of the President of the Association on this question fail to distinguish between the right of suffrage in matters which relate to governmental policy, to fundamental principles and to the election of officers to administer those principles and to the expenditure of the ordinary revenues raised by taxation under the limits of the law of the jurisdiction under which they are being raised, and that special governmental functions for some specific purpose which proposes to pledge the property owner to a given debt and places a mortgage upon his property for some particular purpose under the assumption of benefiting his property. To say that the man who does contribute to the redemption of this extraordinary debt incurred for this not governmental function but function which goes beyond the ordinary governmental function should have a mortgage placed upon his property by the man who is not in a position at that time to contribute in any way to the redemption of that, because in ten years from now he may possibly be burdened with some indebtedness is grasping at straws. Nor is the remarks made by Judge Claypool that the man who is qualified today should be deprived of his vote because he may lose his property, jackass or otherwise, at some time in the future. This proposition does not affect, as far as I can see, the question of strikes, the question of governmental policy, the question of the functions of government at all, but only the question as to placing an extraordinary burden-placing a mortgage upon the taxpayer's property for the construction of that which the community is not able to pay for at the present time. In other words, he cannot vote you or me, or some other man who happens to have property, in debt and compel us and our children in the future to pay out whatever that property cost because he may desire to have a particular extraordinary improvement made by the community for his personal gratification or that of his own family. And it seems to me that the President is right. It is not an amendment that disenfranchises anyone, because it does not relate to the general governmental functions of a community or state.

Mr. Reeves: Mr. President, it is impossible to entirely separate this question from governmental affairs. Whenever a person is called upon to exercise the elective franchise, whether it be matters that are generally considered common or whether upon matters that are considered special, it is one of the duties of citizenship. Now, then, our government is

based, fundamentally, upon the wise, judicious and intelligent exercise of that franchise. As has been already said by some of the speakers, it has been demonstrated, time and time again and is a matter of common knowledge, that that right can be as intelligently exercised by a man who has no property today as by one who has a great deal, and again, if you follow out the idea advanced by the distinguished Senator from Walla Walla, it would be necessary, in order to make this absolutely square, to give a man a vote according to his property. If we are going to undertake to saddle a mortgage on somebody else's property and he owns only a million dollars' worth of property and I only own five hundred dollars' worth of property, then, following out the logical conclusion that we must necessarily draw from the facts stated, he should have a million votes and I should have five hundred, so we divide it into one dollar per vote. If every citizen of the land cannot be trusted, not only in matters of general but in matters of special improvements, then our system of government is a failure and we ought to change it.

Judge Parker: Money extracted from the citizen in the form of taxes to contribute toward the support of government the taxing power-is the very life of government. Without it government could not exist. And whenever a citizen is deprived of the power to have a voice in the enforcement of revenue for the purposes of government he is practically deprived of any voice in that government. This amendment seems harmless as making an inroad upon the privilege of citizenship in that respect because of its insignificant influence and because of the short distance it goes towards restricting the voice of the citizen, but, nevertheless, it is a step in that direction and, left to its logical conclusion, it would mean the power not only to take from the citizen the right to express his vote upon this kind of question but would also practically take from him his vote upon all questions of government, because, when you take from him his vote upon the question of revenue, you ultimately, if you carry it to its ultimate conclusion, would take from him a voice in the government.

Mr. Henderson : It seems to me, if it is true as alleged here, that this particular feature of putting a limitation upon imposing a special assessment is contrary to our foundation and principles of government, we have some of those kind of statutes on our books now and they have been approved

in principle and by the courts. For instance, I think it is impossible, in some improvement districts, to even propose a bond issue without a petition from the majority of the property owners. It is impossible, in cities, for the governmental power to make an improvement in the face of a protest of a certain majority of the property owners; and the right of petition for purposes of bonding is confined to the property owners, and the right to petition against improvement, in cities of a certain class, is confined to the property owners, and I think the distinction furnished by Senator Sharpstein is absolutely in point; that is, that when you intend imposing a special obligation upon property there is an entirely different principle involved from imposing a general obligation upon property. For instance, in this state, a debt incurred for a special improvement is not considered a general debt, and the holders of the security for that special debt are relegated to the particular property against which the debt is incurred and not against the government generally. And, in reply to the suggestion of Mr. Reeves with reference to the dollar as a basis for voting, the man with the five hundred dollars is assessed or mortgaged on the same ratio or percentage as the man of a million, or anybody else who owns property within the assessment district. All are affected in the same ratio, so all should have the same voice in whether their property should be obligated.

When you come to making a special assessment for the purpose of improving that particular property the only reason you can make the special improvement levy is because you are going to benefit that particular property and, if I understand the holdings of this Supreme Court, the only theory upon which you can levy the special assessment is because you are going to return to that property an equal amount of benefit. That being true, we are departing from the fundamental principle of special assessment when we say the man who has no interest in the benefits to be derived is to determine whether or not a special assessment shall be levied. In other words, if you are going to benefit a particular property then why should the person who is not interested in the property have anything to say whether the benefit should be imposed upon it? The theory is that the man who is getting the special benefit ought to pay for it, and it seems to me that the owner of that property, the man who is directly

affected by the assessment should be the one whose vote should be considered.

Mr. President: Is there any other member of the bar present who feels that he has a speech on this question knocking at the point of exit? If not, I suppose a motion to adjourn-I want to say this, however. (Applause.) I am very glad that I was able to say something in my paper that would rejuvenate the Bar Association of this state.

Upon motion, the Association adjourned until 1:30 o'clock P. M.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

Pursuant to Adjournment. Thursday, August 10, 1:30 P. M.

Mr. President: The Chair, supported by the suggestion of a number of the members of this Association, has, in a measure, transposed the program. We will now hear from Mr. John Arthur on Obituaries.

(See Appendix.)

Mr. President: Gentlemen, we will now have the privilege of listening to an address on "The Life and Character of Honorable William Thomas Dovell," a former President of your Association, by Judge Chadwick.

Mr. Chadwick: Mr. President, Members of the Washington State Bar Association: If I had appreciated, or, rather, if I had not forgotten Judge Arthur's disposition to make a full and complete report upon the lives of the deceased members of this Association, I would have been less elaborate in the preparation of the remarks that I have prepared, but the program is made and I am not prepared to speak extemporaneously and it is now too late for me to cut very much of what I have written. I shall endeavor to read it as rapidly as I can.

(Reads paper.) (See Appendix.)

Mr. President: We will now have the privilege of listening to an address on "The Life of the Late Chief Justice Herman D. Crow," by Mr. Chief Justice Morris, of our Supreme Court.

(See Appendix.)

Mr. President: Inasmuch as there has been no session of the Legislature since our last convention, there will be no report by the Legislative Committee. We will hear from Senator Sharpstein, Chairman of the Committee on Code Commission.

Mr. Sharpstein: Mr. President, the Committee on Code Commission has not prepared, at the present time, a written report, but we will prepare a written report and file it with the Secretary by tomorrow.

Mr. President: The report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws. Mr. Charles E. Shepard.

Mr. Secretary: Mr. President, Gentlemen: I have the report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws, signed by all of the committee, none of whom are here. Mr. Shepard has gone East. He religiously attends the meetings of the American Bar Association as he is one of the Committee on Uniform Laws. That committee meets a few days ahead of the Bar Association, and he is now there or on his way there. (Reads report.)

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON UNIFORM STATE LAWS. To the Washington State Bar Association:

Your Committee respectfully submits to the Association, at its annual meeting in 1916, the following as its annual report:

As has been remarked in a previous report of this Committee, its function has been principally to report progress, but the Committee now believes that the Uniform Law movement has attained such a degree of success, and such an importance in state legislation and in the reform of the law, that its function can be somewhat enlarged— that it can be a committee of achievement as well as of report of progress. The inception of the Uniform Law movement was in a phrase in Article I of the Constitution of the American Bar Association, which was adopted about thirty-eight years ago. That article, among other things, stated that "Its object shall be * * * to promote * * * uniformity of legislation throughout the Union." Within the next few years a committee of that Association on the subject of Uniform State Laws was formed, and began its labors, from which originated shortly thereafter a meeting of commissioners from a few states, following the lead of New York, to consider the subject and frame legislation which they would propose to the states. Thus from these few beginnings the movement has grown, until now for many years the Conference of Commissioners from the states and other jurisdictions of the Union has held annual conferences, the conference in 1915 being its twenty-fifth, and it has worked zealously and steadily