The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-06-15
FAVOR PLAN
 OF LAWYERS People at Large Take to
 Suggestion. MANY LETTERS RECEIVED Chairman Thetford Gratified at
 Interest Taken. say. the risn !. Not Destsned to Take Away From the People the aisht to Elect Members of su-
 prene Court.

1HG pA6l tVFCGtu& luO otiSGtAOn VA Supreme Court Judges, which is being agitated in the Alabama Bar Associa- tion by a special committee of which Mir. w. F. Thetford, Jr., of this city, Is chairman, is gaining widespread att tentipn throughout the State. Letters were addressed to the lawyers of the State, to the newspapers, and likewise to q number of prominent citizens. who are neither lawyers nor editors. In an interview yesterday, Mir. Thetford stated that he has been much sur prised and gratihed at the number and character of the replies which he has so far received T wish,. he says, Ito thank the people who have been kind enough to answer the letters of the committee. I wish 1t were possible for me to give personal answer to each letter. but the number of these ~forbids"
 MT. Thetford explained that the plan was not designed to take away from the people the right to nominate and elect the members of the Supreme Court, but 1t was simply intended to give the people at large the benefit of the opinion of the lawyers in the State. The lawyers are not seeking to dictate. but their effort will be con- hned to making their views known to the people. Mir Thetford said that for nearly year he had been discussing this question with crtizens, who are not lawyers and that the large majority to whom he has mentioned this mat ter were frank to admit that they were unable to give correct list of the members of the Supreme Court as it Is now constituted, and were equally frank to admit that they had no fixed opinion as to the ability of the vari- ous members Of the Supreme Court. The larger number of these people added that they believed that the law yers should select the Supreme Court
 When asked of the result of the let- ters of inquiry. Mr. Thetford stated that up to date. he has received some thing over hundred letters. Of the lawyers, those who have answered fav- orably outnumber those who disapprove, In the proportion of three to two Of the nine newspapers heard from, eight are in favor of the plan. Five we'll known citizens who are classed neither as lawyers nor as newspaper men express approval. When the re- piles first began to come in, probably less than fifty per cent of the lawyers were in favor the plan, but for the past few days, something like seventy-fiv per cent favor 1t. Mir. Thetford thinks that the lawyers who wrote the last letters have been giving thought to the plan, and probably dis cussing 1t with others, and that upon mature reflection they see merit in 1t.
 When I sent out these letters to test public opinion" Mir. Thetford says, T expected to find more oppo- sition among non-lawyers than among the legal profession. It is very en- couraging to those of us who advocate the plan that out of the fourteen re- plies so far received from other than lawyers. only one has been unfavora- ble."
 = He said that since the appearance in The Advertiser of his letter, and the accompanying editorial. several citi- sens who are not lawyers have stop ped him on the Ntreets of Montgom- cry, and volunteered their approval of the plan, and have expressed hopes that 1t would be adopted by the Bar Association.
 In regard to the lawyers who have expressed themselvss adversely to the proposed change. Mir. .Thetford called attention to the significant fact that the present plan of nomination of the Supreme Court judges by a primary has few friendA
 "Of the lawyers who disapprove the proposed plan, very few express satis- faction with the present primary plan. some suggest plans of their own. which they believe better than the one proposed In the Bar Association: some confess that they see no remedy for the objectionable features of the pri- mary pian, and philosophicaliy suggest that It is better to bear those ills we have. than fly to others that we know not of Altogether. the prevailing sen timent seems to be condemnation of nomination by primaries"
 The action of the Bar Association at It's annual meeting next month, fin regard to the proposed innovation, will be awaited with interest