New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-03-10
CAN I'VE HAVE A REFORMATION OF TIE
R4Rf

Judge Bedford is trying in earnest to purify
the Court of General Sessions, and we presume
he will succeed in checking some of the in
famous practices of the class of men who have
made the phrase "TOmbs lawyer such term
of reprOach. But these Center-st. Togues are
very small game. They have no standing in
the profession and no reputation in private
life. TO sweep them all out of existence
would improve the administration of the Grim
inal law, but would not sensibly affect the
dangerous Generalization which is destroying
the honor of the profession by corrupting its
upper ranks. If the bench is to be reformed,
if the bar is to be relieved of the scandals
which now stain its reputation, we must so up
higher than Judge Bcdford's Court. We must
reach the men who preside over the greater
tribunals of the State, and the practitioners
who have made fame and money and social
position by the law and We must ask some
very plain questions about their personal
honor. The indications are that the cOntrO-
versy about Mr.. Fisks counsel will result in
an authoritative inquiry into the conduct of at
least one eminent lawyer, and, however it may
affect him personally, the discussion may act
perhaps as a tonic in bracing up the moral
sense Of the profession. If thisl prove to be
the case, Mr.. Field will have indirectly rem
dered a greater service to the public by ac-
cepting an Eric retainer than he could ever
have performed by refusing it, Certainly
many of his legal brethren are urgent for an
investigation, and profuse in their acknowl-
edgments of gratitude to those who have
dragged the story of Fisk, Field, Ramsey, and
Barnard to light.
But let the members of the bar bear in
mind that the profession must reform ITSELF
The work cannot be done outside. The first
step in the way of publication is exposure of
the guilty; and that we can rarely have except
when some courageous and high-minded lawyer
steps forward to say in public what scores of
his brethren are whispering in confidence to
their friends, or darkly limiting in private con-
versatiOn. /" If men would tell half what they
"know," says Gen. Barlow, there are some
Judges who would never dare to appear again
on the bench"-and some lawyers, he might
have added. who would never show themselves
again in respectable society, or be employed
by an honest client. OF course it needs
r,Dral bravery to tell Of the misdeeds of the
judiciary The task is one of no slight danger |;
but the cause is a noble one and surely there
are good men who can face danger in a court
house as well as on battlefield. Every leading
editor has heard of cases quite as fragrant as
| those that Gen. Barlow has exposed in THE
| TRIBUNE. The business of injunctiOns espe-
cially is an open scandal, and there are stories
of er parte orders in bar-rOOms quite as outra-
geous as the lit de justice in q Twenty-thrd-
st. house of il-fame. Most of those who
watch the proceedings of the courts are
morally certain of the corrupt character of
moro than one high functionary, of the shame
full peculation of rec6iverships, and the traffic
in orders of court. Many doubtless could tell
the average cost of an injunction, and many
certainly know the confidential agents through
whom the buying and selling of judges are
conducted. But it is one thing to
have moral assurance of these things, and
another to have proof. The newspapers cannot
make charges against particular persons unless
they are prepared to support their allegations
if called upon. We cannot betray the dis
closures which are made to us in confidence,
and VIC cannot expose ourselves to vindictive
and ruinOus libel-suts without such legal evil
dence as will establish the truth of all our ac-
cusations. Evidence of this kind is rarely at a
journalists command 1t is, however, at the
command of many of the legal profession.
There are scores of lawyers who, if they chose
to speak, could strip the ermino from unworthy
shoulders, and Danish rascally counselors from
the calling which they disgrace. These men
owe it to their own good name, the credit of
their profession, and the safety of society, to
assail boldly the growing evil, which they
alone have power to check. And meanwhile
the Bar Association, in a private, and If neces-
sary secret manner, can exercise powerful
pressure upon its members in behalf of honesty
and fair ealing.