XIII ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE NEW YORK STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, 1919 REMARKS OF HENRY W. TAFT 1 MR. PRESIDENT AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I have a deep sense of my unworthiness to preside over this great organization. Your own distinction, Judge Hughes, at the bar, in executive office, on the bench and in the public life of our country, has been so notable that the Association enhanced its own importance in selecting you as its president. I have no such basis for the distinguished honor conferred upon me, and I can only hope, by devotion to the interests of the association, to compensate in some small measure for the advantage of having as its presiding officer a great public figure like yourself. As Chairman of the Committee on Law Reform it has been my duty to examine numerous projects for the reform of the law, and when I contemplate the opportunities thus presented for alluring experimentation, I am amazed at the moderation of my recommendations. The vexed subject of procedure has also fallen to my lot, and I have made some effort to clear away the underbrush obstructing the pathway to legal rights. So I have had the opportunity for making trouble, and I am not sure that the nominating committee did not conclude that the best way to avoid complications was by a diplomatic promotion. The achievements of the bar during the war have been noteworthy. The fact that thirty per cent. of the lawyers of the country between twenty-one and thirty 1 Delivered at the Forty-second annual meeting held in New York City January 18, 1919. one years of age were actually inducted into the army -a proportion far greater than that in any other occupation gives testimony of their patriotism; while the most heroic individual episode of the war is that of the Lost Battalion in the Argonne Forest, led by a modest young lawyer of this city-Colonel Whittlesey. Such things show that the pursuit of our learned profession does not subdue the promptings of a high patriotism or the will to make even the supreme sacrifice. A British publicist has recently said that one of the miracles of the war was the raising of an army of over three millions of men in America. The raising of this army by enforced draft was due entirely to American initiative. One of the fundamental duties of citizenship in a democracy is by serving as a soldier to aid in preserving the principles on which such a government is founded. This principle was embodied with the broadest vision in the Selective Service Law and it was carried out with no internal disturbance and with the least possible impairment of the industrial forces of the country. This truly wonderful achievement required the intuition and training of the soldier, the broad vision of a constructive statesman, and the professional skill of a trained lawyer, and the man was found in the great lawyer-soldier, Major General Enoch H. Crowder, the Provost Marshal General. His services in making the United States a potent factor in the winning of the war may fairly be ranked with the achievements of General Pershing himself. It was General Crowder's foresight that brought the legal profession to the aid of the government. In the complicated machinery of the Selective Service plan he assigned to each member of the bar what he called "a definite place and duty in the winning of the war." Out of 131,909 lawyers in this country, 125,100 re sponded to his call. Never before was such an opportunity offered to lawyers to render service for which, by education and training, they were especially fitted; and they rendered it patriotically and without reward other than the satisfaction of a duty well performed. As in the days of the Roman Republic, members of the noblest families trained to the law gave free advice to the people in the Forum, so twenty centuries later the American bar has placed its services at the disposal of the people of this country in the task of building up an army to preserve modern civilization. What public service remains for the American lawyer? In a crisis like that of to-day the highest conception of professional duty requires the lawyer to contribute to the thought of the country upon questions of public policy, for they are indissolubly linked with the subjects of his study and of his practice. President Wilson once very truly said that: "The notable, I had almost said fundamental, circumstance of our political life is that our courts are, under our constitutional system, the means of our political development. Every change in our law, every modification of political practice, must sooner or later pass under their scrutiny. We can go only as fast as the legal habit of mind of our lawyers will permit. Our politics are bound up in the mental character and attitude and in the intellectual vigor and vision of our lawyers. Ours is so intensely and characteristically a legal polity that our politics depend upon our lawyers. They are the ultimate instruments of our life." But James Bryce has noted, and we all know how truly, the decline of the bar as a social influence, on account of its "diminished political authority." This condition bodes no good for our country. Never has there been a greater need for the exercise of the highest function of the American lawyer. Never before has it been so necessary that he should think in terms of statesmanship and should stimulate the thought of others upon the great questions of the day. Never before that he should be in the highest places in the legislative and executive branches of our government. In the process of adjusting itself to peace conditions, the country must, as never before, concern itself with its international relations, and it must guard at home against any impairment of the liberty of the citizen. It must adjust the relations between the government and the transportation companies. It must reconsider the whole subject of combinations in restraint of trade. It must adopt a fiscal policy adapted to the enormous financial burden cast upon us by the war. It must bring the rights of labor and those of capital into equilibrium. It must guard our institutions against the menace of Bolshevism. And it must preserve the authority of our courts against the invasion of novel and destructive theories. To the extent that lawyers aid unselfishly and effectively in the solution of such great problems as these, to that extent, and to that extent only, will they place themselves in the position of influence which the bar occupied in the first half of the history of the nation. But they must move out of the atmosphere of private interests and not let their opinions on public questions be fettered by the pecuniary interests of their clients, or confine their thoughts as citizens upon great constitutional questions of the day within the narrow channel of personal interest. Above all things they must have courage and initiative. They must not only contribute to the discussion, but they must lead in a constructive way. If they do this, they may again find themselves the most influential element for good in our body politic. |