University of Minnesota - Gopher Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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appeased by the euphony of 'lawyerAliar.' Envy knows no reason. The man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow has ever been envious of him who earns his bread by his wits. And this ill feeling--these conclu- sions, fathered by the envy of the ne'er-do-weel, who falls in the race toward him who presses on to the laurel crown-manifests itself when the clergyman is called a hypocrite, the doctor a quack and the lawyer a liar! But these malicious and ill-begotten epithets are forgotten and vanish like mists of the morn when the diatribist is brought before the bar of justice to defend his 'inalienable rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness,' when he wishes to regain property wrongfully taken from him, or when he is unjustly accused of a heinous crime by a passionate and prejudiced people. Does he then cry out against the lawyer, 'O, thou liar.' Noi Envy, scorn and ridicule are changed into implicit conii dence and trust. f'When his bones ache with disease and life is a burden and death a solace, does he say to the physician, fOh, quack thou imposter?' When death is about to lay its cold hand upon him, when he is soon to face his Maker in the Great Beyond, do we hear him say when the minister imploringly pleads for his soul, 'Oh, thou hypocrite ?' No, Emerson, this envy is ephemeral. VVe are all subject to the frailties of human nature, are governed by the prenatal influences. In looking at a few lawyers' weaknesses do not close your eyes to the higher principles and nobler qualities of the profession. Let the faults of the profession be written in the sands, its virtues in letters of gold. Now let us look at the law more concretely. You will admit that the establishment and maintenance of this republic---the grandest of all govern- mentsfhas been the greatest work of civilization fthe highest tribute to man. From the tyranny of kings, the people have wrung liberty, from privileges to the few, we have proclaimed that all men are equal: from widely scattered and discordant colonies, we have erected a Uniong from a compact of common- wealths, we have constructed a Constitution of a Nationg from a people of a few millions with practically no commerce, we have in a century grown to over seventy millions with a commerce equal to that of nearly all Europe, from a dependency, we have grown to a world power, the light of Christendom! And, since these are indubitable truths, it behooves us to find out who has accomplished these magnificent achievements. You answer, the government. But what is the government and who shapes its policies? f'Our government is divided into three distinct departments, viz.: The executive, legislative and judicial, all of which receive their respective func- tions from the Constitution. Twenty-five out of fifty-six men that signed the Declaration of Independence were lawyers and thirty of the fifty-five men that sat in the Constitutional Convention were lawyers fso it was the lawyers that erected that bulwark of our liberties-the noblest document ever penned by man. And now let us see who has composed the executive department. Twenty of the twenty-five presidents of the United States have been lawyersg three hundred and eighteen out of three hundred and thirty-two cabinet otlicers have been members of the legal profession, and the proportion of governors of states has been almost as striking. From the foundation of the government there have been a little over ll,500 congressmen and senators, of whom over 6,000 have been lawyers, and the representatives in the state legislatures have ,gow Daw!!

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Hawke? The Lamp and the Scales. GGG Absque Hoc Blackstone and Solomon Van Campen Emerson were discuss- ing the ideals and relative merits of their chosen professions. They sat by the open fire place, its light pale and faint from the fiery eloquence that scintillated before it. The great old chimney seemed to be a willing guest at this banquet of the mind, served with the delicacy and brilliancy of chefs, and flavored with the condiment of inate ambition and personal dislike. In this duel of words Absque Hoc had, at the end of each parley, like a De Bergerac, thrust his rapier-like remarks into the very body of Emerson's argument, until now, chagrined and maddened by his defeat and fearing that at the end of this verbal combat his adversary would, like Cyrano at the close of his sonnet, give him a silencing thrust, the academician began to attack the purity of the legal profession. Why sir, he began, 'tlawyers are unscrupulous and unconscientious. They make the worse appear the better reason. They would have you believe 'that white is black.' Witli a tale of woe, poulticed with a leaven of sorrow, they plead for criminals confessedly guilty of heinous crimes. Recall the great Strayward trial, and then uphold the ethics and morals of your pro- fession! Look at the instances of subornation, bribed jurors and office-made perjurorsl All for a passing fame and the almighty dollar! Such a pro- fession would, for pay and without remorse, rob a Christian of his faith, a woman of her good name, or a Madonna of her child! It lifts its hydra head with the malice of a demon, and, had it the power, would willingly, for pay, make the Sermon of the Mount a curse upon mankind! It's life is a poison to all about it. It breathes scandals and noisome vapors and feeds on the shame and the troubles and the miseries of mankind. There is no moral law it would not break, no right of sanctuary of the human heart it would not invade, if by so doing, it could add shekels to its hoard or gratify the morbid cravings of a criminal to have its name sounded in the ears of a passing mob. ' B1.ACKS'I'oNI-3: Your tirade, Emerson. simply illustrates how easy it is to make a mountain out of a mole hill--how prejudice overrides reason. You let a little drop of ink blacken a whole barrel of water. If for the misdeeds of a few you can attack the purity of my profession, can I not condemn yours by a mere reference to such trash as Kruetzer Sonata or the 'works of Boccac- cio or one of Oscaris poems? No, our callings must not be judged by dif- ferent standards. Professions are to be judged, not by what the worst in them seem to be, but by what the noblest are and aspire to be. The legal profession has always been the object of such empty lampoon- ing as comes not from your reason or heart, but from your prejudiced tongue. You place yourself on the plane of the non-professional whose ears are ang,

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Law!! been from an eighth to a third lawyers, whose inlluence in making laws has always been greater of course than their numerical strength. And now as to the last branch of our government, thejudiciary, it needs no argument to prove that it has been almost wholly composed of lawyers. Now, since you have admitted that the establishment and maintenance of this republic has been the greatest work of civilization, and it has been shown that lawyers have accomplished this work, you must in truth admit that law- yers have been the World's greatest benefactors, The business man, the capitalist, were he the governing class in a state, would look only to his purse, every obstacle to the gratification and attainment of personal ends would be only an obstacle to be overcome by his greed for gold. This would be a nation of barter and sale--justice would be dispensed over the counter. The uneducated man, though of honest purpose and good intent, would be ruled by his whim and not his will. The literary man, living in a classic world, untouched by his fellowman and the hard actualities of this life, would found a 'Utopia, ' where the laborer would gambol among the asphodels and sip ambrosia. And so we turn to the lawyer-to him who is learned in the law, who has studied the 'wisdom of ages,' who is trained in the science of government, who mingles with the masses and knows the needs of society-to the wise, cautious and conservative lawyer-to found an enduring state. Ours is a government of laws, not of men! And were it not for lawyers the people would subvert their own liberties! One hundred and eighty-two acts of state legislatures fcomposed of only an eighth to a third lawyersl have been declared unconstitutional by the judici- ary as repugnant to the rights and liberties of the people. Armed with the power of declaring laws to be unconstitutional, the judi- ciary form the most power if not the only counterpoise to a democracy. You will remember that M. De Tocqueville maintained that in England it was the nobles and aristocrats who were always the wise and able conservators of order and government, that it was this privileged class, not alone politically, but socially and intellectually, who understood the science of government, and who had an instinctive love of order and formality, and a repugnance to the action of the multitude, who were the 'pillars of state. ' But that in America, since there were no lords-no titled nobility, and the people mistrusted the wealthy, that it was the lawyer who was attached to public order beyond every other consideration, who made, interpreted and enforced the laws, who maintained liberty and free institutions, who had a love and reverence for what is regular and lawful, whose very profession teaches conservatism, who counterpoised a democracy, and who as a body formed the most cultivated circle of society, who belonged to the people by birth and interest and to the nobility by habit and taste, who took the place of the titled lord and did his every duty to the state, and formed the only privileged class and was the truest and noblest of aristocrats! As And yet you rabble cry out 'he is uncqnscientious, his god is goldl' VVhat man of the mart of the same ability is not wealthier? 'He is unscrupulous, his art is deceit.' What liar can long convince where all but lawyers are so pure? 'He makes the worse appear the better reason! Behold Burke defending the rights of Englishmen! Witiiess Phil- lips pleading for the slave, or Marshall expounding the Constitution, and -30-