PROCEEDINGS. In olden times animals and even inanimate objects were punished for offenses. An axe cutting a person in Athens was thrown beyond the borders of the province. Elsewhere, a horse or a pig inflicting an injury on a person, was subjected to trial by jury, and suffered death, or was forfeited for the benefit of the state. A person committing murder was turned over to the relatives of the deceased for such punishment as they might elect. Among a few heathen tribes if the murderer escaped, a relative or a friend of the murderer had to undergo death in his stead. Severity of punishment will not abolish crime. Thucydides says we can not think that punishment deters from crime. History shows that countries with the most severe penalties abound in crime, unless social tendencies are favorable to moral conduct. As Periander, one of the seven wise men of Greece, said, it might be as well to punish not only those who have done wrong but those who are going to. However, it may be said that the certainty of punishment, and not the severity, is the power that most effectually deters from crime. The origin of criminal law is revenge. Vengeance is mine, saith the law, I will repay! Note the wide difference in punishment for the same crime in the different states of our country. Torture was abolished years ago. One hundred years ago there were over one hundred criminal offenses punishable with death; in a hundred years more I predict there will be none. In 1786 Tuscany abolished the death penalty and became the best ordered state in Europe. How many, many inflictions of punishment are more severe than the crimes themselves. We release a man from prison, ready to commit a hundred more offenses. The twentieth time of committing a crime is no greater offense to society than the first. Poverty, power and circumstances are the causes that produce crime. Our Parole System admits our inability to inflict punishment commensurate with the crime, even though PROCEEDINGS. poverty, power and circumstances be considered. As a nation we expend annually $60,000,000 on courts, police, prisons and reformatories, and only one in five of our convicts is saved from a life of permanent degradation; and crime is on the increase. $600,000,000, statisticians assure us, is the annual tribute society pays to crime; and the United States has the largest murder rate of any civilized country. The immigration to this country for 1902 was the largest ever recorded, I believe. Imagine, if you please, the influence of the posterity of immigrants on the policies of this nation a hundred years hence. Dr. Oliver W. Holmes has said that the proper time to begin the training of a child is a hundred years before it is born. Parents, frequently, and not their children, deserve punishment for infractions of social ethics by their children. So "spare the rod and spoil the child" may be doubted as being literally true. Our school system has been pronounced defective, that it fails to meet the present conditions, and I join in that criticism. The civilized world contributes the most crimes, and the functions of its criminal code are most frequently required to be exercised, since its anti-social tendencies are most multiplied. Russia believes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The civilized state contributes a mere trifle to deter a subject from crime, the first consideration being the infliction of the penalty after the culprit's conviction. And what may be a social custom in cne country is considered a crime in another. Oh, the stigma of degeneracy! remember the mote and beam in the eyes. Penology as a science is in the experimental stages. A reconstruction and readjustment of criminal codes is demanded by society. I, therefore, offer this resolution and move its adoption: Resolved, That the Illinois State Bar Association is in favor of establishing in the Department of Justice, at Washington, a laboratory for the study of the criminal, pauper, and defective classes; it being PROCEEDINGS. understood that such investigation is a development of work already begun under the Federal Government. That such study shall include the collection of jurisprudential, sociological, and pathological data in institutions for the delinquent, dependent, and defective, and in hospitals, schools, and other institutions; that especially the causes of social evils shall be sought out with a view to ameliorating or preventing them. MR. WILLARD: It seems to me that this should be referred to the Executive Committee. I think that it is very questionable whether our Association, if it were in possession of the facts, would adopt this resolution. MR. ROGERS: A similar resolution has been adopted by one or two state bar associations, by the National Medical Association, and also in other countries. MR. WILLARD: And I think in various cases where it has been presented with some consideration, it has failed of adoption. I think that those who have looked over the printed matter which has been sent out to some considerable extent by some gentlemen intimately connected with the investigation referred to, would not care to favor its furtherance at government expense at this time, on just the same lines. I move that this motion be referred to the Executive Committee. The motion was seconded and carried. MR. GREGORY: I move that we tender a vote of thanks to the President and retiring officers for their faithful services. The motion was seconded and carried. MR. PETERSON: I move that the following bill be referred to the Committee on Law Reform: A Bill for an Act to be entitled An Act fixing the qualifications of Judges of the Circuit Courts in the State of Illinois and the Superior Courts of Cook County, and providing for the retirement and pension of said Judges and their widows. PROCEEDINGS. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly. Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of Judge of the Circuit Court in the State of Illinois or of the Superior Court of Cook County, who shall be, at the time of his election, over the age of fifty years; provided however, any person may be re-elected as his own successor to his said office when over said age, subject however to the provisions hereinafter set forth. Section 2. No person shall be re-elected to the office of Judge of the Circuit Court in the State of Illinois or of the Superior Court of Cook County, who shall be, at the time of his re-election, over the age of seventy years, except as hereinafter provided. Section 3. Every person holding the office of Judge of the Circuit Court in the State of Illinois, or of the Superior Court of Cook County, continuously for a period of twenty years prior to arriving at the age of seventy years, shall be entitled, at the expiration of his term of office thereafter, to a pension of three thousand five hundred dollars per annum payable quarterly out of the State Treasury, so long as such person shall live; and upon his death the widow of said Judge shall be paid quarterly a pension at the rate of fifteen hundred dollars per annum, payable out of the State Treasury so long as she shall survive him and remain unmarried. Section 4. Every person now holding the office of Judge of the Circuit Court in the State of Illinois, or of the Superior Court of Cook County, continuously for a period of twenty years prior to the passage of this Act and who shall arrive at the age of seventy years, before the expiration of his term of office, may be re-elected once only and thereupon shall be entitled, at the expiration of his subsequent term of office if re-elected, to a pension of three thousand five hundred dollars per annum payable quarterly out of the state Treasury, so long as such person shall live; and upon his death the widow of said Judge shall be paid quarterly a pension of fifteen hundred dollars per annum, payable out of the State Treasury so long as she shall survive him and remain unmarried. PRESIDENT TULEY: We have again been notified by the manager of the hotel that they must at once begin the work of preparing this room for the banquet, and a motion to adjourn seems to be necessary. On motion the Association adjourned to meet at 7 o'clock P. M. for the reception and banquet. ANNUAL BANQUET. RECEPTION AND BANQUET. The annual reception and banquet were given by the Association at the Chicago Beach Hotel on Wednesday evening, July 22, and were in charge of the following: Banquet Committee. FRANK H. SCOTT LESSING ROSENTHAL M. LESTER COFFEEN FRANK A. HELMER The attendance was unusually large and the presence of the ladies greatly added to the occasion. The floral decorations were beautiful and elaborate. At the banquet the divine blessing was asked by the Rev. Charles Herbert Young. The program of toasts was as follows: PRESIDENT TULEY: Ladies and Gentlemen: If we do not accomplish all we start out to do in the way of legislation, it is from causes beyond the control of the Association; it is not from want of proper effort. While we have been disappointed in failing to get much needed legislation, there is no reason for discouragement; the efforts of the Association have had effect, at least upon the legislation that |