Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/289

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The Green Bagt

lawyer to relinquish the partisan role of advocate and rise to the impartial duties of a judge. It also demonstrates that the qualities of intellect and tempera ment necessary for success in these respective callings are not incompatible. It is clear that Justice Moody will not judicially uphold the doctrine of sovereign and inherent power in the nation apart from constitutional grant,

The Kansas

for which he contended as AttorneyGeneral in Kansas v. Colorado. He will safeguard the autonomy of the states, and preserve the separate sovereignty of the governments, state and federal, maintaining the jurisdiction of the states over the areas of governmental power unceded to national authority. Justice Moody's appointment is more than justi fied. Palmam qui meruit, ferat.

Revised Code of Civil Procedure

By Stephen H. Allen, of the Topeka Bar

THE Kansas Legislature of 1909 passed, without many changes, the Revised Code of Civil Procedure, which had been prepared by a committee of the State Bar Association. At the annual meeting in 1906 the Kansas State Bar Association adopted a resolution for the appointment of a committee, "to report a general revision of the Code of Civil Procedure, eliminating as far as practicable all arbitrary rules which tend to delay the disposition of causes, deter mine them otherwise than on their merits, occasion unnecessary cost or in convenience or require successive trials of the same issue." Pursuant to this resolution a committee of five was ap pointed, which prepared a bill that was introduced at the session of 1907. It was found impracticable to act on this bill, owing to the lateness of its intro duction. At the annual meeting of the association in 1908 the membership of the committee was increased from five

to twelve, and the whole work was again carefully revised and many further changes were made. The general pur pose of the revision is expressed in the resolution above quoted. In recent years there has been a marked tendency to obstruct the pro gress of causes in the courts by technical motions, demurrers and other dilatory tactics through which defendants not only gain delay, but seek to inject re versible error into the record, so that a judgment for the plaintiff will be barren of substantial advantage. Certain pro visions common to most of the codes were found to afford the basis for most of these practices, but the committee were not content with the mere abro gation of a few useless arbitrary rules of procedure. They perceived that the whole theory on which causes are con sidered on petitions in error by the Supreme Court is burdensome and un just to litigants. Instead of the rights