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REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON APPEALS.

To the President and Members of the Maryland State Bar Association:

The report of your Committee on Appeals respectfully shows that they have had a conference in relation to the matters submitted in the resolution and motion referred to in a report made to this association yesterday by David Ash, and your committee has come to the conclusion that it will be impossible to prepare and present at this meeting a well-considered, comprehensive and desirable set of Rules of Court or legislation covering the various matters referred to. Your said committee proposes, however, with the concurrence of this association, to formulate and prepare for passage such rules and laws as it may deem necessary in the premises.

Your committee directs your attention to the fact that while the passage of rules of practice are fully within the constitutional powers of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, there is some question as to the necessity of laying matters relating to the clerks of the courts before the legislature.

As the legislature meets in nineteen hundred and fourteen, before the next annual meeting of this association, and as it is deemed to be urgently necessary that some definite legislation be had at the approaching session of the Maryland Lgislature, your committee now recommend that they be authorized and empowered to prepare contemplated matters and present a report thereof to the Honorable, the judges of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, during the October Term, nineteen hundred and thirteen, of said court; and that your said committee be empowered to adopt such changes and amendments of said report, as may seem proper to your said committee; and that upon the concurrence of a majority of the Honorable, the judges of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, with the final suggestions

of your said committee, it and the members thereof shall be empowered to appear for and in the name of this association before the legislature of the State of Maryland, the Governor of the State of Maryland and before such other persons and in such other places as it may deem necessary to urge the adoption of Rules of Court and the passage of legislation so recommended.

Respectfully submitted,

DAVID ASH, Chairman.

Mr. Ash: In presenting this report, Mr. President, I wish to call the attention of the Association to the fact that this question was first taken up in its present form in 1911, and that unless the committee be empowered to appear before the next session of the Maryland Legislature, it will be absolutely impossible to get any legislation until 1916. It seems to me that the provision for this committee to submit the matter to the judges of the Court of Appeals is a sufficient safeguard to the Association that only proper legislation will be recommended, and there is no reason why the present state of affairs should continue for three years longer. I beg to submit this report.

Thomas Foley Hisky: I move it be accepted and adopted.

The President: The substance of that report is that the committee be authorized to draft the necessary bill or make the necessary recommendations and submit then to the Court of Appeals, and if a majority of the Court of Appeals approve of it, then present the matter to the legislature for such legislation as may be necessary. Of course, a good deal can be accomplished by the rules of the Court of Appeals.

Mr. Ash: I think most of it can be accomplished in that way, except posibly that in reference to the cost of the records.

The motion was seconded, and after vote thereon was declared accepted and adopted.

Thomas Foley Hisky: I would like to ask the Chair if Mr. Palmer is present?

The President: No; he did not come on the train we expected him to arrive on, and I would like to know if any information has been received from him?

J. Kemp Bartlett: No, sir; I telegraphed him this morning and I think he misunderstood the hour, but I presume that he will be here during the day. I have no doubt of it.

The President: I think he will be here. I thought perhaps he might have understood that his paper was to be read this evening.

Mr. Bartlett: I think he was under that impression.

The Secretary: I sent him a program more than a week ago. Mr. Covington is under the impression that he might be detained at Gettysburg, and owing to the heavy traffic, is tied up in that way.

Mr. Hisky: I move that we take a recess until 8.15 o'clock this evening.

Mr. Bartlett: I second the motion.

The President: I have just received a telegram from Mr. Palmer stating that he has missed connections, but that he will arrive at 3.15 this afternoon.

The question was then put on the motion to take a recess until 8.15 o'clock P. M., and after vote was declared carried.

EVENING SESSION

July 2, 1913.

Pursuant to a recess taken, the Association reassembled at 8.15 o'clock P. M., the President in the Chair.

Owing to

The President: Ladies and Gentlemen: circumstances, our program has been somewhat changed, and tonight the first address will be by the Honorable A. Mitchell Palmer, Member of Congress from Pennsylvania, the subject being, "The Proposed Federal Income Tax Laws," to be followed by the address of Judge Hammond Urner. I have now the pleasure and honor of introducing to you the Hon. A. Mitchell Palmer, from Pennsylvania.

Hon. A. Mitchell Palmer: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a great delight to me to be able to be present at this meeting of the Maryland State Bar Association and to address you upon a subject which is creating considerable interest in all parts of our common country at the present moment, viz: "The Proposed Federal Income Tax."

I have had, during my experience in politics, some curious and interesting experiences in the way of speech making, and on my campaign trips I have been compelled at times to talk against the noise of a brass band

of the opposition party or trying to drown the cat calls of those who were opposed to our cause; but I think that this is the first time I have ever been called upon to beat out a thunder storm. I am not at all certain that I shall be able to do it, but I shall try to reach you all with my voice, despite the noises on the outside.

THE PROPOSED FEDERAL INCOME TAX.

The certain prospect of passage by the Congress of the United States of the so-called Underwood Tariff Bill, containing a section which provides for a tax upon incomes of individuals and corporations, brings to a close a bitter and at times dramatic struggle on behalf of that system of taxation which has waged in this country for thirty years or more. It is reasonably safe to predict that from this time forward an income tax of some kind will always constitute a part of our fiscal system, and I hazard the opinion that it will become constantly of more and more importance as a part of the system of Federal taxation, gradually supplanting other systems in part until it shall become one of the chief sources of revenue for the Federal Government. Other income tax laws have been passed in the history of the Republic but each has lacked the premanency which the sixteenth amendment to the Constitution now assures to the pending bill when it shall have finally been enacted into law. While changes in administrative methods of col-lection, in rates of taxation, in exemptions and deductions and other details of the law may and doubtless will be made from time to time, as experience may demonstrate their wisdom or the needs of the government evince their necessity, still, in the main, the principles embodied in the pending bill will very likely control future legislation upon the subject. It is, therefore, of more than the passing

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