Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1901-06-20
Madison, June Is

ent age and a soul-stirring plea for
honest lawyers as the hope of civiliza-
ton, ex-Congressman William Bourke
Cochran, the distinguished political
and legal orator of New York city, last
night electrified the audience Of 1000
people that crowded the great armory
hall to the doors. On the platform
with the speaker sat many of the
most prominent legal lights Of the
state, among whom were ex-senator
w. F. Villas, Judges ]. H. Carpenter,
Romance Bum, j. B. Winslow, J. B.
Cassoday, Anthony Donovan, G. V.
Bardeen, George H. Noyes Of MilWau-
kee, and B. f. Dunwiddie of James
vile, Senator j. H. Stout of Menomo-
ME, Profs. Burr w. Jones, E. E. Bry,
ant and Charles Noble Gregory of the
law school faculty. Many members
of the university faculty were also on
the platform.
Joseph, E. Davies, president of the
senior law class. introduced the dis
tinguished speaker Of the evening in
a short and brilliant speech in which
he referred to the law as the preserv-
ing and protecting influence in our in
situations, as the most potent force
that has worked to the rounding OF
our present day civilization and to the
aid. comfort and social benefit of men
and women. Referring to the speaker,
Mr.. Davies said: THE gentleman is a
forerunner of conservatism. His life
history is story of human sympathy
He is a man of national fame, an ora
tor, lawyer, scholar unsurpassed.
Mr.. Cochran spoke with wonderful
eloquence; his strong personality
the deep orotund of his powerful voice
and the beautiful figures and graphic
word pictures with which his speech
was replete, completely captured the
large audience and held absolute at
tention during the hour and quarter
during which he spoke. Great ap-
plause interrupted the speaker several
times, especially when he arraigned
Great Britain for her warfare in south
Africa and when he spoke of the
working man as the real dictator OF
our government After the close OF
the address the members of the grad
uating law class passed upon the plat
form and were individually presented
to the speaker.
Mr.. Cochran said in part:
/ esteem it a very high honor that l have
been selected to welcome you, the first re
cruits of the new century, to profession
which, as your chairman has well SAID
links all the centuries since the dawn OF
civilization in one steady chain of human
progress.
This age which you are about to enter is
a commercial age, and that fact has given
rise to many gloomy apprehensions Ill the
minds of some good, people. In fact, the
word commercialism has assumed porten
tiouS significance, which would appear tC
portend grave disasters to the republic. We
are warned of commercialism in law, OF
commercialism in politics. of commercial
ism in religion, and l am not sure but some
people fear the influence of commerciallsn
on commerce.
Now this fear of commercialism does not
proceed from any one class. The note OF
apprehension rises from all classes. Labor
ers, college presidents, divines and ever
millionaires, seem to be alike vehement IL
denouncing it, pathetic in bewailing it, anC
melancholy in foretelling 1t. Laborers at
tribute to commercialism and capitalism
the conditions that bring on strikes. Col
1ege professors attribute to 1t those trusts
OF which one of them declared that unless
they were checked by the social oStracisnl
of their promoters, would subvert repuhli
can institutions and erect an empire upon
themselves seem to have struck an apollo
getic attitude for their millions, in the Ian.
guage of one of them who declared that to
die rich was to die disgraced. In addresses
commercialism seems to have found a
prominent note, If we may judge by the
reports that we have read And when ii
comes to the graduating class of the law
school, they are congratulated because the
law is supposed to be free from CONNER.
cialism, and because the new recruits in
have turned, from high purpose, their
backs upon the pathway that leads to for
tune. Indeed, if stranger TO our Gus
toms and our institutions were to read
these addresses delivered to classes such
as this during the last year he must have
come to the conclusion that the graduates
of the law school were about to engage in
lives of aScetic contemplation rather than
of active competition, in life of rigid
remuneration rather than of ambitious en-
terprises.
Now to me this notion that the bar is a
kind of sacred priesthood. which is bound
to look with Indifference upon the objects
which other men regard as the priesz of
life, is based upon Il total miSconception of
the lawyers relations TO the other members
of society. For you must perceive, gentle
men, that If You are to lead lives of isola-
ton II loyalty to your profession compels
you to renounce the ordinary pursuits of
life, that can be credibly done only upon
the theory that society is totally depraved,
and If society be totally depraved. why
then the members of the learned profess
draw from participation in its contentious.
as the hermits of old sought the solitude of
the desert rather than the luxuries and cor
ruptions of the great cities.
But | think it is well that we should in
quire for moment whether the conditions
of life are such that you should pursue
this isolation, that you should withdraw
yourselves from the ordinary competition
and pursuits of life, or whether you should
share in it. and by sharing in it not mere
prove the condition of all your fellows
Now If we We're to define the conner
ciallsm OF this age we would describe, it as
the tendency to regard the acquisition OF
Is that particular TO these times? Eas
there ever been an age when the success o1
a life was not measured by its acuuisi
tons! l suppose that those good people
VINO are alarmed at the commercialism Of
our age would tell you that while in tbest
times men devote themselves to the gettins
OF money, in the militant ages men devoted
themselves to the cultivation of miIjtar,
glory Now military glory" is perhaps til,
most potent of all the phrases that hay,
worked mischief There never has been .