The American Bar Association In his opinion if constitutional and orderly government is to endure, the courts must set their faces against palpable violation of the Constitution, notwithstanding popular senti ment and seeming necessity, for the door once opened cannot then be closed to expediency and mere convenience. The provisions of the Constitution are not as casual as New Year's resolutions, but as old as the struggle for human liberty, and as eternal as anything in this mutable world; we do not outgrow them. The Consti tution did not make the Union, but saved it from destruction; the states are the body of the Union, but the Constitution is its soul. A SYMPOSIUM
The other papers presented at the convention were three in number, mak ing up a symposium on the general topic, "The American Judicial System," divided into three sub-topics, "The Judges," by Henry D. Estabrook, New York; "The Lawyers," Joseph C. France, Maryland, and "The Procedure," Fred erick N. Judson, Missouri. Mr. Estabrook's address was full of humor, but had some serious reflections on the recall of judges, and contained a warning to lawyers and judges to heed the fact that the people are clamoring for their rights and not technicalities in courts of justice. Joseph C. France of Baltimore in his address said: "In popular speech and literature the lawyer is standing at the bar of public opinion — on the defen sive. The season's crop of addresses touching our ethical obligations is already large, and the situation demands respectful attention." He favored rais ing the standard of admission to the bar and thus helping to keep unworthy men out of the profession. DEMOCRATIZATION OF THE COURTS In the third paper of this symposium, Mr. Judson, discussing procedure, said in part : — This deplorable inadequacy of our judicial system, which is so sharply contrasted with
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that of other countries, has been developed, at least in the state courts of the United States, during a period of legislative activity which has been directed against the common law independence of the judges and has resulted in effectively limiting their power. It has been a period of a progressive democratization of the courts, which apparently has not yet ended. In the great majority of the states, judges of the state courts are nominated and elected by the people. Three of the states have adopted the principle of direct judicial recall, so that the judges who make unpopular decisions can be summarily removed from office by popular vote. In many states, the judges are subject to a recall hardly less effective, by the short judicial terms which require them to submit to the judgment of the voters at frequent intervals. This is the judicial procedure which has proven inadequate for the demands of a busy commercial age, and has resulted in congestion in the appel late courts of many of the states, which has caused delays which are in effect a practical denial of justice. The instructive and impres sive conclusion which we must draw from this consideration is that the only effective remedy for this deplorable situation is the vesting of a larger discretion in the judges, so that they may disregard technicalities, regulate the rules of procedure, and inaugurate a reform of the anomalies of our archaic rules of evidence. We must, therefore, retrace our steps, and vest not less, but more independence in our judges. COMMITTEE REPORTS
Important reports were received from the committees on Remedies for the Law's Delays, Jurisprudence and Law Re form, Patents and Trademarks, Judicial Salaries, Government Liens on Real Estate, Workmen's Compensation, Law Reporting and Digesting, Commercial Law, Insurance, and Uniform State Laws. To show at a glance what was done this year the action on these matters and the other business trans acted, are summarized below under separate headings. The Comparative Law Bureau reported that the translation of the Swiss Civil Code of January 1, 1912, by Robert P. Schick and Charles Wetherill, of the edi
