things of commerce will come the development of many different lines of business. At present we have hardly any more than commenced our development. Our greatest results in a commercial and other ways are yet to be accomplished. Nature has provided us with many things with which to build up a state of great wealth, with a large population of contented people, and the legal profession can do much to accomplish this much-desired end, by seeing to the enactment of reasonable and just laws and to their proper admin. istration after they are enacted.

I do not join in some of the criticisms of our bench, bar and laws, but I do fell that many of the members of the bench and bar have been absorbed with their various duties, have been and are suffering from a sort of inertia, and have not given as much attention in the past to the practical and ethical side of our profession and what the people generally think of the law and ourselves, as we should. It is well to remember that while it is necessary for us to be as far as possible learned in the law, its development, traditions, etc., all this is only valuable to the lawyer, his client or the public in so far as it can be applied to the needs of the time in which we live. Clients go to lawyers for protection of their lives, liberty or property. If the law courts or lawyer cannot give them these in a practical way, they have no use for them, and without the client the lawyer has little if any use for his learning.

Washington needs people and money, labor and capital working harmoniously together. There are many people and there is much money inother parts of the United States and the world. We must induce people and money, labor and capital, to come to the state of Washington. We can honestly do this because we have the natural resources to encourage both people and money to come here and remain, and nothing will bring them to our state more quickly than just and broad laws, wisely, properly, and expeditiously administered. The lawyers of the state are really the people charged with the duty of seeing that this is done; it is part of their work and they should be proud of the opportunity to help in such a grand and important task. The question is, How can we get the lawyers to take up and carry on such work. I think that we, as members of the State Bar Association, should make a great effort to have litigation in our courts speeded and simplified. I do not believe that delays in litigation are always attributable to the bench or the bar, except in a few instances where the judges of our Superior Court and some of our lawyers are dilatory and not inclined to over-work themselves. I believe most of the delays in litigation are attributable principally to the lawyers themselves, which are winked at and permitted by some of the Superior Court judges.

One of the things I believe causes our Superior Courts to sometimes become clogged is the fact that our present statutes require

the judges to do too much of what may be called ministerial work, such as approving accounts in probate proceedings, looking after minor details in juvenile proceedings, affairs relating to domestic relations, etc.

I am strongly in favor of a longer term for our Superior Judges, say six years, and an increased salary, with a simplified method of dispensing with the service of an incompetent or dishonest judge. I may add here that I am happy to say it has not been my experience to see more than one dishonest judge in the state of Washington in my twenty years practice here; there may have been more, but I have not seen them. However, if there is any just criticism of the bench I believe that it will be well to first look to the bar practicing before it and see if it is not also subject to the same criticism. The bench usually reflects the personnel and ability of its bar, so that it is necessary that any strengthening or improvement of our bench in this state, if any is needed, must originate in and be supported by the bar. This brings us to the question of how can we best and most practically build and keep up the standard of bench and bar. Oft-times lawyers are, to use a plain word, lazy. They are also careless. They dispense their time as they see fit. Some of them are like the animals of the forest; they will only exert their talents and energies when the necessity is felt for something to sustain life. Others have a large practice and think they have no time to attend Bar Association meetings and the like. But the time is coming, if it is not already here, when they will all be awakened to the fact that it behooves all lawyers to actively participate in just such work as we are doing here this week. It is time for the lawyers of the state to take stock and ascertain what position they and their profession occupy before the laymen of the state. If they do, they will find that they are a disorganized profession, some of them practicing by note and some by ear, with an eye and ear only for today and the dollar. Some of them are using the names "Lawyer," "Attorney at Law," "Counsellor," etc., as a trade name only that they may thereby derive benefits and extort unreasonable fees from clients. For business reasons they claim to believe in the profession of law and its ethics. As individuals they are often members of the firm of "Catchem & Skinnum." They are officers of the court and members of our profession when they are inveigling a prospective client into their office to fleece him, but when the client asks the bar association or court to protect him from unjust exactions the so-called lawyer belongs to no association and recognizes no restraining hand over himself. These men, while they are few in number, actually exist in this state in our profession, and are numerous enough to often bring our profession into disrepute with citizens needing a lawyer, and one dishonest or tricky lawyer in a community places the entire bar, more or less, in disrepute in that vicinity in the eyes of the public.

For this and

other reasons I feel that the lawyers of this state can do no greater service to themselves, their clients and the public than to join and become active members of the different Bar Associations of the counties and states in which they live. I do not mean by this that it is necessary to have weekly meetings or spend too much time in the work, but they should meet often enough to keep up a strong organization and back up their officers, when necessity requires it to take up and handle legal or ethical questions of interest to themselves and their neighbors. I hope to soon see the different county and state bar associations greatly strengthened and with all or nearly all reputable lawyers in their sections enrolled, and then to see these local organizations affiliated with the State Bar Association and it with the National Bar Association, thus welding into praetically one great organization the lawyers of the United States.

Because of the greatly increasing population in the United States organization and co-operation in all lines of business and in all professions has been found to be necessary. I believe it is necessary in the legal profession to hold our bench and bar up to a high standard of integrity and ability, the lawyers must be proud of their profession and jealous of its good name; to do this there must be some organized endeavor; the members of the profession should be made to respect the ethics of the profession; it must demand that all members of the profession be men of integrity and practice honestly and fairly. In recent years there has been too much cause for the laymen to criticise some of the members of our bench for being arrogant, and some of the members of the bar with being tricky and cunning. Members of both bench and bar must meet the same requirements that men are required to meet in other professions and vocations as to being honest and fair.

I think that it is unwise and absolutely criminal for any member of the bar to encourage or tolerate men on the bench who are arrogant, vacillating or influenced by selfish motives or outside interests. I also think it unwise and criminal to encourage or tolerate lawyers in the profession who are not men of integrity. "Foxy lawyers" are not wanted by either profession or public, and should not be allowed to dignify themselves with the appellations of lawyers or attorneys at law. I know we as lawyers are often unjustly criticised by clients and by the public, sometimes even ridiculed unjustly, but at the same time I do not hesitate to say that there are at the present time in the state of Washington lawyers who continually over-reach their clients intentionally and pride themselves on being crafty and cunning. To me the law has always seemed to have been a profession intended strictly for honorable and industrious men, and a profession any man who can qualify himself in can well feel proud of. My only regret has been that I have been able to grasp, assimilate and do so little when so much cold be done. I constantly

feel my limitations because its possibilities and field is so great and broad that one who wishes to be an efficient member of the bar seems sometimes to think that he is not endowed with anywhere near enough gray matter to grasp even a large part of it.

There has recently been considerable demand by the people for laws providing for the recall of judges. Some of these demands are very radical in form and would make the tenure of our judges subject to the call of the mob. It seems to me that this special agitation has subsided to some extent. There seems to be rising in certain quarters a popular demand for the limitation of advocacy, which means fewer lawyers. I believe that the lawyers of the United States will find that within the next few years they will be called upon to do considerable work in the line of protecting the bench and the bar from laws directed at it by unthinking people who will not be sufficiently advised as to the subject they are attempting to handle, and who are likely to in their zeal enact laws which instead of benefitting them, as intended, will do them, and at the same time the profession of law, great injury. Popular interest in judicial reform has outstripped popular experience and knowledge. The question is now being pushed to the front, sometimes by people who think they have a grievance, other times by people who think some reform is needed, and at other times by demagogues and politicians. Public opinion has been aroused to such a degree that legislative action of some sort is imminent in many states and may soon be in our state. In the past, the bar, through its associations in different states, has met these demands on the part of the agitators with feeble and uncertain efforts and apparently without giving the subject the consideration which its seriousness demands. The time is now ripe for us as lawyers to give the subject thoughtful consideration followed by no uncertain action.

Among others there are three good reasons for the members of the bar of the state of Washington having a strong organization.

First, to observe and discuss proposed legislation; develop the law of procedure so that business will be assisted instead of hampered by the administration of the law and so that the safety of our people, their health and property will be protected; to exercise an influence with respect to the selection of judges of ability and integrity.

Second, for social intercourse, so that the lawyers may meet each other and fraternize more than they do.

Third, for the government and discipline of members of the bar, to require its members to live up to the ethics and traditions of the profession. If we do not do something of this kind we will find ourselves sitting about the steps of the court house in our respective localities at some not distant time, decrying the fact that laymen have rushed in and caused to be enacted a number of laws which have almost destroyed the usefulness and influence of our

profession and at the same time worked themselves incalculable injury, and we probably then will suddenly awaken and make an attempt to lock the barn door after the horse is stolen.

I realize it is not fashionable nor popular at the present time to speak against many of the new theories, political and otherwise, that are being urged on the public at present, but in my opinion there was never a time when the country had more need of men courageous and brave enough to stand up and say what they think regarding the present order of things. Lawyers are usually looked on as conservative men who reason things out well before acting, and in my opinion our country was never in a position where it needed substantial advice from its lawyers more than it does today, and the lawyers were never in a position to render their country better service than now, by exploding many of the fallacies and fads that are being presented to our people in the way of proposed laws as panaceas for any and all unpleasant existing conditions. I am not afraid of this nation going to pieces, because history in this and other countries tells us that ours and other nations have passed through similar hysterias and the people have found themselves after awhile and everything again went on smoothly. We have had in the recent past an era of high prices, wild speculation in stocks and bonds in the East and in lands in the West, the result of which has been to make many men supposedly rich for a few months. After awhile these same men woke up to find that their wealth was on paper. Like a house of cards, their supposed treasure soon fell. In the meantime many small speculators had come into existence and they were also living an easy life. When their bubbles bursted they were confronted with the stern necessity of again earning their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, instead of clipping off coupons or making daily turns on the stock or real estate market. Naturally these people resented fate's act in making them again become hewers of wood and drawers of water, and the most available weapon which they thought could be made useful to them was to enact laws so that they would not have to work.

While many people view with great alarm the present conditions in our country, which are indeed unfortunate, they must remember that there are other sections of the world that are passing through similar experiences. Argentine and Brazil, in South America, we are informed, are now in the midst of a period of unrest and commercial distress. Indeed, our own country has heretofore passed through similar periods of political and commercial excitement. Seventy-five years ago flour was so scarce and high priced in Philadelphia that the mob burst open warehouses in that city and confiscated all the flour in them. Crowds of unemployed marched the streets with banners on which were inscribed "Down With Chartered Monopolies," and other like legends. Business men and banks were constantly