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be divorced entirely from the work of a bar association. far as I have known and seen in my experience with you it has never been a factor in anything that has been done by the Illinois State Bar Association, and I hope it never will be. And I hope that you will study that question carefully, and I hope you will come to the same conclusion that I have reached on it, that it is not a desirable thing for the bar of this state certainly, and that it is not a desirable thing to put into practice generally throughout the United States.

I do not know how I can say anything to you here about the strength of this Association, anything about the usefulness of this Association, that you do not know. All I can say, all I want to say more on the subject of the Bar Association of the present, is that you will keep its condition as strong and as solid as it is, so that the Association of the future, which is to be spoken of in a moment, will be a greater, better, Illinois State Bar Association.

I thank you.
(Applause).

THE PRESIDENT:

And now we look forward to another fifty years of the Association, and we naturally turn to one who has been a great factor in the Association in the past, a man who has served this Association as its President, and the Chicago Bar Association as well, and is now doing a magnificent piece of work as the editor of the American Bar Association Journal. I want to call upon Major Edgar B. Tolman: "The Bar Association of the Future."

(Applause).

MAJOR EDGAR B. TOLMAN: Mr. President: I did not have any choice of subjects; my subject was given to me, and I took orders on it. But if I were going to choose a subject I believe the one assigned me is what I would choose, "The Bar Association of Fifty Years Hence." You

see it gives you room for prophecy. Now John Black can talk about the Bar Association of to-day, and somebody may prove that he is wrong about it, but it will take you fifty years before you can prove what I am going to tell you about the Bar Association of fifty years to come, is

erroneous.

You know the scientists say that if you give them a single bone of a pre-historic mastodon, they will reconstruct the whole animal. I do not see why we should not be able, by a somewhat similar logical deductive process, from what we know about the lawyer of to-day, to tell what the Bar Association of fifty years in the future is going to be. But you must have your data. Now, be patient with me a minute while I lay down the data.

In the first place, consider what the function of the judicial institution is. You know it is a comparatively modern invention. For a great many centuries there was no such thing as the judicial institution. Men ruled by force and by might. Man was born a fighting animal, and he fought his way through the brute creation to be the leader and the master of it all. A great many centuries of warfare brought man to a position where he said, "This fighting business is disruptive, we have just about played it out, we have got to find some better way to settle our controversies," and then they invented the judicial institution to settle controversies according to the justice of the case.

Men used to have shining armor, they used to carry the sword, spear and helmet. They would be having the same kind of bell of dress to-day if somebody hadn't invented the judicial institution as a means of bringing about, peacefully, the just settlement of a controversy; and so the judicial institution is an invention to bring about peace among men, and it is the greatest assurance of peace and tranquility and civilization that there is to-day. Without it we would still be barbarians.

This judicial institution does not consist altogether of

the courts and the judges; the judges alone can not administer justice. The lawyer is an essential and necessary and indispensable part of this great judicial institution, and he is one of those charged with the duty of administering justice, the highest concern of man upon earth. For this reason the lawyer is, in a very real sense, a public officer, an arm of the court, a minister in the temple of justice.

Now, there is the data; what is going to be the development in fifty years?

In the first place it is, I think, as certain as anything that you can predict, that the movement that is now on foot to improve the administration of justice, will go on, step by step, until it reaches its perfect day. The courts will be given that freedom and autonomy that belong to them, so that they will be able, unhampered, to discharge their great duty. Fifty years from now we will not tolerate the invasion of the judicial province by the other departments of the government. The time will come when we will not permit the legislature to tell the judges how they are going to discharge the great duty of administering justice. The courts are going to take back this inherent right that they have to determine for themselves by what methods they shall discharge this duty.

I venture to prophesy, next, in regard to what will be accomplished in fifty years towards the more perfect organization of the bar. The lawyer fifty years from now will stand guardian at the outer gate to see that none unfit nor untrue nor unfaithful enters within the holy precincts of the temple. (Applause). The lawyer fifty years from now will see that those who traffic in justice are flogged with whips from out the temple. (Applause). To accomplish these purposes the lawyer will organize as he has never organized before. In every county of this State, we will have a bar association of that county, perhaps, in many cities of the populous counties; we will have bar associations of those cities; those bar associations will unite

themselves together by a plan of federation, not at the dictate of any legislative Act, for the compulsory incorporation of the bar, but by a union together of kindred spirits with a common end to accomplish that end. The county bar associations will federate themselves together in a State Bar Association. The State Bar Association through some delegate plan will federate themselves together in the American Bar Association, and the profession will be one united in a common purpose to accomplish a great task.

I have one story to tell you, the moral of which I think you will see, and the application of which will be apparent. We ought not to let an occasion like this go by when all these trophies of prowess on the golf field are distributed without drawing a lesson from the game of golf.

There were two Scotchmen who had been playing golf; they had been lifelong rivals at the game, and on the last day of the season they were playing off a tie for the whole year's play. You know the Scotch are not very loquacious persons, and these ancient rivals, Sandy and McPherson, grimly drove, approached and putted without a word. On the eighteenth green they lay alike, one put to decide the year's match. Sandy putted and missed, and for the first time in that long match, he opened his mouth and said one word, "damn." Then McPherson, seeing victory at his grasp, took his puter and marked the line from his ball to the hole, marched down to the hole and marked the line from the hole back to the ball, came back, addressed the ball, putted, and missed. Whereupon he turned in anger to his opponent and said, "Sandy, you ruin me game wi' your ceaseless chatter!"

(Applause).

THE PRESIDENT: With many thanks to the speakers of the evening, we will now stand adjourned.

PART VII

NECROLOGY

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