and obtain a fair estimate of what may yet be wrought in the • future.

OBITUARIES.

Our roll of the honored and noble dead increases with the

passing years.

In the address of the Acting President delivered last year, it was his sad duty to comment upon the death, during the preceding year, of a number of members of the Association and to refer to the chief incidents in the lives of those who were the most prominent and the best known to the country.

Among them was one who had served a long time in the Senate of the United States, was Secretary of State and Ambassador to the Court of St. James; another, who, after a distinguished service in the Senate, added, as Attorney General of the United States, to his fame and won new laurels, after retirement to private life, in the active practice of his profession; a third, after a career of renown upon the highest bench of his state, was called to the Supreme Court of the Republic and remained there, to its great advantage, for nearly thirty-five years; a fourth was an able lawyer, an accomplished author and an ex-President of our Association.

Judges, diplomatists, senators: they were leaders all. Truly, "death loves a shining mark."

Of the twenty-two Presidents who have served as the Heads of this national organization, eleven have joined the great majority. The roll of living members of the American Bar Association is a lengthy one. A list of those who have left us would be much longer and bring to us saddening memories of the past.

On March 9th, 1900, the end of life came to

EDWARD JOHN PHELPS,

our third President. His career as lawyer, educator, and public official, was one of distinguished service to his State and country.

Born July 11th, 1822, and receiving the solid and substantial training of the New England schools of his early days, he was soon sought out by those needing the professional services of a man learned in the law. After an active practice of ten years he became the Second Comptroller of the government treasury, winning reputation by the soundness of his opinions. He was a member of the Constitutional Commission of Vermont in 1870, was professor of law in Yale College, his lectures showing great learning, and in 1885 was appointed by President Cleveland as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain.

To whatever position he was called he filled it to its utmost capacity. No lawyer in the Eastern states was connected during the last half century with more important cases than Mr. Phelps. His last valuable public service was as counsel for the United States, in 1893, in the Bering Sea tribunal, when his advocacy of the interests of his client was a prime factor. A political opponent says of him, "he was first of all an American, whose patriotism was never under suspicion and who honored his country not by declaiming, but by exemplifying its highest virtues."

WILLIAM CROWNINSHIELD ENDICOTT,

another distinguished son of New England, born November 26th, 1826, at Salem, Massachusetts, died in Boston, May 9th, 1900.

He was a lineal descendant of colonial Governor John Endicott. Called to the bar in 1850, he soon had a large practice which he abandoned in 1873, to accept an appointment as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. He remained on the bench until 1882, when he resigned. the candidate of the minority party to which he belonged three times for Attorney General and once for Governor. He held the portfolio of the War Office during the first term of President Cleveland.

He was

Of ripe scholarship, a sound lawyer, and possessed of excellent executive ability, he commanded the respect of all with whom he dealt, as his gentle nature won the affection and esteem of all associates.

Those of us who were in Buffalo last year remember with delight the warm words of welcome of the leading lawyer of that city,

SHERMAN SKINNER ROGERS.

His modest demeanor, earnest but quiet eloquence, and impressive manner, all evidencing a reserve power equal to any emergency, showed him to be the natural leader of his fellows. He had practiced his profession in its fore-front since 1854 and no man was more closely allied to the great interests of Western New York.

He had been a member of the Constitutional Convention of the state; a Senator in the New York Legislature; Commissioner of the Niagara Falls Reservation and president for many years of the Reform Association of the beautiful city of his home.

He, too, has passed away, leaving a fragrant memory.

"All heads must come

To the cold tomb

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust."

America mourned with England when there came the sad news that

LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN,

Lord Chief Justice of England, had been smitten by the hand of death. Those of us who had the good fortune to be present at the meeting of the Association in 1896 remember the pleasure with which we heard his eloquent address on "International Law and Arbitration" and all were charmed with the delightful personality of this great jurist. He truthfully said that he did not feel a stranger amongst us and that we did

not regard him as a stranger. He spoke of Englishmen and Americans as speaking the same language; as administering laws based upon the same juridical conceptions; as co-heirs in the rich traditions of political freedom long established, and as enjoying in common a literature, the noblest and purest the world has known. 66 Beyond this," he said "the unseen 'crimson thread' of kinship, stretching from the mother Islands to your great Continent unites us, and reminds us also that we belong to the same, though a mixed racial family combining at once territorial dominion, political influence and intellectual force greater than History records in the case of any other people."

*

The voice of the matchless orator will be heard never again, but the great principles for which he contended have made rapid advances because of his mighty advocacy.

Fitting tribute will, I hope, be paid at this meeting to the memory of him whose fame was confined to the limits of no country, but extended the civilized world over.

STATE BAR ASSOCIATIONS.

We are pleased to note a constant increase in the number and a strengthening of the influence and power of the Bar Associations in states, judicial districts, counties and towns.

Nearly three hundred have reported their existence to our Secretary. They are the bulwark of professional ethics and the safeguard of our calling, having as their chief purpose the public good. They have elevated the standard of qualifications for admission to the bar, prompted the revision and perfection of codes, reformed many defective statutes, brought about uniformity in many laws, aided the more perfect administration of justice and added to the literature of the country much matter to enlighten and to elevate.

I repeat the recommendation of one year ago that steps should be taken to bring the Bar Associations of the states in closer affiliation with that of the Nation.

JOHN MARSHALL DAY.

A year ago the Illinois State Bar Association presented a resolution to the American Bar Association proposing that February 4th, 1901, being the one hundredth anniversary of the day when the great Chief Justice took his seat in the Supreme Court of the United States, should be appropriately observed by the courts, the bar and the people and that suitable ceremonies take form and place, commemorative of the great national event.

Our Association favored this laudable project and a committee of fifty-one was appointed, of which the Honorable William Wirt Howe is Chairman, charged with the duty of publishing an address to the legal profession of the United States and of preparing suggestions for the observance of the day. The committee was given full power to act and it has acted by publishing an admirable address in which it declares this "soldier, student, advocate, diplomatist, statesman and jurist was one of the finest types of American manhood in its best estate" and declares most truthfully that "his fame is the heritage of the Nation."

It is proposed that commemoration services be held at the national capitol under the direction of the Supreme Court, with the aid and support of the President and the Congress. It is also suggested that on that day judicial business cease and that state, city and county Bar Associations participate in proper exercises and that similar ceremonies be held in all American colleges, law and public schools, "to the end that the youth of our country may be made more fully acquainted with Marshall's noble life and distinguished services."

These ceremonials, properly conducted, will be educational and give to the youth of the land fresh impulses of patriotism and a higher appreciation of the master mind that found the constitution of the Republic "paper and made it power," that in construing its meaning gave vital force and sustaining energy to its terms and "showed, beyond all possibility of doubt, that