The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1907-02-13

.noauv Years affected by corruption; will depend, Gentlemen
of the Bar, very largely upon the members OF your profess
sion. If the lawyers stand, as one man, firmly and coura-
eeously for law and order, for equal and exact justice, for ;,
the rights of all as established by law, and for cleanliness
lin public and business life, the people will heed their coun-
|sel, and follow the ways of right and truth and justice,
marked out by them.'
Mr.. Edward NJ. Shepard in concluding an address
said:
Every lawyer, by virtue of his very profession,
holds a relation to public affairs over and above his rela-
tons as a mere citizen. The men of our calling are, as
men of many other professions and trades are not,
bound to promote a sound framework of laws and jurs-
prudence for our civilization. The enormous share which
corporate organization now has in modern industry, its
enormous influence upon every phase of modern life, mex
orably impose upon lawyers who advise and guide corPor-
atoms a specia! and weighty and most honorable duty. If
the men of our pofession make it clear to the American
people that in their public relations they are concerned to
enforce truth and publicity upon corporations and upon all
who derive from our laws any sort Of franchise or right,
we may, l think, count it certain that the %justlhable cr1tl-
cism and much of the ignorant hostility and suspicion from
which lawyers suffer will disappear"
MI. Lewis d. Brandels, of Boston, in an address be-
fore the Harvard Ethical Society, uses this language:
"By far the greater part of the work done by lawyers
is not done in court at all, but in advising men in import
ant matters, and mainly in business affairs. The
questions which arise are more nearly questions OF states
manship. The relations created call IN many Instances,
for the exercise Of the higest diplomacy. The magnitude,
difficulty, and importance of the questions involved, are
often as great, as m the matters of state, with which
lawyers were formerly frequently associated. The ques-
tons appear in a different guise but they are similar. The
relations between rival railroad systems, are like the rela-
tons between neighboring kingdoms. The relations OF the
great trusts to the consumers or to their employees, is like
that of feudal lords to ommoners or dependents.
Such questions as the regulation of trusts, the fixing OF
railway rates, the muncipalizatipn OF public utilities, the
relation between capital and labor, call for the exercise OF
legal ability Of the highest order. Up to the present time
the legal ability Of a high order which has been exPend-
ed on those questions has been almost wholly in
deposition to the contentious of the people. The
leaders of the Bar, without any preconceived intent on
their part, and rather as an incident to their professional
standing, have, with rare EXCEPTIONS, been ranged on the
side of the corporations, and the people have been repre-
sented, in the main, by men of very meager legal ability.
If these problems are to be settled right, this condl-
ton cannot continue. Our country is, after all, not a
country of dollars, but of ballots. The immense corPor-
ate wealth, will necessarily develop a hostility, from which
much trouble will come to us, unless the excuses OF
capital are curbed, through the respect for law,
as the excuses of democracy were curbed seventy
five years ago. There will come a revolt OF the Peo-
pie against the capitalists, unless the aspirations OF
the people, are given some adequate legal expression;
and to this end cooperation of the leaders OF the
Bar is essential.
For nearly a generation, the leaders of the Bar, with
few exceptions, have not only failed to take part in any
constructive legislation, designed to solve, in the interest
of the people, our great, social, economic and industrial
problems, they have failed likewise to oppose legislation
prompted by selfish interests. They have often gone
further in disregard of public interest. They have, at
times, advocated as lawyers, legislative measures which as
citizens, they could not approve, and have endeavored to
justify themselves, by a false analogy. They have errone-
lawyers advocacy, is the same where he acts TOR private
Interests against the public, as it is in litigation between
private individuals. 1t is this confusion OF ethical
Ideas, which has prevented the Bar from taking, at the
present time, the position which it held formerly, as a
brake upon democracy, and, which l believe it must take
again, before the serious questions now before US can be-!
solved."
In an address entitled Lawyers and the Trusts de-
livered by Mr.. Walter S. Logan Of New York, before the
Louisiana State Bar Association, he spoke as follows:
I'm vain did our fathers fight against taxation by an
English Parliament, in which we were not represented
and in the disposition Of the proceeds of which we had no
voice, if there is to be put in its place, a taxation by the
holders of monopoles, in which, also, we are not repre-
scented, and in the profits Of which, we have no share, and
whose rule may we'll become far more grinding, than that
Of GEORGE TI Write If down. all We. who have pens to