REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME LAW. To The American Bar Association: The Committee on Admiralty and Maritime Law begs leave to report as follows: 1. The bill permitting appeals from interlocutory decrees in admiralty, which was inadvertently repealed at the last session, after it had been in force only three months, was reintroduced in the present Congress and has become a law. 2. In accordance with the resolution adopted at the last meeting of the Association, authorizing the Committee on Commerce, Trade and Commercial Law to prepare a bill providing that in cases of collision through the fault of two or more vessels damages shall be apportioned according to the degree of fault, our committee submitted to the Committee on Commerce, Trade and Commercial Law a draft bill which has been endorsed and approved by that committee. (For text of bill see Appendix B, of Report of Committee on Commerce, Trade and Commercial Law.) CHARLES C. BURLINGHAM, Chairman. GEORGE WEEMS WILLIAMS, JOSEPH W. HENDERSON, GEORGE H. TERRIBERRY, CHARLES S. CUSHING. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. To The American Bar Association: Your committee begs to express its thanks for the generous support given to it by the Executive Committee of the Association. The Association's means are limited, its activities many, but our appropriation has been liberal and the cooperation and support of the governing body of the Association is deeply appreciated. We desire to thank individually each member of the citizenship committees of the state bar associations, nearly one thousand in number, and the many members of this Association, not directly connected with these committees for their cordial and zealous cooperation in our work, without which our efforts would have been futile. They have responded to every call, spent their money in distributing our literature and given generously of their time. One of the most hopeful signs that we note in our work is the growing interest and cooperation of the members of the Bar generally in this work. May we not hope for a time when each member of the Association by virtue of that membership shall consider himself ex-officio a member of this committee? Responding to a general demand for literature on the Constitution, this committee has resumed the publication of pamphlets connected with the work. In the past nine months the committee has printed 85,000 pamphlets of which 75,000 have been distributed. These consist of 10,000 "Suggestions for Thanksgiving" directed to the clergy, requesting that among the manifold blessings which our people enjoy they refer to the Constitution as one of the most important and worthy of gratitude. We have reason to believe that following these suggestions thousands of ministers from the pulpit called the attention of hundreds of thousands of worshippers to the blessings of our form of government and invoked their appreciation for its enjoyment. Five thousand copies of "The Story of the Constitution " were printed, as there is a steady demand for this pamphlet. Noting the resurgence of interest in the Father of his Country the committee issued a pamphlet entitled "The Real George Washington." The demand for it denoted the growing interest in the greatest figure of our country, if not of all time. We had requests for more than 60,000, of which we were able to furnish only 30,000; these were used as texts for addresses, for reading to societies like the Daughters of the American Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, and the great commercial and fraternal bodies. Mr. Marvel, last year's Chairman, had prepared a small pamphlet copy of "The Declaration of Independence and Constitution." This was so popular that at his suggestion it was reissued with an introduction explaining the principles of the Declaration and our form of government. The demand for it, which is steadily increasing, has led to the printing of 40,000 copies, of which nearly all have been circulated. May we call your attention here to a fact perhaps not sufficiently noted. To a large extent the activities of this Association are by lawyers and for lawyers, to make our occupation less laborious or more gainful. This is perhaps the most completely altruistic gesture of this Association. The work of this committee and the generous expenditure of Association funds can yield us nothing in return save satisfaction in the fact that we are fulfilling that obligation that we took to support the Constitution of the United States and are taking, as we should, the lead in the constantly accelerating movement for the "restoration of the Constitution in the hearts and minds of the people." As these pamphlets go out under the imprint and superscription of this committee and the Association, the people are advised of our unselfish efforts towards better citizenship. They are beginning to appreciate that The American Bar Association is not merely a selfish instrumentality, but a great patriotic institution, taking the lead in what is now the most important work in our country. The report of this committee to the Association at its Philadelphia meeting in 1924 was pessimistic in tone; it painted in somewhat gloomy colors the great mass of ignorance regarding our Constitution and the profound apathy and indifference in the minds of most of our citizens as to our form of government and its benefits. We are happy to color this report with a brighter tinge, to speak with far greater optimism. We believe the work of this Association largely helped to arouse that growing interest in the Constitution which must be apparent to all of you. The work of the eleven hundred great patriotic newspapers conducting the oratorical contests each year has been overwhelmingly the largest element in this interest. Each year now the high schools are turning out more than a million and a half of young people who are thoroughly educated in the Constitution, and undoubtedly the interest spreads to others not directly engaged in the competition. The great civic bodies like the chambers of commerce, the Rotary Clubs, and others, and patriotic and fraternal organizations are joining in the work. It is easily true that there is more interest in and more discussion of the Constitution today than there has been within the memory of living men and this is all that is needed, for to study, to learn and to know the Constitution is to support and defend it. Your committee in April instituted a series of radio addresses on the Constitution, consisting of speeches each evening for six consecutive evenings from the broadcasting stations at New York, Chicago, Louisville, San Francisco and Los Angeles. These addresses by distinguished members of the profession, able, concise and illuminating, reached millions of hearers. They were reprinted in full each day by the papers furthering the oratorical contests, which in an aggregate reached more than five million readers. The appreciation of these addresses is another proof of the intensity of the growing interest in this work. One thing that was laid before the Association in the report of 1924 we desire to reiterate with even more emphasis and that is, that the law schools of this country are not teaching the Constitution. It is ironical, to say the least, that mainly through the efforts of lawyers the Constitution is now being taught in the schools of forty states and the teachers themselves compelled, as a qualification, to pass a rigid examination upon the Constitution, while lawyers are being graduated from our law schools by the thousands who have little knowledge of the Constitution, its origin, its history, its background, the peculiar nature of our government, its dual form and the vital need for the preservation of the equilibrium between the federal and the state governments. We have examined with care the courses of study of the leading law schools of the country. They teach by decided cases something about the contract clause, interstate commerce, the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments; in other words, they teach the commercial aspects of the Constitution from which the lawyer may make money, but not the essentials; they do not inspire the student with that high regard for the instrument essential if the lawyer is to be himself what he should be-a teacher of the Constitution in his own community. Few, if any, of them have any adequate reference libraries on the Constitution, most of them consist merely of sketches or essays evidently given to the schools and about as valuable as a patent office report. As a result, when the Rotary Club or the chamber of commerce or any of these great organizations seek a lawyer to instruct them on the Constitution they find it nearly impossible to secure one competent. In seeking speakers for the radio addresses many distinguished lawyers frankly admitted that they were incompetent to talk to the people upon that subject. It would seem that it should occur to the law schools of the country that a lawyer should know at least as much about the fundamental instrument of his government as he does of the law of torts or domestic relations. There is but one way to reach the law schools and enforce the study of the Constitution there and that is through the boards of law examiners which are under the control of the lawyers. We urge upon the members of this Association, individually and collectively, that they see to it that their boards of examiners, however constituted, impose a strict examination upon the fundamentals of the Constitution, its distinctions and its merits, as one of the requirements of admission to our profession. The demand for instruction in the Constitution is widespread, growing most hopefully; and the need for it urgent. The menace of Bolshevism is passed, the recall of judicial decisions is as dead as the belief in witchcraft. The demand that Congress be set in authority above the Constitution and the Supreme Court as the final interpreter was decisively and overwhelmingly vetoed at the last election. The immediate imminent danger recognized by lawyers everywhere is centralization, the destruction of local self-government and individual liberty. The political object of mankind throughout the ages has been to reconcile government and liberty; to provide a strong and efficient government that shall yet preserve the natural rights, the freedom of man. Nowhere in history has that reconcilement been so nearly approached as in this country from the time that Marshall's decisions established the federal government as a true national power. The Civil War amendments for a time threatened the equilibrium between the federal government and the states, but the Slaughterhouse cases restored it. It is probable that the constitutional historian a hundred years from now will regard the period from the Slaughter-house decisions to the beginning of the Great War as the golden age of American government. The federal government was strong for every purpose, respected abroad and as efficient as any Democratic government can ever be. The old robust independence of the states, with local selfgovernment, was intact; the people cherished and guarded their liberties set down in the bills of rights, state and national, and the courts were zealous to maintain them without diminution or abatement. The great war centralized enormous powers in Washington and created a great bureaucracy, and people, for the time being, |