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that everybody knows that the jury never pays any attention to the instructions. (Laughter.)

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I think I never heard of a court that was sufficiently ignorant of the technicalities of the law to please critics of that kind, except in a single instance. An old judge down in our part of the State used to tell the story, that he knew an individual once who was a candidate for the office of Circuit Judge against the incumbent on the bench, and as sometimes happens, notwithstanding the industry of the Judges, the docket had become very much crowded. This gentleman went around over the Circuit and said, "Now, if I am elected to the bench I will clear up that docket." Well, unfortunately, he was elected and in the first county that he went to, when he had put in the full term and the time came for him to go to the next county, he found that he had about twenty-one or twenty-two cases on the docket undisposed of. He told the clerk to get all the papers in these cases and put them on his desk, which the clerk did; and the Judge shut his eyes and he picked up the first case and said, that is decided for the plaintiff; took the next and said, that is decided for the defendant; the next is decided for the plaintiff, and went through the whole list in that way, then told the clerk to enter up judgments according to the decisions and announced that he had cleared the docket. Well, the old Judge that told the story said that every case was taken to the Supreme Court of that State and every one of them affirmed except one (laughter), and he said he had no doubt in the world but that would have been affirmed but it was the odd case. (Laughter.) I will not vouch for the truth of that story, but if it is true it certainly suf ficiently ignores all technicalities so that any man ought to be satisfied with that way of administering justice.

I do not want to occupy more time than the law permits, as this case is only being argued on one side. (Laughter and applause.) One of the ablest, and in my judgment one of the

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best men that ever occupied a seat upon the Supreme Bench of the State of Illinois, once said, while Chief Justice of the Court, responding to resolutions on the life and character of a distinguished member of the Chicago Bar,-"He impressed us as a friend of the Court, and hence he was listened to with interest and consideration; to us his death is a personal loss because no Court ever attained eminence which was not aided and assisted by an intelligent, honest and faithful bar." Nothing truer could be said, still there is sometimes seemingly a disposition of Bench and Bar to regard each other as a sort of mortal enemy. The interests of the Court and the interests of the Bar are necessarily one and the same, and no Court can successfully maintain its reputation for learning and ability without the aid and assistance of an intelligent, honest and fair minded bar. I am glad to say, and say it with all sincerity and earnestness, that to my mind the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois has generally had such aid and assistance. The briefs and arguments that are submitted are generally aids to the court in reaching a correct conclusion. I have no patience with a lawyer who espouses the cause of a client and fails to give him the benefit of every legitimate phase of his case with earnestness, persistency and zeal, and when that duty is done he also owes it, and I think the bar of Illinois recognizes that he then owes a duty to the court to be fair and to present his case in a manner calculated to aid and assist the court.

Sometimes we find briefs, very seldom, I am glad to say, prepared a little on the order of an old friend of the President of this Association and myself who used to meet us over at Springfield when we were young men and say, "Well, boys, let us go up to the library, and I would like to have you write for me a little this evening, and I will dictaté." So we went up one evening, and he was preparing an argument for the Supreme Court and had a young man writing for him; he dictated a proposition of law; and the young man said, "Well,

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no,

but Colonel, that is not the law." The old colonel studied a minute and said, "Don't you think that is the law?" "Why, I know it is not the law," said the young man, and, by the way, the young man who said it was a really good lawyer, and the old colonel knew it, but he said, "Well, put it in anyhow, there is no telling how it may strike some member of the court." (Laughter and applause.) Once in a while you run across a proposition of that kind, put in very ingeniously and evidently with the purpose of seeing just how it might strike some member of the court. Well, that is all right enough, for the man who does it of course does not exactly understand how much time and labor it may take the judge who does not know exactly how it strikes him to find out how it does.

I repeat, the interests of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois and of the Bar of this State are one and the same. The Supreme Court as at present composed is in full sympathy and harmony with the Bar in every effort made by it in this Association and elsewhere to elevate the standard of our profession and to maintain the laws of our State and to enforce them, and I may truly say that so far as the court is able, by patient, honest effort to accomplish that purpose, the Bar of this State, I think, will always find them ready and willing to act. And now, we return to you, the State Bar Association, our sincere thanks for the courtesy that you have shown us, and we promise you that we shall earnestly endeavor in the future to promote the administration of our laws so that we may be proud of it in the future as I think we may justly be proud of its past history, and may we as members of this honored profession and as members of its courts one and all join in the advancement of all those things that make our State great in the estimation of its people. great in the estimation of all the people of this country, and great in the estimation of all the world. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT WOOD: The next subject is-The Legal Instinct Applied. "A Judge should be a light to jurors to open

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their eyes, but not a guide to lead them by their noses." Response by Judge C. C. Kohlsaat.

JUDGE KOHLSAAT: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Judge Wilkin alludes to the fact that he became more and more embarrassed as he got older, and this reminds me of a little episode between Erskine and Lamb. Lamb, in addressing the jury, said, "I must confess to an increasing embarrassment as I advance in years in addressing a jury." Said the merciless Erskine, "That is perfectly natural, Mr. Lamb, every lamb as he grows older becomes more sheepish." (Laughter.) When I assigned myself this theme tonight it looked easy; the only thing I now can say in its favor is—it is a great deal better than the one that is to follow it, for the "Lawyer in Finance" must be a terribly dry theme, and this is dry enough.

I always feel, when speaking to my fellow lawyers, like saying something in defense of lawyers. We are badly spoken of by the public generally, they tell the most shocking stories about the members of the Bar, rarely very good ones. Every one thinks fairly well of his own lawyer, but every other lawyer is the butt of a joke. One story tells that an Irish lawyer who was taking a friend out, was asked whether it was true that Irishmen are as witty as we always think they are. Well, said he, here is a man working on the road, we will ask him a question and see how he gets out of it. So, after greeting the laborer, he said: "Michael, this gentleman is from America, and he wishes to know whether, if the devil were to come and have the choice of taking you or me, which he would take first." "O," said the man, "your honor, he would take me first." The lawyer inquired, "Why would he take you first?" The answer was, "Because he is sure of getting you lawyers anyhow." (Laughter.)

And then they tell of a witness, a woman, on the stand who invariably started in by saying, "I think." The lawyer

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would stop her "you have no right to think, madam, tell the facts." And having been stopped a number of times she refused to answer the next question and the lawyer insisted upon an answer. She still made no reply. He turned to the Judge and asked the court to require the witness to answer. "Answer the question," said the suave Judge. "Well, your Honor," she says, "I am no lawyer, and I can't talk without thinking." (Laughter.)

Doubtless you know other bad stories about the lawyers; they are very current, and it becomes one who admires the profession and who sees the good in it, on every proper occasion to advance the phases of lawyer character which appeal to the approval of every well-minded, right-minded person. The legal instinct, so far as I know, is not congenital, few people are born with it; it is the result of education, of environment. To the uninitiated the law looks like an unknown country. To the young beginner it looks almost like something that can never be acquired. I well remember when I was a young man it was my pleasure and my fortune to meet and be intimately associated with one who has since made a brilliant reputation at the Bar, and I well remember, also, his statement to me: "I seem to be utterly unable to grasp the general principles of law, I verily believe that I shall never be able to master them, and these men who stand at the head of the Bar seem to me today like giants." He overlooked the fact that it was approached step by step. One thing after another is acquired until, obtaining, as one obtains who mounts some great prominence, a view of what he has passed over, he is better calculated to take into his mind. and hold the things which are before him; that which seemed to him insurmountable becomes a possibility.

The reasoning, the logic, the working of the lawyer's mind make him constructive to a degree above all men in the community and in the nation. Then, too, this instinct is par

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