The Brunswick news. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 1906-2016, 1913-06-27
CHARMED WITH HIS ABLE AD-
DRESS, BAR ASSOCIATION
PAYS HIM COMPLIMENT.
ELECTED A LIFE MEMBER
The Brilliant Georgia Judge Delivered
Strong Address at Sioux City Yes
terday and Received an Ovation.
Discussed New Espionage System.

Sioux City, Ia, June 26.-Judge EN-
ory Speer of the United States court
for the Southern district of Georgia,
was the guest of honor at the annual
meeting of the Iowa Bar association
in this city and was the recipient of
one Of the most pronounced compli-
ments ever paid to any citizen of
that organization. The incident oc-
CURED on the conclusion o. the 3Inual
address which Judge Speer had de-
nvered to the association and which
had been received amid widest en-
thusiasm by its members. After the
Georgia jurist had resumed his seat
and as soon as silence had been OBJ
tanned in the great auditorium, ,doz-
ems of prominent lawyers from all
over the state were on their feet and
finally one of them being recognized
by the chair, moved that Judge Speer
be elected as an honorary life member
of the association. The motion was
carried by acclamation and later by
rising vote, when a real demon
stration in honor of the brilliant
Georgia jurist occurred.
Judge Speer's Speech.
The address Of Judge Speer was an
able one and was given the closest
attention ON the part of the Iowa law
yers present. He did not fail to eX-
press his condemnation of the Tex
aminer" system lately injected into
the department of justice by Atty
Gen. McReynolds, through which a
system Of espionage has been placed
around federal judges.
Discussing this subject, the judge
said in part:
But shall this un-American method
continue?. BY it and similar aggres-
sions upon the independence of the
Judiciary, shall the august fabric
who held with him have builded,
amid the cursings of the mob the
jeers of the hoodlum, and the mouth
ings of the demagogue erumble into
nothingness? Dependent upon party
and party partisans, crushed by the
fluctuate with the tide of public opin-
ion. Shall the judges, like empty
bottles on the waves, float in and out
with the recurring tides of party vic
tory and defeat? Will their bosses,
as reward for election, seek from
them impunity for the crime, the Vi
olence the fraud, they may commit?
VIII they be expected to crook the
pregnant hinges of the knee that
thrift may follow fawning? The in
dependence of the judges is the chief
felicity of the constitution. No great
er curse can be inflicted upon the ma
ton, said John Marshall, than a cring-
ing and dependent judiciary? If the
magistrates to whom the judicial pow
er of the nation is entrusted shall be
dragged down from the serene reserve
, they now maintain if they must be sub
servent to the politicians who hold de-
partmental offices, if they must strike
in with party combats, then truly the
noble motto Let justice be done,
though the heavens fall will be sup
planted by the odious slogan, To the
vietors belong the spoils. And the
high judicial station, once the glory
of the nation, will become the ignoble
need of party strife. Forget not, my
brethren, that the dignity of our no
BILE profession depends upon the unde-
filed purity of the courts wherein you
are the priests of justice. Your courts
degraded and enthralled your judges
prejudiced, uncertain timorous, cring-
ing before the partisans in office, and
before that many headed monster
the mob, where is your safety, your
repose of mind, the glory and honor
of your noble profeSsin First to feel
the change OF a degraded Judiciary,
you will be the most constant suffer
er and the last to suffer. Forget not
that the judiciary is the power, con-
servative of power Is it not then
your solemn duty to stand by the sys-
tenn the fathers framed Accomplish
law reform if you can, but make haste
slowly. At least see to it that your
judges have, what we call in Dixie,
a white mans chance. Remember
that the greatest minds of the past
have been necessarily devoted to it's
evolution Stimulate, if you please,
and rival the achievements of Ma
poleon, who, in his darkest hour, de-
spite the memories of Lodi, Marengo
and Austerlitz, exclaimed, shall go