attitude of the Association in the conduct of its business has tended to discourage oftentimes the younger members of the Association from participating in the proceedings.

The committee reports on the program for this meeting look more like a railroad time-table than they should. For example: "The time schedule will be strictly adhered to." I recognize the time limitations. It is exceedingly difficult for an association to do anything to remedy that. But it does seem to me that the various reports should either be simply filed or considered in Section meetings, or else that they be substantially cut down so that real debates can be had upon them. They ought not to go out before the country at large without a sufficient opportunity for debate being given. So far as these extensive proposals are concerned, I recognize the right of men who attend these sessions year after year to have more to say than the men who never come to the meetings. That is something that should not be overlooked. That is one of the dangers of the suggestion that a ballot by mail should be taken. I do not know that an amendment is in order, but I would suggest that the men to be nominated under any such system should be men who have attended at least three meetings of the Association, and limit the nominations to the men who have attended such meetings. That could easily be shown in the year-book of the Association. That will give everybody an opportunity in the home state to vote, but continue the control of the Association, as it should be, in the hands of men who know the method and active personnel of the Association. Take the clection of members of the General Council under the present system. Probably one of the best friends that I have was elected to the General Council from Illinois this year, so I am not criticizing the result in my own state. We have some 600 or 800 members in Illinois. We had a meeting here and I think there were 17 or 18 members present when my friend was selected. In his case he would undoubtedly have been selected under the mail ballot system if his name had been suggested, but when you have a meeting held in that way I think it tends to make the men who do not attend, and the new members who do not realize how quickly the thing is done, feel that it is all set up in advance. It seems to me that if the present method is to be continued, the rules of the Association should require that the

time and place of the meeting for the election of members of the General Council and for vice-president and members of the local councils should be sent out to all members of the Association in advance of the meeting, so that a member before he leaves his home may know that on such and such a day a meeting will be held for the purpose of making these elections and he may attend if he wishes to do so.

Without urging any action to be taken that we should abandon what we have done, I want to suggest that the Association generally should recognize that it is not living up to its highest possibilities; that though the criticism reaches far beyond the facts yet there is substantial criticism; that wise statesmanship on the part of our officers would lead them not only to defend the facts, but do something along the lines suggested by Judge McClellan, properly safeguarded, so that nominations should be limited to those who have attended meetings; I believe that would advance the interests of the Association.

T. A. Hammond, of Georgia:

I was a

I have been attending these meetings since 1909. member of the American Bar Association before I attended any of the meetings. My first attendance was at the meeting held in Detroit. I was there as a new member, welcomed and made to feel perfectly at home. I have attended every meeting of the Association since then.

The Association has seen fit to honor me far beyond my deserts, but it is my pleasure now to say that there is not a state in the union that has not some lawyer who will shake hands with me and call me by my first name.

I have seen none of the things which it is said are likely to produce trouble in the American Bar Association. I cannot recall where any member of the Association ever asked for recognition on the floor and it was not accorded him. Sometimes a member has acted in a way that appeared to be a mere interruption of the proceedings, and for the purpose of avoiding trouble such member has been promptly called down. But whenever a member has offered anything of merit I have never seen the time when his suggestions were not properly and courteously received. This Association is now celebrating, I believe, the 43d year of

its existence. It began with a well prepared constitution, which has been only a little amended. From a membership of 3600 in 1908 it has grown to a membership of nearly 12,000 in 1920.

When you think of the fact that lawyers have year after year come here to listen and to be advised by older heads, and being desirous of doing some beneficial work for the Association, have come at their own expense, and when you see every year these same faithful faces you have seen for twenty years, why it shows that there is something behind this Association that is worth being kept together.

Why should you propose to go out in the United States and have a primary election to nominate members to the General Council? How would you expect to get these men interested? You elect a vice-president and a member of the General Council and four members on the local council. If you adopted the proposed amendments you will be practically saying to each state, "Your five members so selected by the primary vote may go to the meetings of the Association, there is no necessity for anybody else going." What is the wrong that has been done? Why do we need the remedy of an election of that sort? I think it is good time for us to say here and now in respect of the proposed amendments that it is the sense of this body that they be not adopted.

Clarence N. Goodwin, of Illinois :

It seems to me that the practical limitations on the democracy of such an Association as this are very well illustrated by the delightful address of our President this morning. Of course, it is impossible for 12,000 members of this Association to gather at one place. It would be equally impossible to give to each one an opportunity to assert his opinion and to present his ideas to any great extent in regard to those things that would make for the decided limitation upon our action as a sort of an associated betterment of the Bar. That being so, and there being such a democracy, it seems to me that there is great weight in the argument that our governing body-carrying out the idea of the President in his evolution of representative government-should be as truly representative as it is possible for us to make it. Not that our representative should be chosen by half a dozen or a dozen of the members of the same delegation who happen to be

present at the meeting, but should be chosen so far as possible as the free choice of all the members of the American Bar Association in the state which he is to represent.

I want to call attention to this aspect of the matter. Some of the gentlemen who have spoken have rather suggested that those who come here are by reason of their devotion to the interest of the Association entitled perhaps to a larger vote and a larger influence in the affairs of the Association than those who stay away. We come here because we enjoy coming here, and everybody who does come here gets his full payment and takes away really a great deal more than he brings to the meeting. So we do not get anything to our credit on the ground of selfsacrifice. It is a delight and a pleasure to be here. But I want to call your attention to the fact that there are thousands of members of this Association who never attend a meeting; who, except when the meeting is to be held in their immediate vicinity, cannot hope to attend a meeting, and who support the Association purely as a matter of professional duty. It seems to me that it would add to the weight and influence of the Association if we could give those members an opportunity to express themselves in their choice of representatives on the General Council. I do not think it would give us any better members; I do not think the personnel of the General Council would be improved in the slightest; and I do not know that its membership would be changed to any great extent, but you would have the advantage of having the members of the Association generally participate, at least in this way, in the affairs of the Association.

May I make another suggestion? I do not know that it is practical, but wouldn't it be worth while to make an effort to gather together the members of the Association in each state at least once a year prior to the time of holding this annual meeting, either in connection with the state bar association or otherwise, to get as many of them together as possible and to talk over the program that we are to have at the annual meeting and perhaps to formulate some sentiment on the subjects that are coming before that meeting? I do not see why to some extent that could not be done, and I am sure it would insure a larger attendance at the meeting.

Wesley Martin, of Iowa:

The first meeting of this Association that I attended was the one held at Cleveland, Ohio, two years ago. I had an idea, before going to that meeting, that this was a somewhat exclusive organization and that perhaps members from the country towns would have but little influence and but slight, if any, recognition. When, however, at this, my first meeting, I was selected as a member of the Local Council of the American Bar Association for Iowa, my views underwent a radical change. I then realized that attendance upon the meetings is the best way to get the fullest benefits of membership. This is true as well as of other organizations. Attendance upon the stated meetings is calculated to bring specific recognition and adds to the influence and usefulness of the attending members.

P. H. Martin, of Wisconsin:

The discussion thus far has constrained me from renewing the suggestion made at the meeting in Boston last year, with reference to the organization of the American Bar Association. The effort seems to have been to interest the state bar associations. We lack unity of purpose and unity of effort. Why not organize the American Bar Association upon the plan of fraternal organization? Why should not every member of every state bar association in the United States be ipso facto a member of the American Bar Association?

The President:

Do you think the Treasurer could collect the dues on that theory?

P. H. Martin:

If he employs a good lawyer I think he could. The Constitution of the American Bar Association might be so amended as to permit state associations to elect to come in as a body as members of the American Bar Association. Then in a very short time we would have what we should have-not bar associations but one great big bar association in this country. The ideal of the lawyer is the same whether he comes from Florida or Illinois or Arkansas or any other state. We come here for what we can get out of it in an intellectual way, and I am