Thompson, Guy A.

English

University of Missouri School of Law

University of Missouri Bulletin Law Series Volume 29 January 1924 Article 5 1924 Program of Missouri Bar Association Guy A. Thompson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/ls  Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Guy A. Thompson, Program of Missouri Bar Association, 29 Bulletin Law Series. (1924) Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/ls/vol29/iss1/5 This Bar Bulletin is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Missouri Bulletin Law Series by an authorized editor of University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact bassettcw@missouri.edu. PROGRAM OF THE MISSOURI BARPROGRAM OF MISSOURI BARASSOCIATIONThe lawyer has ever been ridiculed by the ignorant and de-nounced by the envious. The famous colloquy on Black Heathbetween Jack Cade and Dick the Butcher, when it was agreed thatthe first thing to be done was to kill all the lawyers, has beenpopular for the past three hundred years. Yet the fact remainsthat no other class or calling of men has been habitually en-trusted with so large a measure of public confidence. De-Tocquville, in his work "Democracy in America," wrote truth-fully when he said:"The people in democratic states do not mistrust the membersof the legal profession because it is well known that they areinterested in serving the popular cause; and it listens tothem without irritation, because it does not attribute tothem any sinister designs." (p. 300).Of the twenty-eight Presidents of the United States, twenty-three have been lawyers; of the forty-six Secretaries of State,forty-four have been lawyers; of the fifty-six signers of theDeclaration of Independence, twenty-five were lawyers, and thehand that penned the immortal document was a lawyer's hand;of the fifty-five framers of the Federal Constitution, thirty-onewere lawyers, and he who is known to history as the Father ofthe Constitution, James Madison, was a lawyer. And the authorsof the Federalist, that Iliad of statesmanship without which ourConstitution would not have been adopted, John Jay, AlexanderHamilton and James Madison, were lawyers. In the last Con-gress two-thirds of the Senators and over one-half of the Rep-resentatives were lawyers; in the last General Assembly of Mis-souri a very large proportion of the House and a majority of theSenate were lawyers. A majority of the Missouri ConstitutionalConvention recently adjourned were lawyers. Of course allmembers of the third so-called coordinate, but really supremebranch of our government, the judiciary, have always been law-yers. Ve are not far afield when we assert that those whoLAW SERIES 29, MISSOURI BULLETINgovern the one hundred and ten million people of our countryare drawn from the one hundred and twenty-five thousand law-yers of the land.If our profession is to retain its influence, if it is to proveequal to the responsibilities imposed upon it, if it is to continue toreceive this manifestation of public confidence, it must proveitself worthy. If the time shall come when. our profession hasforfeited the confidence and the respect of the public, then willour laws and our courts be held in contempt and the doom of ourinstitutions will follow, as surely as the night follows day. Inthe final analysis, therefore, the object of every Bar Associationis to preserve, protect and promote the honor and dignity of thelegal profession to the end that it shall merit and receive theconfidence and respect of the public.To the accomplishment of that supreme end, what are thebar associations of Missouri doing? I, of course, shall speakonly for the Missouri Bar Association. My tenure of office asPresident of that association has been too brief for me to bringyou tonight a complete and final program. I have been giving thesubject very earnest consideration. Somehow the followingwords from Holy Writ seem to carry a spirit that is peculiarlypertinent:"Now the Lord said unto Abraham: 'Get thee out of thycountry, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house,unto a land that I will show thee.And I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless theeand make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing."We must get out of our accustomed environment and coun-try of small membership, of antiquated organization and of self-complacency and march into a new land of increased member-ship, up-to-date federated organization and progressive purposes.Then we will be blessed, then will our name be great, then shallwe be a blessing.First-MEMBERSHIP--Our membership situation is de-plorable, indeed intolerable. We have about six hundred andforty members in good standing, that is, members whose dues arepaid to date. We have about nine hundred members in arrears,PROGRAM OF THE MISSOURI BARfrom one to five years. The practice has been to consider thesein arrears as having forfeited their membership, and yet to re-fuse to allow any to resign or to be restored to the roll of mem-bership, until all delinquent dues are paid. The result is that amember whose dues have not been paid since January 1, 1922,can neither resign nor be considered a member of the MissouriBar Association until he shall first pay to the Treasurer thesum of $30.00. Manifestly, this practice in effect amounts tothe exclusion of most of these nine hundred delinquent mem-bers from membership in the Missouri Bar Association.Furthermore, to my mind the amount of our dues is inde-fensible. No man can successfully explain why membership inthe American Bar Association-, with subscripition to one of thevery best law journals of America, should cost $6.00 per year,while membership in the Missouri Bar Association should be$10.00.I shall appoint with the approval of the Executive Com-mittee, a Special Committee on Increase of Membership. Sen-ator X. P. Wilfley will be chairman. This committee will con-sider the question of dues and the existing membership situa-tion, and the means proper to be adopted to attract new mem-bers to the Association. It is my fervent hope that the com-mittee will recommend a reduction in the dues, and further thatthe Executive Committee exercise its constitutional power torestore to membership in good standing all delinquents upon thepayment of dues for the current year only.Second-FEDERATION OF BAR ASSOCIATIONS-The local Bar Associations should be affiliated with the MissouriBar Association. As every county is distinct and is yet a partof the state, and as every state is a separate sovereign and yetis a part of the federal union, so should every local Bar Asso-ciation be a part of the State Association and every State Asso-ciation a part of the American Bar Association. The autonomyand identity of each would not thereby be disturbed, while thepower of all would be tremendously increased. The matter ofdues would seem to be the most difficult feature of this planLAW SERIES 29, MISSOURI BULLETINto solve, and yet it should not prove an insuperable barrier. Theincoming Committee on Bar Associations, of which Mr. KennethC. Sears is chairman., will make this matter its work for theyear, and we may expect from it at our next annual meeting, ifnot before, a completed and workable plan for the merger ofthe Bar Associations of the State with the Missouri Bar Associa-tion.Third-CRIME AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE-Thereoccurred seventeen murders in London last year. Only nine ofthese were cases where a trial for murder in the first degreecould properly ensue. Not one of the murders was unsolved.During 1921 there were two hundred and sixty murders in theCity of New York, and one hundred and thirty-seven in Chicago.Throughout all England and Wales in 1921 there were sixty-three murders. In the United States there is an average ofeighty-five hundred murders per year. More of our citizenshave been murdered since the beginning of the Great War; Aug-ust 1, 1914, than there were American soldiers who lost theirlives in that stupendous struggle. There has also been a steadyincrease in burglaries and robberies. During the past ten yearsburglaries have increased in our country twelve hundred percent. The swelling tide of lawlessness has been plainly per-ceptible for the past thirty years. Making liberal allowance forinefficiency and delinquency in the police departments, in thejury boxes and in the prosecuting offices, the fact indisputablyremains that there is much radically wrong with our criminal law.So far as I am aware, there is no organized effort to improve thecriminal law and its administration, in Missouri. I am now mak-ing up a special committee, subject to the approval of the Execu-tive Committee whose function will be to give attention to thisvery important subject, with the view of determining whetheranything should be done and, if so, whether the initiative shouldbe taken by the Missouri Bar Association. It is expected thatthis committee will make its report to the Executive Committeeat the earliest date practicable.PROGRAM OF THE MISSOURI BARFourth-RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW-That there iswidespread and growing dissatisfaction with the law and its ad-ministration all will admit. That this is a matter of serious con-cern, none will deny. If this were confined to anarchists, whileit might interest it would not excite us. But when we realize thatit permeates all groups of our citizenship however divergent theirpolitical creeds, there is just cause for alarm. This is due inlarge measure to the uncertainty and complexity of the law.What lawyer with certainty can advise a client what may consti-tute "doing business" within a state, or within what state hisclient may safely make conditional sales of his wares? What arethe rights of one suing in this state for injuries sustained in an-other state? What is the status of a foreign marriage or di-vorce? What is the effect of an evil motive upon an act other-wise legal? Upon almost any question of controversy apt to arisein the ordinary affairs of life there is confusion and contradic-tion of legal authority. The truth is that we are constantly grop-ing about in a wilderness of precedents that cannot be reconciled.Meanwhile the legislatures continue to grind out their statutesby the thousands. The federal courts, and the courts of forty-eight states, pour forth their never-ending streams of decisions,which, uniting, form an ever-widening and deepening torrent thatthreatens to engulf us.Convinced of the imperative necessity that the law be mademore certain and clear by an authoritative restatement, the Asso-ciation of American Law Schools initiated a movement which re-sulted in the assembly in Washington, D. C., in February last,of representatives from forty-seven states. Among these weretwenty-one chief justices and ten associate justices of the highestcourts of the states, representatives from twenty-two State BarAssociations and thirty law schools. The Chief Justice of theUnited States also attended. There were present a total of threehundred and forty-one persons. These formed the AmericanLaw Institute and commissioned it to clarify and simplify thelaw and the better to adapt it to social needs. The task, involvingas it does, the restatement of the substantive law, is indeed hur-LAW SERIES 29, MISSOURi BULLETINculean-so stupendous as to stagger confidence in the accom-plishment in all but the most optimistic. The Institute has beenendowed with $1,075,000.00 by the Carnegie Corporation andits work is well under way. The topic "Contracts" has beenassigned to Mr. Samuel Williston of the Harvard Law chool;"Torts" to Mr. Francis H .Boh:en, of the University of Pennsyl-vania Law School; "Conflict of Laws" to Mr. Joseph H. Bealeof the Harvard Law School; and '.Agency" to Mr. Floyd R.Mechem of the University of Chicago Law School. It willreadily be conceded that each of these gentlemen is the supremeauthority in the topic that has been given him. Other topics, asthe work progresses, will be assigned to other lawyers of equalscholarship and distinction. B]ut though each of these shouldprove himself a Cambacere's, or a Papinian, or a Tribonian, thework will come to naught unless it have behind it the sanctionand support of the American Bar. Therefore, it is importantthat the Missouri Bar Association lend its best efforts to inform-ing the people of the State of this great work and to linking upwith it the lawyers of Missouri.Fifth-EDUCATION-But of what avail will be the re-statement of the law by the most learned of the earth, if the com-pleted work is to be given into the hands of lawyers and judgesintellectually unprepared to understand or to apply it? Thatwould simply start again the vicious circle. The restatement ishighly desirable, but with it must go the indispensable remedy-education, and yet more education. This was long ago manifestto the far-seeing of our profession, and at the meeting in St.Louis of the American Bar Association in 1920 a special com-mittee was appointed to give attention to the subject ahd makeconcrete recommendations at the next meeting. This commit-tee reported at Cincinnati in 1921, recommending resolutionsproviding that applicants for admission to the Bar must giveevidence of graduation from a law school with the followingstandards: (a) It shall require as a condition of admission atleast two years of study in a college; (b) that its students pur-sue a course of three years' duration if they devote substantiallyPROGRAM OF THE Missouiu BARall of their working time to their studies, and a longer courseequivalent in the number of working hours if they devote onlypart of their working time to their studies; (c) it shall providean adequate library available for the use of the students; and (d)it shall have among its teachers a sufficient number giving theirentire time to the school to insure actual personal acquaintanceand influence with the whole student body. These resolutionswere adopted and a call was sent out to the lawyers of thecountry to meet and consider them. In response there assembledin Washington, on February 23, 1922, what the Carnegie Founda-tion later referred to as "not merely the largest, but also themost distinguished gathering of American lawyers that has everbeen assembled for the special purpose of discussing the problemsof legal education and admission to the Bar." There werepresent the Chief Justice and Attorney General of the UnitedStates, delegates from the American Bar Association, forty-fourstate bar associations, one hundred and sixteen local or foreignassociations, and twenty-seven law schools, an aggregate of threehundred and thirty-one.For two days the Cincinnati resolutions were discussed withthe seriousness which can characterize only a momentous occa-sion. The debates, in point of eloquence and learning, will excitethe admiration of all. The result was the adoption of the Cin-cinnati resolutions with interpretations and an appeal to the law-yers of the land to carry them into effect by appropriate legis-lation. The standards prescribed by these resolutions have beenmade effective in Illinois and Kansas and thus far have been en-dorsed by the state bar associations of California, Colorado,Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon and Missouri,and, so far as I have been able to learn, but two bar associationshave refused approval. At the recent annual meeting of theMissouri Bar Association these standards were approved a sec-ond time and the incoming Committee on Legal Education wasinstructed to draft a bill that embodies them. And it was alsoresolved that a campaign of publicity be carried on during thecoming year in support of this bill.LAW SERIES 29, MISSOURI BULLETINJudge Fred L. Williams, formerly one of the judges of theSupreme Court of Missouri, will be the chairman of the newCommittee on Legal Education. No doubt this committee indrafting the education bill, will seek the cooperation of theeducation committees of the various local bar associations, andI can assure you that the personnel of this committee will besuch that the lawyers and laity of the state will attach the pre-sumption of wisdom to the result of its labors.Mr. Forrest C. Donnell of St. Louis has accepted the chair-manship of a special committee I am appointing which, in con-junction with the education committee, will carry on the cam-paign of publicity in support of this bill, and also in support ofthe work of the American Law Institute. Doubtless public meet-ings will be arranged at strategic points in the state and be ad-dressed by lawyers of eloquence, of good judgment and of fullinformation.No Missouri lawyer can take pride in the fact that thoughthe physician, the nurse and the optometrist are required to havea high school education, a member of the Bar in our state neednever have attended even a grammar or a common school. Theflintlock educational equipment of fifty years ago is insufficienttoday. Not only has the law become more complex, but its fieldhas greatly expanded during the past half century. Thus we haveas comparatively new juristic domains the law of business cor-porations and of trade associations; the law of fair trade, em-ployers' associations and labor unions; the law of aerial naviga-tion and administrative law. Furthermore, as said by old Cardi-nal Newman:"The practical business of a university is training good mem-bers of society. ---------- College honor is the keenest inin the community and no higher ideals can be found on earththan in the best thought of our best universities.The standards of the Cincinnati resolutions as interpreted atthe Washington Conference, are not oppressive. Our educationalfacilities are such today that any young man worthy to be alawyer and intellectually capable can meet these requirements,36PROGRAM OF THE MISSOURI BAR 37and it is unfair to the public, to the profession and to the younglawyer himself to bring him to the Bar without this equipment.Proud of our oath-bound cult, rejoicing in its achievements,mindful of its responsibilities, let us go forward to the accom-plishment of these great purposes. Let us draw our inspirationfrom the divine injunction:"And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, let him beservant of all."'St. Louis, Missouri. Guy A. Thompson'Address delivered by the President of the Missouri Bar Association at a dinnergiven by the St. Joseph Bar Association, January 12, 1924.-Ed.

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