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The Green Bag
This prejudice of primitive man has long outlived its original causes and finds its illustration today in the jealousy of which the legal profession, together with all purely intellectual occu pations, is the subject. This feeling of jealous admiration is probably intensified by the fact that with the growing power of law in the evolution of society the mass of men, who are too often hostile to its res traints, dislike the lawyer because he pre-eminently stands for the enforce ment of law and the consequent limita tion of license. It was this consideration which doubtless led Jack Cade, as he summoned his riotous followers to re volt, to endorse the sentiment:— Let us kill all the lawyers first. This worthy demagogue was philo sophically correct, for if it is desired to destroy the fabric of human society, the natural beginning would be to kill those who stand as vigilant guards at its outer portals. These are and ever have been the men of the law. A recent illustra tion of this spirit of Jack Cadeism is given by the recent attack upon the Supreme Court by Mr. Samuel Gompers, who curiously asserted that the inherent vice of that court is that it is composed of lawyers, and that lawyers are too much swayed by prior decisions and by too great a regard for "vested interests." Again, there is an unconscious feeling in the community that the legal profes sion is parasitic in its nature. In an Utopian state of society there might be no occasion for lawyers. Similarly in a state of society where perfect health existed, as it theoretically should, there would be little occasion for doctors. In the interdependence of all classes and occu pations upon each other in our compli cated modern society, all classes are in a sense parasitic, but as the whole struc
ture of human society rests upon the administration of law, and justice is, as Webster said, "the supreme interest of man on earth," the legal profession is no more parasitic than any other. Another reason for this popular preju dice is the widespread and erroneous belief in the insincerity of the lawyer. No error is more persistent or wide spread than that which asserts that the lawyer will sell his voice to any client, however base, or to any cause, however bad. No question is more constantly asked of a lawyer than his ethical justi fication for defending a man whom he knows to be guilty. This question, like Banquo's ghost, will never down. I need not remind you of the trial of Courvoisier, the Swiss valet, who murdered his master, Lord William Russell, in 1840. During the course of his trial, his counsel, Mr. Phillips, learned that his client was guilty. He consulted one of the most eminent judges of England as to his duty, and was advised that he could not desert his client, and must continue to defend him by suggesting all considerations which the proved evi dence in the cause legitimately sug gested. The ethical question thus suggested has never been settled, and probably never will be settled to the satisfaction of most men. To discuss this mooted question ade quately would take more time than is at my command. Probably the answer to the moral enigma was never more tersely given than by Dr. Johnson in one of his ex-cathedra utterances. That very great and noble Judge, Sharswood, fully stated the ethical justification from a lawyer's standpoint, and he was a man of stain less integrity. It is enough to say that the question rarely if ever arises in the experience of the ordinary practitioner, and the reason for this is obvious. The great bulk of a lawyer's practice does
