PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. FRANCIS H. BROWNELL. We meet today with hearts saddened by the recent awful tragedy in Seattle. We cannot erase from mind the sorrow-stricken home where lies, awaiting the last sad funeral rites, the body of one of the ablest and most distinguished of the younger members of the bar of this state, the victim of the son of one of the ablest and most distinguished of the older members of the bar. Later in these proceedings, this bar will pay its tribute to the memory of our deceased brother. But we may, perhaps, here fittingly, at the beginning of these exercises, express our deepest sympathy, both with the stricken and bereft family of the departed, and the equally unfortunate and horrified father of the cause of all this woe. This, the eighteenth annual session of the Washington State Bar Association, marks a new and somewhat important departure in the history of that body. Heretofore, with one exception—that of Ellensburg for seventeen years the meetings of this association have been held exclusively in the three largest cities of the state, Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane. But for some years it has been manifest that there were at least four other points in the state, Everett, Bellingham, North Yakima and Walla Walla, which have now a local bar of sufficient size to justify a meeting of the state association; and it has also been evident that, if the full attention of the members of the profession located in those cities is to be aroused in the work of this association, it is necessary that, at least occasionally, the annual meeting be held in those points. Two years ago the idea was adopted of preparing to meet alternately in one of the large cities and one of the small cities, as well as alternately in Western and Eastern Washington. In accordance with this plan the first meeting in a smaller city was scheduled for North Yakima last year, but the appointment of the then President of the association to be United States District Judge for the Eastern Division of Washington, and his consequent removal to the city of Spokane, necessitated a change in the plan, and the meeting of the association was held last year in the city of Spokane. Everett, this year, there fore, has fallen heir to the honor of being honored by the annual meeting of this association. On behalf of the local bar association, I can assure you that we feel highly honored in having you in our midst. We bid you a most cordial welcome to our town and county; we extend to you the keys of the city, and hope that your stay among us will be as pleasant and agreeable for you as it will be for us. It is supposed to be the scope of the President's address to touch upon those features of the law that have been especially attracting attention during the year of his incumbency. Perhaps the most important of the court decisions of the last year has been that of the Supreme Court of the United States in the relation to divorce, in the case of Haddock vs. Haddock, 26 Supreme Ct. Rep. 525. The essence of that decision is that a divorce obtained by publication of summons against a defendant in a state not the matrimonial domicile, while valid in that state, may or may not be recognized as valid by the courts of other states, as they may elect. In these latter days, when the custom has spread so rapidly throughout the United States a discontented spouse moving to some state whose laws are comparatively free in regard to divorce, and there obtaining a decree by publication of the summons, the effect of this decision is so far reaching and so full of possibilities that the question of divorce which has been agitating the country for the last ten years seems farther than ever from a settlement. The reasoning of the Supreme Court in Haddock vs. Haddock is logical. The decision is in accordance with many pervious decisions of that court and the courts of the states. It may indeed be said that any other decision would not have been in strict accordance with the principles in regard to jurisdiction which have become embodied in both American and English jurisprudence. The English courts have never conceded that a court of one of our states could dissolve a marriage of English subjects, and it was but a few years ago that we saw the House of Lords solemnly convict one of its members of bigamy although that member, prior to his second marriage, had obtained a divorce from his first wife by publication of summons in the courts of one of the states of this country-Nevada, I think it was. Haddock vs. Haddock opens the way for all sorts of curious complications in the law of bigamy, the law of descent of property, and the legitimacy of children. Let us illustrate: At the present time about half the states of the Union are opposed to the freedom of divorce, and in those states it is probable that the courts will hold that a divorce, obtained by a spouse in a state not the matrimonial domicile, where the defendant is served by publication of |