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THE

TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING

WILL BE HELD AT

NARRAGANSETT PIER, RHODE ISLAND,

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,

August 23, 24 and 25, 1905.

TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING

OF THE

American Bar Association,

HELD AT

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI,

SEPTEMBER 26, 27 AND 28, 1904.

Monday, September 26, 1904.

The Twenty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association convened at Festival Hall, in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition grounds, at St. Louis, Missouri, on Monday, September 26, 1904, at 10 A. М.

The meeting was called to order by Francis Rawle, of Pennsylvania, the last President, who introduced the President, James Hagerman, of Missouri, who then took the chair. The President:

Gentlemen of the American Bar Association: We are in a territory now which is ruled by a mild and beneficent ruler. He is known around the world for his achievements and his worth. We of the West have an especial interest in him, for we believe that he is the representative, if not the incarnation, of the spirit which acquired, which has developed and which will preserve and transmit the Louisiana Purchase and the states which have been carved and are to be carved out of it. It gives me more than ordinary pleasure to present to you Honorable David R. Francis, President of the Universal Exposition.

David R. Francis, of Missouri:

Mr. President and Members of the American Bar Association: It is my pleasure and my very great honor on behalf of the Exposition management to extend to the members of this Association a cordial greeting. You need no assurance from the President of the Exposition to convince you that you are welcome within these grounds and that the Exposition Company feels honored by your presence. The International Congress of Arts and Science, which has just adjourned, followed an International Congress of Parliaments, or Inter-Parliamentary Union, to promote international arbitration. It is highly proper, therefore, that those two representative and international assemblies should be followed by an international meeting of lawyers and jurists. That the principles of law which have prevailed for so many centuries are the foundation of society lawyers need not be told, but if it had not been for those principles this Exposition could never have been held. We therefore, I say, feel under obligations to you for making these grounds the scene of your reunion of 1904. When we first extended an invitation to you to hold an annual meeting in St. Louis we were under the impression that this Exposition would be held in 1903. When it was postponed a year and you very kindly consented to change the date of your meeting in St. Louis from 1903 to 1904, you placed us under additional obligations.

Speaking for myself personally, I have the highest respect for the fraternity represented in this hall. It was the earliest ambition of my youth to be a lawyer myself, and it has been a constant source of regret to me for the last thirty-five years that I was unable to realize that ambition; and when a few days ago some one asked me what occupation I would take up at the end of this Exposition I was prompted to say that if not too old I would take up the study of the law. In such respect do I hold your profession.

I shall not detain you on this occasion by dwelling upon the extent of this Exposition by even mentioning the spirit that inspired its plan and scope. Suffice it to say that we who have been engaged in the work from its inception, and it dates back six years, have had many difficulties with which to contend, many obstacles to overcome. We have never been discouraged and never until within the past few weeks have we begun to realize the fruition of our hopes. When we see that this Exposition, in addition to assembling examples of the best products of all civilized countries on the globe, is made the occasion for bringing together such representative assemblages as are now in this hall, we feel that all of our labor, all of the expenditure of treasure and of time and all of the sacrifice, if any, that we have made are amply compensated for.

The management expresses the hope that your deliberations may be prolonged to the greatest extent possible in order that the Exposition may have the advantage of the presence of so distinguished and so representative a body of men. It expresses the hope also that you may find time between the deliberations of your Association to view some of the objects of interest around these grounds, and it also cherishes the hope that this meeting of representative lawyers from all sections of this country, to be followed as it will be by the International Congress of Lawyers and Jurists, may have the effect of cementing still more closely not only all sections of our country, but all the countries participating in these congresses and all the countries participating in this Exposition.

I greet you on behalf of the management and again say to you, You are thrice welcome.

The President:

In the universe of Bar Associations our American Bar Association claims to be the central sun and our State Bar Associations are the fixed stars of varying magnitude. The Missouri Bar Association, one of our fixed stars (as Missourians think, of large magnitude) is here in the person of its President to speak to you. I have the pleasure of introducing Mr. John D. Lawson, President of the Missouri Bar Association.

John D. Lawson, of Missouri:

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the American Bar Association: As the representative of the Bar Association of the state in whose chief city you have wisely decided to hold your meeting this year, I bid you a cordial and hearty welcome.

In addressing your President, it is an easy task for me, for it is a Missouri lawyer addressing a Missouri lawyer. Looking back from President James Hagerman along the long line of distinguished men who have held the chief office in your Association, there is at the very end of that line the name of another eminent citizen, statesman and lawyer of Missouri, James O. Broadhead, whom at your first meeting you chose as your first President, and whose name is still tenderly cherished by layman and lawyer throughout this state. And of those. of your members whose faces we saw and whose voices we heard last year, but who since then have gone over to the great majority, there is none who will be more missed among you to-day than Seymour D. Thompson, who was a member of our Bar for many years, a judge of our Appellate Court for twelve years, whose great legal treatises were written here, and from this city is issued the Law Review, through which he spoke to you.

It is not for me (for others can do it far better) to describe to you this great state, the fifth in population in the union, or the history of its development, its resources, its trade and commerce and what it has accomplished in literature, in science and in art. The State of Missouri, as one of its exhibits, has published an extensive volume in which these subjects are treated by a number of specialists, and a copy of this book is yours for the asking.

At many of your annual meetings you have been entertained by the Bar of the state or city in which you met. Now that you have been brought within the splendid and princely hospitality which the President and officers of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition dispense, there is not much left for us to do. But to show you our good intentions I cordially invite you to

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