antecedent legislation or enactment as new legislation of any of the matter in the code. In other words, if the amendment was adopted and the enactment of the bill as amended followed, the code would be evidential of the statutory law of the United States from 1789 to date, but would not operate to work a repeal of any of these laws.

That if an act was actually in force on the 7th day of December, 1925, but was omitted from this compilation, its validity would not be affected; it would be the law notwithstanding its omission from the code.

That if an act was placed in the compilation, but was not in force on that day and was wrongfully put in by the codifiers under the belief that it was the law, the amendment, if enacted, would not give this act any validity whatever; it would be a dead letter although it appeared expressly in the code.

The discussion appeared to remove all doubts in the minds of the hesitating Senators and the bill as amended was passed by the Senate without a dissenting vote.

On the next day the bill as thus amended in the Senate came back to the House, being reported by Mr. Roy Fitzgerald, of Ohio. Here again the discussion turned on the effect of the amendment. And here also the bill as amended met with approval. It passed the House late in the afternoon of Saturday, June 26, 1926.

In both the Senate and the House the hesitation was not through some fear of lack of care or skill on the part of the two great publishing houses which have cooperated in such fine spirit with the Senate and the House Committee. Rather the fear was that in a bill of such stupendous size it was humanly impossible to avoid mistakes.

The result as reached is not a code in the strict sense of that term; rather, it is an anticipatory code. Its value lies chiefly in this fact, as was brought out in the discussion in the House. The bill as an evidential code encourages continuous effort on the part of Congress, at each session of Congress, to improve one or more titles of the Code with such changes as experience or investigation has discovered. And the bill as adopted in both Houses has been intentionally framed to permit of these changes from session to session without disarranging either the chapter or the section numbers in the bill. Thus, it was suggested from the floor of the House that the Committee on codification of the laws should continue their work at every session of Congress. And the sug gestion was met by the Chairman of the House Committee with the remark that this very thing was the desire and the hope of the committee.

Your committee is of the opinion that the work which has thus been accomplished, and the spirit in which it has been accomplished give promise of great good. It may mark the beginning

of a steady forward movement in improving the statutory law of the United States. They believe that it would be desirable to have the Committee on the Revision of Statutes re-appointed from year to year by The American Bar Association with a view to encouraging active cooperation with the committees having the same mission in Congress and possibly committees of a similar character in various states.

May 28, 1926.

Respectfully submitted,

PAUL H. GAITHER,
CHARLES M. HEPBURN,
W. L. STURTEVANT,
THOMAS A. JENCKES,
ALEXANDER H. SANDS.

NOTE. The act referred to in the foregoing reports known as H. R. 10.000, officially designated as "The Code of the Laws of the United States" has passed both Houses of Congress and was signed by the President June 30, 1926.

REPORT

OF THE

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON SUPPLEMENTING
CANONS OF ETHICS.

To The American Bar Association:

RECOMMENDATIONS.

The committee reports progress and recommends 1. That it be continued.

2. That the Executive Committee be empowered to consider and if it approve to announce to members through the JOURNAL or otherwise a plan whereby those desiring to do so, may purchase at cost the Annotated Canons, prepared by the Chairman for the use of the committee, before the type is distributed.

These Annotations, fully indexed, make a book (with paper cover) of 280 pages, and contain appropriately arranged, much explanatory and introductory matter, the Canons of a number of other bar associations, all available opinions of Bar Association Committees on Legal Ethics, cognate opinions of the General Council of the Bar and of the Law Society, of England, and an extensive bibliography of 20 pages.

REPORT.

As indicated in the report of this committee at the annual meeting of 1925, it was created pursuant to a recommendation of the Standing Committee on Legal Ethics and Grievances, whose members are ex-officio members of this special committee.

Careful consideration has been given both by sub-committees and by the entire committee to all available opinions of the Standing Committee of this Association and of other Committees on Professional Ethics. Both by direct solicitation and through THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION JOURNAL the opinions of other committees were sought, but this effort resulted in procuring only

the opinions of our own Standing Committee, and the committees of the New York County Lawyers' Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and a few from the committees of the Chicago Bar Association and the Cleveland Bar Association. To this extent we have profited by the consideration of the actual problems arising in the profession. A special committee of the Commercial Law League of America empowered to confer with us has attended at each of our meetings and presented views. At our meeting in Washington, representatives of other interests appeared and were heard.

In order to inform and aid the committee in its deliberations, the Chairman prepared, from all available sources, an annotated edition of the existing Canons, printed for the use of the committee, of which a copy has been furnished also to each member of the Executive Committee. These annotations contain:

I. Explanatory and introductory matter gleaned from numerous places.

II. The existing Canons, annotated with references by the West Publishing Company to judicial decisions appearing in their Digests, and also annotated by the Chairman of our committee with all available opinions of all committees, allocated by him so far as possible to the pertinent or cognate Canon, and with cognate arrangement by him of the respective canons of judicial ethics approved by the Association in 1924.

III. Local rules and canons of other associations.

IV. The list of subjects published in the Year Books of the New York County Lawyers' Association 1915-1925 upon which the Chairman of that committee was consulted without submission to the committee.

V. Extracts from decisions of the General Council of the Bar, England, upon matters similar to those covered by the Canons of this Association.

VI. Extracts, upon similar matters, from the "Law, Practice and Usage of the Solicitor's Profession," England.

VII. A very comprehensive bibliography.

The whole makes a printed book of 280 pages, is fully indexed, both by the subject-matter of the Canons, and by the topics treated in the opinions; it also contains a complete table of contents and an analytical table of contents prefixed to each subdivision.

The committee has reached the conclusion that those who desire ought to have the opportunity to procure at actual cost a copy of this informative compilation before the type is distributed. It therefore makes the recommendation numbered "2" at the head of this report.

The present Canons of this Association have been approved by many state and local bar associations; they have been made the subject of examination for admission to the Bar in New York; they have been the subject of judicial opinion in disciplin

ary proceedings. The committee has carefully considered a number of additional canons which have been suggested to it. Of these it has tentatively approved some, it has rejected others, and it has referred others to sub-committees for the purpose of further consideration. The members of the committee are so widely distributed territorially that it is difficult for them to assemble; yet in 1925 a majority attended at Atlanta, New York and Detroit; in April 1926 thirteen members out of fifteen attended in Washington and held five sessions on two successive days. The committee has concluded that it needs further time for the completion of its task. It therefore makes the recommendation numbered "1" at the head of this report. It hopes to make a final report at the annual meeting of 1927.

By order of the committee.

CHARLES A. BOSTON, Chairman.