W. A. Ketcham:

Members of the American Bar Association. It is with unalloyed pleasure and gratification that I present to you your President for the ensuing year-William A. Blount. He needs no words of commendation from me. His conduct for these many years in the American Bar Association is the highest commendation that he can have, and in recognition thereof I now beg of you all to stand up and receive him.

President-Elect William A. Blount:

Permit me first to thank you extremely for the tribute which you have just now given to me. I trust you do not anticipate a set speech from me at this time and upon this occasion. I frequently make arguments; I infrequently make speeches, and then only upon compulsion, so that he who expects at this time a manufactured oration will be disappointed, or pleased, according as his individual desire may be. You, however, have the right to what I give so freely and so gladly-an expression of whole-heartedness of appreciation of the honor which you have conferred upon me. It is peculiarly gratifying to me for the reason that it has no incident of authority external to this Association and no emoluments, and therefore there can be no suspicion of interestedness and no doubt of my sincerity in this expression of gratitude.

It is an honor also which is particularly acceptable to me because it comes to me after 26 years of service in the Association, and therefore I may naturally assume that it comes as an appreciation of esteem from those members of the Bar with whom I have been associated for that length of time. It is an honor which under those circumstances appears to me to be the highest unofficial professional goal to which an American lawyer can aspire. I am not unmindful of its responsibility. Those responsibilities exist even when the life of the nation and of this Association is unruffled, but they are graver and much more serious in these troublous times. But I am fortified by the fact that I am only the humble assistant of the great body of earnest men and women who constitute the American Bar Association, and who will meet the crises as they come and will either avert them or surmount them. I prefer to put beside and beyond

me at this time a sense of responsibility and bask only in the pleasure which I feel at your selection of me-a selection by men who either potentially or actually are leaders of thought: therefore, a selection which makes me by your grace for the time being a leader of the leaders of men-men who 1 trust during the coming year and for all time will devote their energies, their talents, themselves, to the preservation of individuality against collectivism; the preservation of liberty against aggression either from the few or from the many-on the one side from autocracy, on the other side from mobocracy-and keep this country as it has always been, the freest and the safest, as well as the biggest and the strongest, nation on earth.

The Association then adjourned until 2.30 P. M.

The President:

SEVENTH SESSION.

Friday, August 27, 1920, 2.30 P. M.

The first item in the order of business this afternoon is a report from the Committee on Membership, of which Mr. Lucien H. Alexander is Chairman.

(The report was later submitted and will be found on page 299.)

The President:

Mr. Secretary, I should like to know how many members have been elected at this meeting?

Secretary Kemp:

Two hundred and seventy new members have been elected during this meeting, and about 500 were elected just before the meeting.

Walter George Smith, of Pennsylvania:

May I inquire what the total membership now is?

The President:

It approximates 12,000. As long as the committee on membership is not present perhaps a word from the Chair will not

be out of place. The growth of this Association has been very remarkable during the last two or three years. I know that some of the older members think that we are getting too large and too unwieldy. Those of us who have been charged with administrative duties do not feel that way. We want to make the JOURNAL the greatest professional journal that America can boast. There are already in the air in the way of suggested administrative reforms all that has been carefully achieved in any one of the states, all that is of interest in the way of biological data, so that a member of this Association taking up the JOURNAL every month will find himself in touch with the life of the profession throughout this great republic.

Without a word of argument it would be apparent to everbody that an undertaking of that kind is of very great magnitude, and that its weight ought not to rest on the shoulders of a few. Every member of the Association is entitled to a copy of that JOURNAL. The amount of dues we have fixed is exceedingly modest and not beyond the means of the average member of the profession. We have 120,000 lawyers in the United States, and only 10 per cent of the profession is enrolled in this body— if we could have 25,000 members enrolled here that would mean $150,000 in dues to be expended in the work of the Association. There is not an officer high or low that at any time in the history of this organization has received a dollar of compensation for his services. The work that has been done here has been done because of love of the profession and because we are earnestly interested in its successful administration. I know, and I heard it expressed in debates, and it is perfectly natural that it should be so, in the Open Forum the other afternoon, that some gentlemen thought they had no opportunity to express themselves at these meetings. We put that Open Forum on the program in order that gentlemen might have an opportunity if they had a thought in their mind in the way of suggestion to arise and to make it public; but a little reflection will satisfy anybody that you cannot run a great body like this without executive administration, that you must have a program arranged in advance.

All the Sections whose meetings you see scheduled have got to be carefully prepared, and time accorded to them by the Executive Committee, in order that there shall be no conflict of hours or of

subjects. That requires an immense amount of time and correspondence. We frequently issue invitations and find that speakers cannot fulfil their engagements, and sometimes after having accepted they are prevented from coming by illness or some other exigency. The services that men give loyally to the administrative work in time puts them into the Local Council or the Executive Committee or the General Council and finally into the higher offices. I think it is to the glory of this Association that for 40 years it has been run through the co-operative pleasure and loyalty of men who have been willing to attend the meetings and discuss the subjects presented and listen to the papers that have been read before the Association.

I say this to show why we must rely on an increase of membership. I am sufficiently diligent in attending meetings from year to year to become familiar with the faces of many in the audience, but there are men here whose faces I have never seen before. I think it is a great opportunity that all miss who do not attend these meetings.

The General Council which brought in its nominations for officers this morning were elected on the floor here by the representatives of the various states. Nobody knew who was going to be nominated for President. The Association is always as free and representative as it is possible for any association to be. Let us give it loyal support, continue it, and if you will each of you do your share you will at least add five of your friends to the membership of this Association, and if you do that we ought to have 5000 new members by Christmas time. This is about the last message that I can leave with you because the sands of life are running fast-at least officially-with me.

Committee on Change of Date of Presidential Inauguration :

William L. Putnam, of Massachusetts:

This committee has had this matter now under consideration for about five years and feels that it is desirable that at this meeting some action should be taken. The committee feel that the entire period which elapses between the election of a President and the date of his inauguration is too long. A period of about four months is infinitely too long. They also feel that the short session of the old Congress, which begins in December, is un

fortunate. I would say that we have looked up the matter historically and are satisfied that the framers of the Constitution never meant anything of that sort. However, it cannot be changed now without a Constitutional amendment. The date. of the 4th of March for the inauguration of the President is embodied in the Constitution, and it will be difficult now to change the date without a Constitutional amendment. The committee feel that this is a matter peculiarly for this Association to consider and act upon.

In domestic matters perhaps it does not make a great deal of difference if you have to wait four months before a new policy can be inaugurated, although even then it causes some trouble; but now that our relations with foreign countries are so close and so important it is very dangerous that there should be an administration in charge for four months which is not the administration elected at the November election. The new administration should be inaugurated and should come into control as soon as possible after election. The old administration may be discredited, and certainly it is weakened by the election of a new administration.

This is not a matter of partisanship in any way, and all we can do is to bring the matter to the attention of Congress. It may perhaps concern the President to be elected four years hence, but it cannot affect the next Presidential election, of course. The reason why this is peculiarly for this Association to take up is that we can see in advance the danger. The committee, therefore, recommends that the American Bar Association go on record as strongly favoring such action as will lead to the election and inauguration of a President being brought nearer together, and an abandonment of the short session of Congressof the old Congress.

We also recommend that these views be made public and be communicated to the President, the Senators, and the members of the House of Representatives, and that a committee be appointed to see to the carrying out of the foregoing details, and that the present committee be continued for that purpose. We do not suggest any particular date for the inauguration, but leave that where it properly belongs, to the Senate and the House of Representatives.

(For Report, see July Journal, page 417.)