4OO
THE GREEN BAG
profession itself and the fundamental func tion it is privileged to perform in the life of the community- Silent, subtle, almost irre sistible forces, so created, block the path to success for him who is merely smart. You may not recognize them. Nevertheless they are there. Let me tell you some of them. "The characteristic infirmity of smartness is that it is shortsighted. Otherwise, it would surely perceive how impossible it is, under conditions such as attend the perform ance of legal duties, to refrain indefinitely from showing what is the true ideal that dominates conduct. Acting in unexpected emergencies, swayed by strong and conflict ing emotion, given little time for reflection, intellectual foresight cannot anticipate even the legitimate effects of a given act. What the lawyer does must, in large meas ure, be intuitively done. This means that the actual man, exactly as he is, the sub conscious self, will stand revealed. Pre tence, assumption of high ideals not sincerely followed, shrivel under tests like these. In tellectual power is not unlike the sails of a vessel. They show and occasionally shine. They are a valuable part of the propelling force. Character more nearly resembles its ballast. In stress of weather, the su preme importance of the ballast is shown; when all depends upon its unostentatious, automatic action. However carefully the sails may have been trimmed, times must come when this hidden, unseen force, tug ging always for equilibrium and safety, alone determines whether the voyage shall end in the harbor or on the reef. And the vessel, my friend, or the legal practitioner, gets rating principally in accordance with performance under such conditions. "To advance, moreover, to high prizes of one's calling confidence of the court and of professional brethren is essential. How ever otherwise it may at times appear, most lawyers cherish the ideals of the profession. In attempting to dispense even-handed justice between man and man, regardless of
conditions, society reaches its highest moral level. It is seeking to discharge a Godlike function. When the professional indorse ment of men with these ideals goes out, it can only go to the man who has sought to make the administration of law efficient in the attainment of justice, to him who, as an officer of the court, has regarded him self as sharing with the judge the responsi bilities, honors, and privileges of a ministrant at the shrine of justice, and who has not smirched the white robe of his office. All this is not quite on the surface. ' Smart ness' readily may overlook it. "Then, again, in order to be thoroughly successful, the confidence of the community is required. Society intuitively recognizes that loyal obedience to the expressed will of the law-making power is the absolutely indispensable cement which alone, under a democratic form of government, holds to gether the social fabric. While it lays its grateful honors at the feet of him who pro motes just administration of law, it very properly recognizes that whoever, under any pretext whatever, seeks to prevent the plain operation of a plain law and lends intellec tual skill and acquired learning to the task, not only debases noble powers, but strikes at that foundation of mutual confidence and concession on which society and all its in stitutions, including his own profession, ul timately rests. All sane men feel that, by comparison with such an anarchist, the Russian type is a friend of the social order. "But the apple of Sodom that smartness is apt to bring you may have a yet more startling property. You think to retain, in any event, the confidence of those to whom you are selling. You feel that there may be risk in other respects. But you know that your clients, at least, will trust and respect you. It is a natural thought. Once more, you are mistaken. Loyalty, zeal, sagacity, or the like, all men respect. But the lawyer who ventures to sell these to perverted uses will be apt to find, as the last drop in the dregs of a cup of bitterness, the indifTerence
