The people's voice., 1941-08-20

q fully guarded against entrance of an,
d independent attorney in general prac
v tice alone" Mr.. Maurys somewha
\ notorious corporation phobia makes
him reckless. Personally l am quite
n an Independent attorney. No ccrpor.
/ alton has any strings on me and, sc
. far as | know has never sought to at
! tach any. This is not to say / would
+ not accept any legitimate work of
! fered me by any corporation, for
; can see nothing wrong or objection
able in such employment merely be-
cause a corporation offers it. But in
+ my 36 years of very general" prac-
, tice my fees from corporations, great
or small, have been few, small and
far between. | have been quite free
and at times quite vigorous in public
denunciation of corporation rapacity
and political intrigue. But | know of
no effort to hurt me in any way on
account of it nor, least of all, to keep
me out of Montana Bar Association
nor to hamper my activities or free
dom of speech there, and | have been
years. | have even been president
of it. l could without much effort
name many Montana attorneys "in
general practice alone" who are mem
bers of Montana Bar Association,
some of them for many years. l know
of no Montana lawyer whose appli
cation for membership in Montana
+,
jected. Let Mr. Maury name one if
he can How easy it is to gain such
membership was we'll illustrated at
an annual meeting of the association
held In Helena some 10 or II years
ago, when a prominent Helena attor-
ney, even more opposed, if possible,
to bar integration than Mr.. Maury,
secured the countryside to bring new
| blood" into the association. 1t was
said he even paid their membership
fees from his own virulently anti
corporation pocket He got quite a
few new members by that method.
| No effort was made to keep them out
although the purpose of bringing
them in at that particular meeting
was we'll known 1t was to defeat
the usual resolution endorsing bar in
tegration. And it was defeated for the
only time before or since in II years.
1t was defeated by one vote. That
vote was the vote of probably the
most prominent and important cor
poration official in Montana today, |
then and still lawyer and a mem
ber of Montana Bar Association. Yet |
Mr.. Maury says the corporations of |
the state seek to effect bar integra- |
tion so that they can control the bar
Of the state as, he says, they seek to |
control everything else. If the cor
porations favor bar integration | have |
seen no evidence of it. Such evidence
as there is, is to the contrary. Wit
ness the vote referred to above. If
the corporations favored bar integra-
ton we should have had it long ago
for, as Mr. Maury says and l agree
with him, they get pretty much what
they want in Montana. | have been
told that the corporations oppose the
movement because they fear Mr..
Maury and corporation batting law
yers generally will get control and
do things to them. Thus between
fear of Maury and others of corpora
tion control and corporation fear of
Maury control and what they think
it implies, the lawyers who want it
for the good of the profession, the
courts and the public generally are
kept in status quo which, as inter-
preted by the late Walter Hartman
iva a fix" And the corporation
press of the state assuredly give the
the silent treatment.
Though many times offered material
on the subject none of them has, to
my knowledge, used any of it. In
deed the press of the state as whole
seems wholly oblivious to the move
ment although Montana is surrounded
with object lessons of it's great merit. [
But Montana editors have come to I
Montana Bar Association meetings
and lectured members on their pro-
fessional shortcomings That may {
seem a bit strange to those familiar t
ethics in this state, but it has been 6
done; mo foolin'." /
The truth of the matter is that the |
for ir1tegration has brought s
more new members to the association l
and stimulated more interest in its t
activities than anything else in all Of I
The 55 years of it's existence. 1t is t
! livelier and more interesting or
,anization now than it ever has been. \
If as Dear Old' Lowndes Maury /
says, there is a studied effort to keep a
,ut of the association independent T
attorneys in general practice alone" S
le should by all means favor bar in t
egration as a sure means of defeat D
ng such a foul conspiracy All-in- il
is the very keystone of Z
)ar integration. 1t not only wants Il
every lawyer in, it compels him to b
,ome in And l have heard Mr.. Maury
md others like him opposed to in s
egration many times denounce that a
feature of the plan as "intolerable +
'egimentation." He is hard to please. Il
he condemns the present form of or p
,anization as conspiracy to keep a
hem out and the other as con- Ii
piracy to bring them in. Fact OF the Il
natter is Lowndes is just "agiu it. a
md any old reason will do. Prejudice d
lgainst corporations being the best c
md easiest that is the one he uses v
Mostly 1t has been said that Opposi- Il
ion IN bar inteprafi ic nf two O.