Legal Ethics

My fellow-students of the law: In this morning\u27s lecture, I attempted to show, first the necessity for the profession of the law, and the impossibility of maintaing such a profession unless its members are paid for their services; and, second, that such a system, when conducted under ethical rules, some of which I summarily stated, contributes most effectively to the cause of justice and equity. I would like now to consider the Code of Legal Ethics more at length, under some eight different heads

The Paris Covenant for a League of Nations

We are here to-night in sight of a league of peace, of what I have ever regarded as the Promised Land. Such a war as the last is a hideous blot on our Christian civilization. The inconsistency is as foul as was slavery under the Declaration of Independence. If Christian nations cannot now be brought into a united effort to suppress a recurrence of such a contest it will be a shame to modern society

Danger in the Recall

In a popular government, the most difficult problem is to determine a satisfactory method of selecting members of its judicial branch. Where ought such power to be placed? It is a great one. It is said it ought not to be entrusted to irresponsible men. If this means that judges should not be men who do not understand the importance of the function they are exercising, or the gravity of the results their decision may involve, or do not exert energy and sincere intellectual effort to decide according to law and justice, every one must concur. But if it means that judges must be responsible for their judgments to some higher authority, so that for errors made in good faith they incur a personal liability, then we know from centuries of actual experience that the interest of justice, pure and undefiled, requires their immunity. Finality of decision is essential in every branch of the government, or else government cannot go on. This is as true of its judicial branches as of other branches. Therefore, somebody must have the final word in judicial matters, and the only question is who can best exercise this power. The answer to the question must be found in the real character of the function which the judges are to perform

The Time to Test our Faith in Arbitration

I rise to respond to the introduction of your toastmaster with mingled feelings of sorrow and pleasure. I subscribe to everything that has been said with reference to the slowness with which we must expect universal peace to win its place among the nations; but once in a while there comes an opportunity that seems to be a great step forward, and when that opportunity is lost, when the step which might have been taken is not taken, the hearts of those whose hopes were high are saddened. And this meeting brings back to me the earnest, triumphant feeling that I had in my soul after I had visited almost every State in the Union, and urged the confirmation of the treaties which we had made with England and France, and then lived to find them defeated in the highest legislative body in the world, as some of the members of that body are in the habit of calling it. The defeat was more than a mere destruction of our hope as to the progress that might be made by those treaties, because the vote carried with it a proposition which, if established as our constitutional law, relegates the United States to the rear rank of those nations which are to help the cause of universal peace. For the proposition is that the Senate of the United States may not consent with the President of the United States to a treaty that shall bind the United States to arbitrate any general class of questions that may arise in the future, but there must always be a condition that the Senate may subsequently, when the facts arise, determine whether in its discretion the United States ought to arbitrate the issue

The Social Importance of Proper Standards for Admission to the Bar

A great French judge truly said that the profession of the law was as old as the Magistrate, as noble as Virtue, and as necessary as Justice. The importance of having a Bar, the members of which are sufficiently skilled in the principles of law and the procedure of the courts, properly to advise laymen as to their rights and the method of asserting or defending them, and to represent them in judicial controversies, I need not dwell upon. It has been the habit in many states to regard the practice of the law as a natural right, and one which no one of moral character can be deprived of. Such a view of course ignores the importance of the profession to society and looks at its practice only as a means of earning a living. Laymen can readily be made to see that society should be protected against the malpractice of the medical profession and surgery by men who know nothing of disease or the effect of medicine, or the handling of a surgical instrument. It is, therefore, comparatively free from difficulty to secure laws prescribing proper educational qualifications for those holding themselves out as physicians or surgeons. The danger to society of the misuse of the power which a lawyer\u27s profession enables him to exercise is not so acutely impressed upon the layman until he has had some experience in following bad advice. A legal adviser cannot ordinarily injure his client\u27s bodily health, but he can lead him into great pecuniary loss and subject him and his family to suffering and want. The more thorough the general education of one who proposes to be a lawyer, the more certainly his mind will be disciplined to possess himself of the principles of law and properly to apply them

Foreign service dispatches: Mozambique. LourencoMarques_1962-05-15-306

Includes enclosure: "Unemployment in Mozambique." Handwritten annotations, likely by Jeanne Penvenne

Letter From William Howard Taft to Philander C. Knox, October 20, 1912

The document is a typed letter from William Howard Taft to Philander C. Knox asking for Knox\u27s help in preparing a budget that will allow full functionality of Taft\u27s Commission on Economy and Efficiency.https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/fmhw_knox/1043/thumbnail.jp

Letter From William Howard Taft to Francis Mairs Huntington-Wilson, April 2, 1912

The document is a handwritten letter from President Taft to the Assistant Secretary of State regarding the appointment of Utah men Robinson and George M. Hanson to the consular service.https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/fmhw_other/1224/thumbnail.jp