ours we need associations of the members of the bar to organize against the invasion of our profession by improper practices. I, for one, would like to join other similar associations that would include the entire bar of the city in order that by concerted efforts we might have a substitute for that kind of public opinion which prevails at a smaller bar and which restrains members within the correct lines and holds them up to the highest standards of professional ethics. Such associations if properly conducted are an effective means to prevent the bar from falling into disrepute on account of that small minority who do not hold its traditions pure. Now, this Association has been at the forefront in developing a system of professional ethics. It is a pretty elaborate system. The Committee on Professional Ethics has been doing grand work in keeping out of the profession those who are attempting to commercialize it and those who are attempting to bring the practice of the law into the hands of the corporations. I wish to speak also of the work of the City Bar Association-I think the two associations have supplemented each other and have done splendid work, and I am glad to have the opportunity of paying this tribute to them both. XVI SPEECH OF MR. HENRY W. TAFT1 MR. PRESIDENT, MR. AMBASSADOR, MR. MINISTER, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: When your president asked me to say a few words to-night, I had no idea that I was to have the pleasure of attending a function of such splendor as this, nor did I at all appreciate the strength and dignity and importance of this organization. I told the president that I would take pleasure in saying a word of greeting as I had arrived fresh from your native land. I wish I could address you in French, but the only French that I know I learned in French Canada, and while the Canadians say that theirs is the French of Molière and that it is the Parisian French that has become corrupted in these hundreds of years, yet I am afraid that if I attempted to speak the Canadian French I might incur the hostility of these formidable military guards that I have seen standing here, whose duty it is, no doubt, to protect among other things, the purity of the French language. As the Ambassador has said, I have come direct from the Chicago convention and so I might have said something about politics; but the president of your association was good enough to send me a copy of your year book, and I there observed, at a page which he had considerately turned down, a by-law which was worded: "All political discussions are excluded." Furthermore, perhaps you are not interested in politics. We become sometimes preoccupied with our own environment and mistakenly think everybody is in1 Delivered before the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris, July 4, 1912. |