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to his prize. But as he beheld the faces of his sixty dead on the deck of the sinking vessel he could not do it and he said, "When I saw those men lying there stark and stiff, who had given their lives in order that that flag might float, I could not rob them of the glory of taking it down with them. I gave them that ship for their sepulcher, I gave them that flag for their winding sheet." The ship went down head foremost, the stern rose high in air and the last object seen floating above the waters was that unconquered and unstricken flag as it went down to guard the glory of the dead. (Applause.)

There has never been a time in American history when American women did not animate the souls of men, and we are glad to see them here, to have them participate in this celebration, feeling that there is something about the science of jurisprudence far above all other earthly applications of the principles of morality, because it touches human life in its many and its varied aspects. It is a profession which has the courage to reject from its membership those who are unworthy, and which at the same time has lofty ideals of pure and inspired principles of justice; it is the highest, the holiest, the truest and the noblest profession that man can practice. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT HOLDOM: I always knew the presence of ladies was inspiring. The next toast upon the program is "The Supreme Court of Illinois," to be responded to by Mr. Justice James H. Cartwright, who is ever welcome at the State Bar Association. (Applause).

JUDGE CARTWRIGHT: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Brethren of the Bench and Bar: It is a very great pleasure as well as an honor to be able to join with you in doing honor to, as well as in hearing, our distinguished guest who has just addressed you. I suppose that I am to say something about my subject, which was assigned to me by the com

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mittee, and in doing so I wish to be understood as speaking only for myself and not for the Court of which I am a member. I always come to the State Bar Association, and did so long before I occupied a seat upon the bench. I like to come and hear about the Supreme Court, and to feel just as I used to feel when I had been beaten in a case. They were wrong and I knew they were wrong. It was just as clear to me as it could be that they not only had methods that were wrong, but that they did not know the law, and furthermore, that they did not want to know it (laughter) because they would not listen to me, I could not convince them. And it is so yet

I am sometimes like the member of the Court who was attempting to console a nisi prius judge, several of whose decisions had been reversed. He was met with the reply: “O, you need not worry about me, they have not reversed me this term as often as they reversed you. I was reversed in three cases and you dissented in four." (Laughter and applause).

Since I have found out how the thing is done I have begun to doubt a little bit whether I was not failing mentally because things that used to seem just as clear to me as daylight now do not seem quite as clear. There are some of my old cases that we have in the books where I was defeated, where I knew they were wrong; but now I begin to think that my mind is getting a little weak, or is failing because it is not quite as clear to me now that they were wrong as it used to be. (Laughter). Of course the office of attorney, both by its nature and by practice is the office and position of a partisan. He is acting for his client and he is paid in advance to disagree with the Court in any conclusion that is not favorable to his client. That is natural and that is proper, and I do not blame these gentlemen who persist in the position that the Court was wrong, and that the Court not only did not know the law, but did not want to. (Laughter).

Of course it would not become me to talk about the

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methods of the Court, about which there has been a good deal said today, but I apprehend no sensible man thinks the Court really does not want to know what the law is, or that it adopts methods on purpose to prevent finding out or ascertaining what the law is. A man who becomes a Judge has received the highest honor that can be conferred upon a human being. I believe that to be chosen by an intelligent community, a liberty loving community, a community relying upon the constitutional guarantees, to whom life and property and human rights are dear, to be chosen as the one to whom they are willing to commend those interests, is to receive the highest honor that can be conferred upon a human being. (Applause). Now, of course, I hardly need to say that a man who receives that honor and puts all else behind him, who knows that in all probability he will leave but little, unless it be a good reputation, to such a man there comes the highest inspiration to do the best of which he is capable. It is an absorbing ambition to be a good judge, to know the law, to administer the law and to feel when it is put into a book to be read by intelligent and capable men and to be criticised by them hereafter for all time to come that it will stand the test of that criticism. It is an absorbing ambition with any right thinking man to accomplish that object.

Well, we can not all agree; as you see sometimes we have to dissent, and, of course, somebody has to be defeated. The Court has adopted such methods as it has thought best for the purpose of ascertaining what the law is. While the Court is criticised sometimes, and there has been pretty free criticism, it is proper, we are glad to hear it. If there is anything to be said about the Court that will aid or enlighten it or give it better methods, it is proper that we should hear it. That is right. But the Court has some things to contend with. A man who becomes a judge, or a body of judges who are seeking to administer the law, have a great many things to contend with in trying to ascertain what the law is. In

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the first place there are the lawyers (laughter); they are sometimes members of this Association. But it is a fact that every capable lawyer knows that cases are presented to the Supreme Court by parties who are utterly incapable of doing it, that the Court frequently does not get the aid from the attorneys that it ought to have; that it is utterly impossible for a member of the Court, in undertaking to write an opinion, to investigate all the law upon the subject. That is the duty

of the attorney, and in a great many cases it is not fully or capably discharged by the attorneys. This imposes a vast amount of labor on the court and not only that, it leads the Court into error. The Supreme Court of the State of Illinois has endeavored to remedy this defect just as far as it could by an attempt to raise the standard of intelligence and education of the Bar of the State of Illinois. (Applause). The Court has adopted rules which it is believed will redound not only to the honor of the Bar but to the benefit of the Supreme Court in procuring a better class of lawyers and those who are better able to present their cases.

Then there is another thing to be remembered, one that was alluded to by our honored President-elect, the able gentleman who read the paper on the Character and Trial of Aaron Burr, that the commercialism of this country has invaded everything. It is a fact that the Supreme Court of Illinois is called on time and again simply to furnish an abstract of title for the purpose of selling real estate. It has often finally appeared that the parties on both sides represented the same interests and wanted to accomplish the same things. If securities are to be put upon the market it often happens that the Court is furnished with no authorities and no argument upon one side, and many such cases have been heard in the Court since I have been there. Now there was something said today by the committee about a case where the Court perhaps did not administer the law just as it is, when they all wanted it

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that way, when the whole argument was that way and when the other side was not presented at all.

Well, the Court has these things to contend with-not only the incompetency of some attorneys, but the fact that cases are made for the Court and where the parties want either to put securities on the market or where they want to sell real estate or something of that kind. There are some things which are capable of reform both in Court and in the law, of course there are reforms without number. Reform, the general spirit of reform is a microbe which has its genesis and thrives in various departments in civic affairs, generally among people who do not get the offices and want to manage public affairs. Among the lawyers it has its genesis in a law suit,-you can almost put your finger on the law suit. And very frequently the person who is advocating some reform is some sort of a specialist, having some special line and seeking to introduce some sort of change in the law for the improvement of the particular practice of the law which he represents. Now reforms are proper and they are necessary in many instances, but I think that reforms should only come,-they should only be adopted, only be recommended-in cases where there is practical unanimity among those who are in general practice, practicing in all kinds of cases and in different courts upon different sides of similar questions. Then the change ought to be made.

We have seen an exhibition of this lately, where the Practice Commission, as I think, lost the opportunity to make changes which were universally demanded and about which the bar and the bench were unanimous, by putting in things about which they were not unanimous. But the Commission itself, perhaps, were not unanimous upon some propositions and yet recommended them. And I think all

the recommendations of that Practice Commission failed because they did not confine themselves to those things

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