The Legal World Monthly Analysis of Leading Events
The reassuring developments of the month are seen in the growing opposi tion to the recall of judges, and in the increasing strength of the movement for reform of procedure. The New York State Bar Association, at a special meeting in Albany, April 13, adopted resolutions condemning the judicial recall, and creating a committee to co-operate with the American Bar Association to the end that the principles involved in this revolutionary movement might be explained to the people. The Union League Club of New York unani mously adopted resolutions condemning the recall of judges as "dangerous and revolutionary," and in New York City a committee of twenty-five leading lawyers also formulated a plan for organizing the entire legal profession of the country for effective opposition to the agitation for the recall. Activity, however, has not been confined to New York State. The Ohio constitutional convention rejected the recall of judges proposal, after listening to arguments of William J. Bryan in its favor. In the reform of procedure, progress is visible in Missouri, notwithstanding the reactionary attitude of the Supreme Court of that state as shown by its willingness to quash indictments for purely technical defects. The Missouri Bar Association has received the report of one of its committees making numer ous recommendations for the improve ment of procedure. In Oregon the highest court is enforcing the constitu tional amendment which prohibits the
granting of appeals on merely technical grounds. In New York County, the new system of handling the call calendar has tended to diminish congestion in the courts. The cause of reform of legal procedure has taken a long step forward in the passage by the New Jersey Legislature of bills proposed by the Committee of the New Jersey State Bar Association upon improvement in the administration of justice. The most striking feature of the principal bill is its reduction of the procedure provisions of statute law to the small compass of thirty-two sections, leaving to the courts to regu late the details of practice by rules susceptible of amendment from time to time, as experience prompts. A pro visional set of rules, eighty-one in number, and of forms of pleading and other judicial documents, thirty-seven in number, accompany the bill. A depressing sign of the times is the failure of the general arbitration trea ties, which have again failed to receive the endorsement of the United States Senate. The treaties, in the mutilated form in which they have passed, no longer provide for the decision of a joint high commission on what issues are justiciable, but direct that the arbitrable differences shall not include questions which affect the admission of aliens into the United States, the ad mission of aliens to the educational institutions of the several states, the territorial integrity of the several states, or of the United States, the alleged in debtedness or moneyed obligation of any state of the United States, or any ques
