The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-04-29
answer to a specific question. The sin

terview' runs:
MR.. COTDERT REPLIES.
in which success could not be coupled
with glory. HIS plant was that all that
he, all that they could gain in this miser-
able strife was the saving Of the party's
honor. He proceeded in this strain until
he had entirely changed the mood of his
audience, and then grievously and griev-
ingly proceeded to smite the Mayuardites
hip and thigh. The incident was thor
oughly Gallo. 1t was histrionic and yet
SINGERS.
His forensic methods are the same as
his political ones. Years ago a great jury
| lawyer said of him He possesses a
| happy faculty of establishing at the out
! set friendly relation and mutual under
| standing with jury, and this is half the
| battle MIR. Coudert has done more
| than this. There is story about him
| which is both true and well told that in
a bitterly contested will case, in which
! everybody else cut everybody else, Mr..
/ Coudert, while, of course, guard
ing his clients rights with scrupulous
fidelity, renewed a friendship dropped
| through the passage of time and inadver-
tence with the branch of the family rep
resented by his learned brother on the
/ other side.
NEW YORKER BORN AND BRED.
! 1t is not unusual to think of Mr.
! Coudert as French by birth as well as
! descent, but as a matter of fact, he is
| more of a New Yorker than nine-tenths
\ of the leaders of the New York bar. He
was born here in 1882 and educated at
| Columbia college, which he entered at Ia,
/ and in the first circumstance has the
| advantage of the greatest New Yorker
! that ever lived, Alexander Hamilton. He
| passed his entrance examination before
! he was eligible to practice, and had to
! wait for his twenty first birthday, in the
! year 1858, for admission to the bar. He
! had been five years out of college.
Marked as has always been his power to
sway juries and popular assemblages, the
lines of his life's work have fallen like
those of most great lawyers of to-day in
other and more tOllsOme places. His clients
have been said, perhaps extravagantly, to
be THE crowned heads of Europe" Ger
tain it is that not the least Of Mr.. Coud-
ert's public services is witnessed to by
the number of foreign criminals in whose
extradition he has participated. He has
Deet decorated by the ffIsffi and Italian
governments, the former comforting upon
him the cross of the Legion of Honor To
his Office at Nos. IS and 20 William street,
comes the cream of the legal business
growing out of the enormous mercantile.
transactions between Paris and New
York. But he has never neglected the
higher side of law. The greatest emf
nence that he ever reached in this broad
field was undoubted his appointment last
year as one of the American counsel in
the Boring Sea arbitration, where,
with his colleagues, he met the two
great British advocates, the bar leaders
respectively of the Liberal and Conserva-
tive parties, Sir Charles Russell and Sir
Richard Webster Ten wears before that
however, he was a delegate to the Inter
national congress on the laws of nations,
not mere nose-rubbing function, but an
arena of debate in which he was charged
by the maintenance of the rights and the
Improvement of the condition of the
American merchant and ship owner. In
1877 he was one of the democratic law
yers commissioned to represent his party
in the returning board muddle in New
Orleans.
OPPOSED TO THE FIELD CODES.
off I should undertake to answer fully,
and as they deserve to be answered, all
the questions that you have put to me,
should have to write volume. Probably
you will not care to publish-any more
than ! am disposed to write-so extensive
a reply to your Undergraduates l shall.
however, try to give you in the briefest
possible space my views upon the subject
generally without reference to the Ian
guage of the inquiries as put in each in
stance by yourself.
81. do not believe that the influence
of the growing power of corporations on
the bar has any effect either in lowering
or raising the standard of the profession.
A corporation is simply a rich client and
whether his name is Crnsus or the Great
American Corporation makes very little
difference. Few lawyers although there
are few contne themselves exclusively
to the service of single corporation and
that corporation they serve, of course,
with all possible fidelity and zeal
Generally speaking, prominent lawyers
are to-day for and tomorrow against
these associations, and are as much inter-
ested in defeating as in promoting their
views. have not been able to see that
the standard of the profession has been in
any way affected by this circumstance.
AvARICE IN ALL WALKS OF LIFE.
"2. That the profession has been to
some extent 'commercialized' | am not
prepared to deny. am inclined to think
that the high professional standard has
declined since the time when the fee was
an honorarium and the counsel was pro-
hibited by law, as well as by his own self
respect, from dragging a recalcitrant
client into court and throttling him until
he disgorged fee.
"a virus of avarice has undoubtedly
OSSA AAOSAAabCu AAAbO OuL uOuN Uub bllS IS
the result of general commercial causes.
A life of comfort, the fascination of a lux
urious life, and an instructive disposition
of our guild TO keep step with Others in
the race for riches have undoubtedly
modified the old spirit OF our professional
forefathers. Then, too, with our growing
population the ranks of the bar
have swollen in number, so as to
submerge the old spirit of dignifed
and professional self control. The law
yer wants to be rich because everybody
else seeks to be rich. Young men
who would never have dreamt of profess
sional eminence rush into the profession
headlong. with vague aspirations of be-
coming somebody and something In the
shortest possible space of time. The ma
Jority of them, l believe, do not care so
much for the prospect of iusticeship of
the supreme court of the United States
as of handsome income, which will per-
init them to taste of those pleasures and
luXuries which wealth alone can give.
But others may be said to do the same.
Doctors, for instance, and am not abso-
lutely certain, but would not like to DENY
under oath, that the fashionable clergy
man has been tainted by a homeopathic
! dose of the poison. Yet | still claim for
our profession that, relatively speaking.
IL Is as high in comparison with the rest of
the community as ever.
ELOQUENCE STILL A FORCE.
80 Much is said about the decline of
! forensic plOpnnnRA h1,t hn