had no way to nominate our candidates. This was a calamity to the city because there were only ninety-two candidates for commissioner that year, whereas if I had had a political party to represent me, there would then have been five more and the city treasury would have received the added filing fees.

They say we must adopt the short ballot. Why? The direct primary has broken down. Its friends recognize the fact that few citizens are sufficiently acquainted with all the candidates to select state officers with wisdom. The people are fundamentally incapable of competently administering affairs of government through the direct primary. There is no unselfish agency to put forward a candidate for office. The candidates, as I have said, are self-selected and self-advertised. The result of popular choice itself therefore is influenced principally by what the man says of himself. The man best qualified and most desirable is generally so constituted that he will not declare his own virtues. This defect might have been foreseen, but I did not foresee it. I was the earnest friend of the direct primary up to the time of its adoption, yet nothing is plainer to me now than the mistake which I made. The direct primary system is a failure, and the people are convinced of that fact. We are then in the position of having had a tried and generally successful agency of government, the political party, and of having experimented by substituting a new agency in place of the old, and, having found that our experiment was a dismal failure, we are told that the thing to do is to call a constitutional convention in order to adopt another experiment and graft it upon this. It would seem far wiser to return to the old system with which we are familiar and quit experimenting until the patient recovers sufficiently to be able to take another dose. short ballot as an experiment for several reasons:

I oppose the

It is a long and dangerous stride towards centralization; it destroys the theory of checks and balances; it leaves the newspapers, as they are now, in absolute control of government; it multiplies the opportunity for successful corruption in office; it wholly fails to cure the evil which it is brought forward to correct, to-wit, the failure of the direct primary. Over in Spokane we have one of the latest fashions, the commission form of city government, where the same men meet at 11 o'clock each day to exercise legislative power. The balance of the day they exercise executive power. Thus we have two functions of government combined in the same hands, and whenever they have been told by the court that there is a constitution which restrains them from absolute despotism, they have repeatedly, personally and through their mouthpiece, the public press, deprecated the application of judicial power as respects them and openly chafed at any limitation of their authority. When the legislative, judicial and executive functions are vested in a single person, every safeguard to our liberty has been destroyed. As for me, I would far rather live under the rule of a hereditary czar aided by the advice of

hereditary grand dukes, than to live under the sway of an elective autocrat who governs by and with the advice of the public press. I want no approach to either form of government. I want the several departments of government exercised by men whose tenure of office are independent of each other, by men who under no circumstances are under the domination of a single will or of a single board. If the constitution is to be changed, I want decentralization rather than centralization of authority. It seems singularly presumptious to me that men who, having nominated themselves as candidates for office, go about the state telling the people of their own great wisdom, patriotism and honesty, their own peculiar fitness for that high office, and in addition to that asking to be entrusted with greater power than was ever exercised by a governor outside of India.

The great failure of the direct primary is by reason of the lack of knowledge or the means of knowledge in the voter as to which of the various aspirants for office is the better candidate. The short ballot suggestion provides no publicity except that produced by the candidate himself. The voter is left about as unfitted to intelligently pass upon the qualification of three state candidates as he was to pass on the qualification of a dozen. The press, by reason of its interest in a particular candidate, is just as biased as is the candidate himself. So I assert that the short ballot is not calculated to cure the only defect which makes it defensible.

But some of the constitutional revisionists say that our taxing system is antiquated, and needs revision, and that the financial burdens of our government are too great. I assert that it is historically true that not a single one of these innovations has resulted in any lessened burden of taxation. They can be defended, if at all, only upon the ground that the people get more for their money and that the government is worth it. The city of Spokane is paying higher salaries today to men who were previously devoting all their time to the city government for a less compensation. The cost of government has not been lessened, but greatly increased. If one has a suggestion to make as to an alteration of the taxing machinery, let him make it to the Legislature and let it pass the critical scrutiny of that body rather than to attempt to dump another ready made style upon a long suffering people.

I fear to see a constitutional convention called for another reason. During my residence in this state, I have seen very many constitutional amendments proposed and passed through the Legislature in the interest of specific people, which have been defeated at the polls. I fear that these unsuccessful assaults upon public interests will be successfully revived through the agency of a constitutional convention, and that the little ewe lamb of fundamental right remaining in the people will be slain by this King David. I fear that when that body shall have finished its labors its work will be full of "jokers" of special privilege which may be adopted in wholesale when they could not be ratified if acted on separately.

The greatest need of our people lies in a rest from legislation; a rest from the agitation and turmoil of strenuous reform; a quieting of the fevered pulse and a return to tranquility. In the name of God, give us a rest.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF HERMAN D. CROW.

George E. Morris, Chief Justice.

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the State Bar Association:

Like Judge Chadwick, I feel myself somewhat embarassed by the fact that the subject upon which I am asked to speak to you has been already covered by the report of the Committee on Necrology and has included many things I had intended to refer to. In consequence I must offer to you some thoughts imperfectly gathered together since Judge Arthur has ceased speaking.

These yearly gatherings of our Association bring to us much pleasure and much profit; pleasure in again meeting old friends, renewing old acquaintances, living over again the pleasant incidents of past years, the pleasant outings with agreeable and congenial associates; profit in hearing some good paper read or some theme discussed that is of great interest to the members of our profession; profit in devoting a few moments, as we are now, to paying our tribute of respect to the memories of those of our brethren who have passed away during the intervening year and who today are appearing at another bar, before which we must all appear and at which we must all plead. The profit in this feature of our program, it seems to me, is in stirring and stimulating our minds to these better things, in realizing that there is a spiritual as well as a temporal side to life, that man has an eternal as well as a temporal destiny, for we must all die and neither honor nor reward, honest purpose or honest act shall be able to separate us from that which is the common lot of all men. Some day some friend will rise in one of these future gatherings and announce the fact that we have gone to join our fellows.

With earnest and thoughtful men, I take it, the thought of death itself has long since lost its sting. It is not the thought of death that appals or alarms us so much as it is the thought of the pain, the hardship, the suffering to those who are left behind and to whom our faith and love has always been a barrier, a sheltering wall to keep back the adversities of life, to shield them from its sorrows. What is death, anyway? The finite mind of men, with all the wisdom of accumulated ages, has not yet been able to tell us which is the greater blessing, life or death. Which, for instance, is Fortune's favorite, the little babe that dies cradled in the arms of mother-love or he who lives through the weary, toilsome years bearing the heat and burden of the day until the shadows have lengthened far afield? Which of us today shall say which is best, life with its sunshine and its shadow, its hopes and its fears, its agonies and its tears, or death with its peaceful rest, its unending sleep until the trumpet of the resurrection calls? We can no more fathom the mysteries of death,