address of Hon. Arthur P. Rugg follows:

ADDRESS OF CHIEF JUSTICE ARTHUR P. RUGG. Members of the Massachusetts Bar Association:

The warmth of your greeting shows me that I have not yet worn my welcome out. I accepted the invitation to speak on this occasion with many misgivings because of the very kind indulgence that you have shown me on several recent occasions.

Mr. President, permit me for a moment to lay aside the garb of guest and to assume that of host, and let me say to you, sir, and all the members of the Massachusetts Bar Association, that you are most welcome to this my home city and native county. We of the Worcester Bar esteem it a great honor that you have selected our city for this your annual meeting, and let me remind you that Worcester to the lawyer is no mean city. The traditions of the Bar of this city and county are of the rich heritage of the members of the Bar of the Commonwealth. Those of us who have practised in the Worcester Court House have learned to look to the elder Levi Lincoln, Attorney-General in the Cabinet of Jefferson, as the patriarch of our Bar. And then we have learned to look upon his son, the younger Levi Lincoln, a Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, Governor of the Commonwealth for a period longer than any of his predecessors or successors under the Constitution, and for nearly a generation dispensing a generous hospitality which was becoming a first citizen of the heart of the Commonwealth. And then the names of Thomas

and Merrick and of Senator John Davis, and the more recent Senator Hoar, are those to which not only the Bar of Worcester, but the Bar of the whole Commonwealth look with pride. And I mention these names in order that we may bear in mind that the lawyer of the old day of the Commonwealth was not merely a man learned in the law

he was, and was expected by his fellow-citizens to be, the leader in civic as well as in legal matters. This city of ours has become one of the great manufacturing centers of the Commonwealth and of the country, and it has grown through the sagacity and wisdom of men of business, assisted by most intelligent and skilled artisans, so that we have had in this community that fine correlative of members of the Bar not only observing the duties of their oaths of office, but observing that wider sphere of duty which every member of the Bar owes to the community in which he lives that he may establish a reputation of which his fellow-citizens will be proud, whether they be members of the Bar or not. And one sometimes feels that the criticism which comes to the administration of justice because we are all ministers of justice, members of the Bar no less than those of the judiciary one sometimes feels that the criticism upon the ministers of justice has its rise in part because we of the Bar have forgotten this wider obligation, this duty not only to be learned in the law, but to be pillars of strength in the community and standing for that which was highest and best in the civic and educational and political and religious life of the community, as well as in our own beaten path.

It

First, let me congratulate the members of the Massachusetts Bar Association on the admirable work which they have already done which their officers and committees. have already done in the brief period of its existence. seems to me that the report of the legislative committee which has been in the hands of all of us for a few days shows a very admirable grasp of an important function of a State Bar Association. One cannot read that report without understanding that the members of this Association realize that there are two functions of a State Bar Association respecting

legislation one, to formulate legislation, to discuss and prepare bills which shall render easier and more efficient the administration of justice; but there is also a second function scarcely less important, and that is to oppose the enactment of bills which ought never to become laws, and in this respect your committee, as is shown by its report, has done admirable service.

It is said that the members of the Bar owe it to the community to see to it that people should be taught the nature of the institutions under which they live. There is a further, and perhaps no less important and yet somewhat more circumscribed duty, which arises to us in Massachusetts. We sometimes wonder, as we read the comments upon the administration of justice, and upon the fabric of the law in newspapers, and hear intelligent discussion among our friends of that subject, if there is any appreciation that State lines still have some significance, and that the administration of justice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts may not necessarily have all the errors and all the misfortunes which can be garnered by industrious investigation of all the other States of the Union. One would imagine oftentimes in reading the extensive publicity which is given to a miscarriage of justice occurring in some other State, that Massachusetts lived under the same unfortunate state of law.

Now I want to ask your attention for a moment to what has been accomplished in a period of a quarter of a century in the amelioration and in the improvement of the fabric of the law of this Commonwealth. As we were sitting at table Mr. Storey asked me if our Court ever had any criminal cases to consider nowadays, and recalled the experience of his earlier days when an entire week was given during one, and perhaps more, of the sittings in Boston to the consideration of criminal cases. I think the year in which I was admitted to the Bar the last volume of the reports contained thirty-nine criminal cases, many of them for infractions of the liquor law. The last volume of the reports, which I examined with this end in view, which is within the last three or four volumes, had three criminal cases.

Now why is it? It is because the wisdom of the Massa