Evening star., 1934-08-29
j. 5. BAR DEBATES
DLL|NCER'S CASE
Joseph B. Keenan, Leads
Session Planning Active
Drive on FeIonS.
BY the Associated Press.

by the Associated Press.
MILWAUKEE, August 90. - John
Dillinger was given a hearing by the
from the evidence leading lawyers
were expected to evolve a plan for a
concerted drive on felons
The criminal law section of the
association had the problem before
it. The lawyers took up the study of
the slain desperado with the expecta-
tion that public sympathy would be
blamed in part for the difficulties of
law enforcement agencies in coping
with Dillinger and other outlaws.
Joseph B. keenan,, Assistant United
States Attorney General, led the dis
cussion. He was expected to refer
In his address to the widely publicized
photograph of District Attorney Rob-
ert Estill of Crown Point, Ind. with
his arm around Dillinger's shoulder.
Estill has been censured by the as
sociation for being photographed with
the criminal he was supposed to pros
ecute. Dillinger at the time was In
the Lake County Jail, from which he
made his wooden gun" escape.
Other efforts toward law enforce
rnent were discussed in the report on
a QUESTIONABLE by Juntin Miller of
Durham, N. c., who heads the crim1-
nal law section of the convention.
The association was urged to work
within its own membership against
RO1I, Tn Of
the legal staff of the Federal Treasury
Department, who appealed to mem
hers to discard old methods of giving
the criminal every benefit the law al
fords for new trials, special motions
snd stays of executions.
Asks War on Dishonesty.
yelling sentiment for a curb on
dishonest lawyers burst over the con-
vention yesterday as its president de-
rnanded an immediate housecleanmg.
Earle w. Evans of Wichita, Kans.,
head of the association, warned that
the public holds the entire legal pro-
fesSion in suspicion because of the
activities of some of its members.
He admitted there have been acts
warranting the public's diStrust, then
said
I'VE are all suffering Our influ-
ence is minimized, our honesty
doubted and our leadership repudi-
ated, all because of the sins of rela-
lively few. Let us no longer delay
the already too long deferred house
cleaning. Let us begin it at once"
The Presidents proposal put the
stamp of official approval on the cries
of other bar leaders for a purge of
the PROFESSIONS ranks. Robert H.
jackson, assistant general counsel of
the Federal Treasury Department,
minced no words in his appeal. "Ras-
Gals" Crooks" he cried in urging
that lawyers guilty of unethical con-
duct be swept into the discard.
Changing Systems.
Systems of law, said Lord Tomlin
of England in an address before the
association convention last night, |
should never remain static, but should
adjust themselves to the changing
conditions of life.
Lord Tomlin, lord Of appeal in or |
dinary who hears cases from all parts
Of the British Empire, held that the
English system of precedepts devel-
oped by the common law, ranks with
the best, but said he believed judges
Rhould be allowed an escape from
precedents in cases where they are
plainly unreasonable and inconven-
lent.
In discussing this opinion, he made
An indirect appeal for the selection of
Judges of the highest caliber.
Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State
I'm the Wilson administration, de-
Tended the johnson act to prohibit
sale in America of war debt default
ers' securities and used Thomas JEFF
ferson's words in remarking that it
may be regarded as a return to the
road which alone leads to peace, lib
erty and safety"
The act, he said in an address be-
fore the international and compare
tive law section of the association,
may not result in the liquidation of
our foreign debts, but it will limit
existing irritationS to existing causes"
Karl Know Gartner of Washington,
q former examiner for the Interstate
Commerce Commission, told the pub
lie utility section of the association
that planned economy for interstate
transportation is the next logical
step in the progressive process of
Government regulation demanded by
the existing critical competitive condi-
Hons