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tribution of Property. The practicing lawyer knows better how to handle the working tools of his profession after reading Biddle on Proper Mode of Trial, Russell on the Delay and Uncertainty of Courts, Taft on the Federal Judiciary, and Choate on Trial by Jury.

In the ninety-four papers that have been read by notable. members of the Bar, before the Association in its open sessions and before the Sections of Legal Education and Patent Law, every conceivable branch of the law, in its ethics, its philosophy, its policy and its practice, has been discussed. The evolution of jurisprudence, its relation to social science, the opportunity for its development and its future; the limitations and requirements of legal education, the best training for the lawyer, his rights, responsibilities and duties to his client, the public and himself; the powers of Congress, the limitations of legislative functions, the partition of powers between the Federal and State governments and the prevention of defective and slipshod legislation; the national and local judicial systems, the decisions of the courts and the great dissenting opinions; the important questions incident to public, municipal and private corporations, contracts, bankruptcy, patents, elections, treaties, inter-state commerce, injunctions, trusts, strikes, extradition, habeas corpus, crimes-all these have received comment, based upon much investigation and mature judgment, derived from practical knowledge.

But the Association has not rested content with mere theorizing. It has profited by the teaching of the leaders of thought and brought about many of the reforms so ably advocated.

In an address delivered in 1895 that able Jurist, Mr. Justice Brewer, seeking for the methods by which our profession should maintain its prominence and continue to lead and direct that social organism or "association of all individuals whose mingled labors have achieved the present and will work out the future of human life and destiny," said: "A better education is the great need and the most important reform. The

door of admission to the bar must swing on reluctant hinges, and only he be permitted to pass through, who has by continued and patient study, fitted himself for the work of a safe counselor and the place of a leader." Rapid strides have been made toward the accomplishment of the desires of the learned Justice since he wrote the words quoted.

Our Section of Legal Education has displayed an activity and persistence that has brought about a more thorough system of instruction, a higher standard in our law schools, a more careful scrutiny of the capacity of applicants for admission, the creation of State Boards of Examiners and a near approach to uniformity of the statutes governing those who would enroll themselves as lawyers.

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Mr. Choate says that the result has challenged the admiration of jurists everywhere and declares that "this development of professional education and training is the best fruit yet born from the careful studies and labors of the Association." Much has been said of the advisability and the many benefits derivable from uniformity of statutes among the states. cannot over-estimate the importance of uniform laws upon matters incident to commercial law, such as acts relating to negotiable instruments and bills of exchange, concerning days of grace and the collection of debts. If the laws relating to deeds, wills, and descent, were alike the country over, the best legislation surviving, how much of needless, expensive and troublesome litigation would be saved.

It has been truly said "like mindedness is the cause of all social stability." The instability of the relation of marriage, the frauds perpetrated upon non-resident defendants and upon the courts, the destruction of domestic happiness and the misery to children, incident to the present diversity of divorce laws in the states, need not be dilated upon. A uniform divorce law would help to maintain and sanctify that safeguard of American life-the home.

Although much has been done by the Association through. the medium of the Conference of the State Commissions on

Uniform State Laws, which have their being in thirty-two states, there is much yet to be done. The Negotiable Instrument Act framed by our committee and recommended by the Commissioners is already the law, by Act of Congress, in the District of Columbia and in fifteen of the states and has received favorable recommendation in many others, and on many other lines of legislation, enactments of substantial uniformity obtain.

The Committee on Law Reporting and Digesting made a valuable report in 1898 calling the attention of the Bench and Bar to some of the evils of our present system of reporting the decisions of the higher courts. The profession is over-burdened with books of reports and the present system, or rather lack of system, in digesting, needs the reforms suggested by the committee. The duplication of matters decided, so unnecessary and burdensome, the absence of uniformity, so confusing and time-wasting, the multiplicity of cases, so needless and trying, and the length of many of the opinions rendered, are all matters needing the reforms suggested. Certainly all can heartily agree with the suggestion of the committee in its last report, that "it would be a relief to the profession if judges would refrain from writing long discussions of questions of law that are well settled and from making long quotations from former opinions and numerous citations in support of conclusions on which there is no difference of opinion."

A move in the right direction, reaching to uniformity and preventing confusion, has been adopted, by rules of court in some states and by statute in others, by which cases on appeal shall retain the title of the case below without reversing the order of names and that the name of the plaintiff below should be the first in order.

The Committee on Commercial Law has labored with success in bringing about important changes in the statutes. Its deliberations and conclusions in regard to the Bankrupt Law have been of great value and met with the general approval of the mercantile community. The Attorney General of the United

States has quoted from the report extensively and with unqualified commendation and it has been the basis of much remedial legislation. We are gratified to know that another report from the committee on the important subject of the Bankrupt Law can be expected at this annual meeting.

The Committee on International Law was charged with the duty of bringing the work of the Conference at the Hague, held in the year 1899, to the attention of the President and the Senate, and urge that such steps be taken as might be proper to bring about the adjustment of controversies between nations, through the medium of international arbitration. The committee supplemented its years of laborious effort to bring about the reign of peace by successfully accomplishing the wish of the Association.

In the address of the acting President last year much time was devoted to the effort made by the representatives of twentysix of the nations of the world, who met on the invitation of the Czar of Russia, to bring about the disarmament of Europe, the maintenance of general peace and find means for avoiding the calamities which menace the entire world. The hope was expressed "that the powers might gradually be brought together, in a friendly spirit, on all subjects of difference that may arise, until at last they shall be welded together in some international constitution, which shall give to the world, as the result of their great strength, a long spell of unfettered commerce, prosperous trade and continued peace." With this expression of the hope there was the declared fear that the period when nations would war no more was probably far in the dim and distant future and that "national jealousies, commercial competition, desire for expansion, imperialistic ideas, would not down while men, combatting individually for supremacy, give to the state the same combative instincts and desire for advancing power."

Sad to say, the Hague Conference that seemed to be the rainbow of promise, appeared rather to be the signal for increased armies instead of disarmament, and renewed activity

in preparation for conflict. Within the present year every European power whether at peace or war (save Italy suffering from poverty induced by an army already too large) has increased its war budget by millions of money and the number of its troops by thousands of men: France 5,000; Germany 33,000; Austria-Hungary 10,000, and Great Britain, because of the trouble in South Africa, 240,000.

War is in the air. Our own Republic, with its comparatively small army of 65,000 regulars and 35,000 volunteers, is combatting armed resistance to our lawful and legitimate. sovereignty in the Philippine Islands and seeks to establish there that self-government which "insures domestic tranquility" and an orderly condition that will preserve life, guard liberty and permit the pursuit of happiness. At the same time we have an armed force in China, acting in united effort with the European powers and Japan in the policing of that ancient Empire and attempting to bring about the protection of persons and property, the sustaining of law and order, the safety of our accredited Minister and the members of the Legation and the maintaining of treaty obligations voluntarily assumed.

Great Britain with her army of over 500,000, is using the greater part in her unfortunate conflict with the Boers. Africa and Asia are witnesses of bloody conflicts and Europe, trembling with anxiety, fears that her domestic peace may be disturbed and Moloch reign.

But let us not despair. Even if the evolution of perpetual peace seems farther off than a year ago still there is much that can be done by our committee and by the Association in mitigating the horrors of war and to humanize some of its brutality.

I have thought it well at this close of an eventful century and the beginning of another, which bids fair to be one of still greater progress for the best good of mankind, to state, with, I fear, tiresome detail, the purposes of the American Bar Association and its accomplishments, so that not only the profession but the general public might judge of us by our works

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