The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-01-31
RAPS THE .'ISMS"
President Hutchins of Ann Ar
Dor Talks to Lawyers.
Attacks Initiative, Referendum
and the Recall.
SlDELIGHTS ON THE MEETING
Glimpse of the Attorneys Seen
at the Session.
Annual Banquet at the EIks'
Club Tonight.
SIDEuGHTS ON THE MEETING

The attendance at the sessions of
the State Bar association has been
very good. Nearly two hundred law
yers were present at the afternoon
sessions in the supreme court room
Tuesday and that night a large crowd
heard the fine address by President
Harry Hutchins of the Ann Arbor uni
versity. Mr.. Hutchins' address was
the feature of the session. The speak
er is opposed to the recall, initiative
and referendum and he criticised the
tendency of newspapers and magazines
the land.
To give any detailed account of the
business and addresses of a state bar
association would be to print a dry
would read but lawyers. To ignore a.
meeting of the smartest men in the
state would be a plain case of lese
majestic. But sidelights on the ses-
sions are not without interest. The
reporter spent most of Tuesday after
noon and last evening in the supreme
court room with about two hundred
lawyers from the eight congressional
districts of the state. There was a lot
to see and more to hear.
Stone on Public Utilities
Robert Stone of Topeka was one of
the speakers at the meeting and he
talked about the public utilities law
The lawyers gave him close attention
two sessions of the legislature in de-
bate on this measure.
Crowded inside the railing of the
court room were the young and the
old, the know nand the unknown in
the courts of law. There were fat
lawyers and tall lawyers sitting side
BY side. Many of the best known
criminal and corporation lawyers of
the state were mixed in with lot of
students and young lawyers with their
first case scarcely a year old. The
supreme court judges were there and
a lot of district judges who Staid over
from their own meeting of Monday.
The reporter was filled with awe
when he thought of all the legal lore
ana Jurisprudence and logic and ora
tory and recitations and technicalfties
assembled under one roof. Suppose
all these lawyers should be moved by
one spring and arise to their feet and
be stirred to simultaneous speech. 1t
would be another case of the Water
that Came Down at Lodore And the
flood would start the faymen to build
ing arks in the hope of finding another
Mount Ararat of safety. A lawyer
makes about seventy-hves speeches a
year on an average and he talks from
every subject under the shining sun
and serene stars. The death of a
shote has been known to call forth
more oratory than the threat of war
between nations. The garden gate
that let the chickens through is an
other fruitful legal plant. And the
theft of goods, the breaking of a will |
lndiscriminate love, the section line
fence, the rights of man, the derelic-
tlons OF duty, domestic infelicity, and
so on, for their name is legion. Then |
imagine hundred and a half hun
dred lawyers in one room at one time |
With all these matters on their minds. |
should they arise to speak the story |
of their speaking would make that of |
the Tower of Babel read like the bah !
bling of a tomb.
Fancy Trappings of Civilization.
Lawyers are the ornaments of So
ciey and the fancy trappings of civil |
ration. 1t is a lawyer who always de- !
l1vers the Fourth of July Grafton and |
the speech at the closing of the school |
Lawyers go to the legislature and to |
congress in larger numbers than the |
men of all other callfngs. Lawyers !
fill all banquet programs and their |
voices are heard alone at all public /
ceremonies. Preachers marry peoDle I
and bury them, but lawyers divorce !
them and raise them from the dead. |
Where the voice holds sway the law
yer rules supreme. Assemble one hun
dred and fifty lawyers in one small !
room and the results is taht a layman |
who is caught there trembles Yes
ana the roof timbers fret and sigh as
they prepare to leave their resting |
places, the walls Wayer with annre-
henslon- 1t is time to speak of
In the Kansas supreme court room |
afternoon, the one hundred |
and flfty lawyers present did not |
SPEAK all at once, but their faces |
spoke for the regulations they had |
made or were about to make There |
We're some groups there to draw to- |
5. M. Brewster, the man who
lnquisitioned" William Allen White |
and beat the I. and r., was there. The
is assistant attorney general
now. He looks like Alexandra Dumas.
In cross examination his tongue is like
the sword of Dumas hero, D'Artag-
nan He is as deadly as poison when
sitting before witness, but his con-
versation is as pleasant as well water
when he entertains a friend
By the side of Brewster sat Will
montgomery, young lawyer with a |
pom padour and an Italian rnoustache !
fights the jointists of
southeast Kansas He fights them in
court or in the rough house style. He |
knows more about war than the oldest |
lawyer in the room that day He |
knows nothing whatever of the feel
ing called fear. He knows as much |
law as any young lawyer has a right |
to know He tried John Simmian, the 1
notorious Crawford county jointist, |
the other day on forty counts. Law
yers sneered at the number of the in
dictments. But that Bill knew his I
business is attested by the fact that |
Simmian was convicted on only one
count.
Justice Burch a Listener.
John Waters of Topeka and Justice
Rosseau Burch of the supreme court
were there They are about the same
size. Justice Burch is the scholar of /
the Kansas court He clothes his |
fishing stories and legal opinions in !
the language of Emerson. His sen
fences march in stately procession ov-
sr a field of cloth of gold and are |
in even ranks at the close |
where each one answers in silver tones
to the roll call
Warden Codding of the Lansing /
prison, who was a keeper of the law /
book and quill before he became a |
keeper of men, was there. He looks |
like Fairfax county judge. In this L
I,