University of Minnesota - Gopher Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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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-

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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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then attack the profession! Aristotle, in speaking of the jurisprudence of his country, said 'the law is the principal and most perfect branch of ethics. ' That such a science which distinguishes the criterions of right and wrongg which teaches to establish the one, and prevent, punish and redress the other, which employs in its theory the noblest faculties of the soul, and exerts in its practice the cardinal virtues of the heart-that such a science, whose voice is the harmony of the world, should be above and beyond the grasp and attainment of those through whose veins courses not the blood of honor, honesty and virtue, is no reproach to the profession! But that you, a classic, should seek to smirch the purity of such a profession by the short- comings of an unhonored few who are lured into its ranks by its brilliant opportunities and finding themselves weak of heart and less fieet in the race have stooped to conquer, is to be decriedf' EMERSON: Yes, Blackstone, I will admit that I have done you an in- justiceg I have taken a narrow and prejudiced view of your profession as you say-I have placed myself On the plane of the non-professional. But how incongruous it seems! How pathetic to learn the 'wisdom of ages, ' to have ones very soul thrill with a voice which is the 'harmony of the world, ' to study a science which stirs the noblest faculties of the soul and the cardinal virtues of the heart-how ridiculous to be imbued with the tastes and habits of nobility, aye, to become an aristocrat, in a college where there are only 100 pegs for 300 hats, in which there isn't a drop of watery where 400 students must be content with accommodations for only 2003 where 150 men are crowded into one class, and where you may recite once during a course of lectures and you may not, where the library is so crowded, your very thoughts are repressed, and in which the State reports have long since ceased to be added to, and which is so poorly ventilated that you fall asleep, and even Coke on Littleton seems dull and uninterestingg where an assistant's office occupies as much room as the whole library, where the lecture rooms are fit for use only in the day time on account of lighting facilities, where there is but one lavatory for over 400 studentsg which pretends to be a state institution and free to the citizens of this commonwealth, but in which the income from tuition itlB20,000.00j is so far in excess of necessary expenditures that hundreds of dollars are turned over into the general fundg and where one has to buy books to which he gets no title, and - BLACKSTONE: t'From one error, Emerson, you go stumbling into another. You must not forget that our college is but ten years oldg that in '89 the College of Law of the U. of M., library and all, occupied but o11e dingy room just back of the bookstore in the old main building, with an enrollment of but 65, that in a decade its membership has increased over T00 per cent. and has outgrown even the most hopeful expectations of its founders. Through merit and wise administration it has grown from comparative insignificance until now it is the foremost law school in all the West. And since one-sixth of the members of our wise and most generous Legislature are lawyers it will not be long before the University of Minnesota will have, not only the best law school in the West, but the finest law building in all America! P. W. lNotc: Mr. Blackstone just previous to his go with Emerson had consulted Mr. DeTocque- ville, Benton, another celebrity with the same name fand whose reputation for 'fcribbingw from old Coke is not of the best, , Adam Bede, the Dean and other eminent gentlemen, and tll7l'l'Kfr'llftIf!V re- membered some of their profusions verbatim. Ed.J -31- DGWRFHF l W i ,,,, WY A