The American Institute of Criminal Law advanced by those negroes who could stand the tests proposed, and there is not a Southern state in which negroes may not practice the profession in the courts. . . . Because three colored men or three thousand have duly qualified under the rules for admission to the American Bar Association, does it follow that the mental and psychical equality of the negro must be admitted? Because colored men
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have proved themselves good soldiers, able captains, logical speakers, learned scholars, acceptable writers, preachers, statesmen and citizens of repute, does it follow that the negro race is to be accepted as equal, even in its possi bilities, to the Caucasian brotherhood? The question should answer itself, but it is well to repeat that answer as long as there is need of its iteration.
The Meeting of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology THE fourth annual meeting of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology was held jointly with the Wisconsin branch of the same organization in Milwaukee Aug. 29-31, with Chief Justice John B. Winslow of Wisconsin, president of the Institute, in the chair. The chief papers presented were the president's address, the annual address, delivered by Hon. Franklin L. Randall of Minnesota, and the address of Judge Alexander H. Reid, president of the Wisconsin branch. The com mittee reports received were more num erous than those presented at the pre ceding sessions of the American Bar Association, and the six sessions were largely given up to discussion of these significant reports. In opening the meeting, Governor McGovern of Wisconsin referred to the failure of the price received by the state from contractors for the convict labor at Waupun to pay the expenses to which the state is subjected for the mainte nance of the convicts. The best fea ture of the system, he said, is that it gives the convicts employment; but he felt confident that their labors should produce a greater revenue to the state
and should be diverted to a direction in which convicts might acquire skill that would enable them to find employ ment outside the prison after the ex piration of their terms. Chief Justice Winslow emphasized the fact that the most significant char acteristics of modern civilization are the great movements for universal edu cation, for more complete democracy in government and for more perfect social service. He classed the work of the Institute as social service of the highest type. The hopes of the Institute regarding the social service it should render he described as follows: — It hopes to make the administration of the law simple, the results certain, prompt and just, and mere useless delays impossible, remember ing at the same time that speed is only desirable when it is accompanied by justice; it hopes to permanently remove from contact with society the confirmed criminal and the moral degenerate, and ultimately to eliminate the criminal class; it hopes to abolish the practical seminaries of crime now existing in the penal institutions where all classes of criminals are indiscriminately massed together; it hopes by the wise use of the parole and probation system to make reform of first offenders the rule and not the exception; it hopes to apply scientific methods to abnormal
