The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1895-07-12

man. Inc business man needs us to draw
his contracts, the laborer to collect his
wages, the editor to defend his libel suits
| the doctor to save him from the conse-
| quences of his mistakes, the preacher to
compel the payment of his salary, the wife
| to obtain divorce, and the widow to set
| tie her husbands estate. The people need
! us in the Legislature and in Congress to
hold the offices and draw the salaries
Every convention and public meeting
needs US to fill the chair and occupy COM
Portable seats on the platform. Every
| man accused of crime needs US to estab-
lish his innocence through the verdict of
| twelve of his peers. In short it may be
| said of us, in the language of the itinerant
vendor of soap, Everybody needs u.s." and
like that very useful article, nothing tends
to keep society so clean as the presence of
lawyer.
That it is also most influential glance
| at the life of the nation sufices to demon
| strate. Go into any village in the land,
and ask for two or three leading citizens,
and among the number will always be the
name of a lawyer. Whose name fills the
| papers of our large cities more than he?
| Who is more prominent in every move
ment of a public nature, in everything
looking to the bettering of human life,
| whether it be business enterprise, a IL
| brary association, charitable or even re-
| ligious organization. Go to our halls of
| legislation and our executive departments,
and whose name appears more prominent
| ly than his? Who is it that frames, exc
cutes and interprets our laws? Who is,
emphatically the public man of the day?
| Indeed, the stock argument of every Gran
| ger politician, ambitious for a public posi-
ton, is the weary and appealing lamenta-
| ton: "These lawyers. o, these lawyers"
And this prominence is neither accidental
nor undeserved 1t is because he is in fact
| the influential-the dominant force in the
land. He has made much of the magnifi-
cence of our history Blot from Ameri
can history the lawyer and all that he has
done, and you will rob it of more than
half its glory. Remove from our society
to- day the lawyer, with the work that he
does, and you will leave that society as dry
and shifting as the sands that sweep over
Sahara What is it that holds society to-
gether? that makes it something more than
a collection of seperate units in constant
anita agonism, each with his own right hand
trying to pull down and destroy the other?
1t is the law-that mystic force that binds
our civilization together, and makes possi-
BILE its successes and its glories, and they
who minister at it's shrine and keep alive
it's sacred fires are you and and that vast
multitude of co-workers who boast no high
er title than that of lawyer. SO it is that
in welcoming you to our profession well
come you to life that is most full of hap
piness, develops the most of honesty, and
is of the greatest usefulness and the widest
influence
And here may 1 quote the beautiful
words spoken by one of our profession a
he stood beside the grave of another: "And
now when l consider this long life closed,
these many years ended of eminent labor
in the highest ranks of the forum, and
nothing left of it all but a tolling bell,
handful of earth, and a passing tradition,
tradition already half passed, am re-
minded of the infelicity which attends the
reputation of great lawyer" To my
thinking, the most vigorous brain work of
the world is done in the ranks of our pro-
fession. And our work concerns the high
est of all temporal interests, property, rep
utation, the peace of families, liberty, life,
even the foundation of society, the juris-
prudence of the world, and as recent
event has shown, the arbitrations and peace
but forgets the workers. The waste hours
of Lord Beacon and Sergeant Talfourd
were devoted to letters and each is inf
nitely better remembered for his mere lit
erary diversions than whole for his long
and laborious professional lifework. The
cheap caricatures of Dickens on the pro-
fession, will outlive, fear, in the popular
memory, the judgments of Chief Justice
burlesques, but only masterpieces of reason
and jurisprudence. The victory gained
by the seven Bishops was worth infinitely
more to the people of England than all the
triumphs of the Crimean war. But one
Lord Cardigan led foolshly brilliant
charge against a Russian battery at Bala-
klava, and became immortal. Who led the
great charge of the seven confessors of the
English Church against the English Crown
at Westminster Hall? You must go to
your books for an answer. These were
not on horseback. They wore gowns in
stead of epaulettes. The truth is, we are
like the little insects that in the unseen
depths of the ocean lay the coral founda-
tions of the uprising islands. In the end
come the solid land, the olive and the
vine, the habltations of man, the arts and
industries of life, the havens of the sea
and the ships riding at anchor. But the
busy toilers who laid the beams of CONT
nent in a dreary waste are entombed in
their work and forgotten in their tombs.
Yet the infelicity to which l have alluded
is not without its cOmpensations. For
what, after all, is posthumus fame to him
who brought nothing Into the world and
may carry nothing out? The dead leave
behind their regulations alike with their
estates. A man may be libelled to oday as
a fool, fanatic and knave, and tomorrow
his libellers sneak into his funeral process
sion, and the chief magistrate of forty mil
lions of freedom begs the honor of two
(CoNTINUED ON FOURTH PAGE.)