Nov. To cash paid for Annual Reports.... $ 712.65 To cash paid for delivery of Annual Reports in Den ver. 5.00 To cash paid for stamps.. 5.00 Dec. To cash paid for printing 100 copies of address of 16.00 1918. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May To cash paid ex-president T. J. O'Donnell for miscel- To cash paid L. W. Henderson for cleaning and sort- To cash paid for printing tickets to Annual Dinner.. 5.50 5.00 7.50 7.90 20.40 1.75 7.50 225.00 10.00 12.00 REPORT OF AUDITING COMMITTEE Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 13, 1918. To the Colorado Bar Association: Your committee appointed to audit the accounts of the Treasurer begs leave to report that it has examined the vouchers shown for the various expenditures reported, and that the same correctly account therefor. The balance reported on hand is evidenced by certified check payable to this Association. ERNEST MORRIS, ARTHUR CORNFORTH, Committee. To the Colorado Bar Association: At the last annual meeting Mr. James H. Pershing, who had been a delegate to the Conference of Delegates from Bar Associations held in connection with the meeting of the American Bar Association for 1916, devoted his report principally to the meeting of the Association proper, and Hon. Platt Rogers, who had been delegate to the American Bar Association meeting and not to the Conference, reported the latter meeting. This situation afforded a great advantage to the maker of each report, and Mr. Rogers took full advantage of it. How the transmutation occurred and where, is more than hinted at in his report from which it is quite clear that the same sovereign alchemist, whom Omar Khayyam sings, is still on the job. I had the honor to be a delegate to both meetings at Saratoga in 1917, and I take them in the order in which they were held. The Special Conference of Delegates of Bar Associations, convened in the Grand Union Hotel, Monday, September 3rd, at ten o'clock A. M. Hon. Elihu Root, who was chairman of the Conference held in Chicago, presided. If nothing else had occurred at the meeting; if there had been no business to transact, or if the Conference had adjourned at the conclusion of Mr. Root's remarks in taking the chair as presiding officer, every one present would have been well paid for his journey, no matter how far he had traveled. With most wonderful concentration and an intensity which holds the listener as if he were gripped in a pinchers, he compressed the whole premeditated origin and criminal purpose of this bloody war, its effect upon us and our present attitude, into the fewest words in which any statement I have seen or heard has put the case. I quote a specimen paragraph: "What is the effect of our entering upon the war? The effect is that we have surrendered, and are obliged to surrender, a great measure of that liberty which you and I have been asserting in court during all of our lives: power over property, power over person. This has been vested in a military commander in order to carry on war successfully. You cannot have free democracy and successful war at the same moment. The inevitable conclusion is that if you have to live in the presence of a great powerful military autocracy as your neighbor you cannot maintain your democracy. And another inference is that if you are to maintain your democracy you must kill autocracy." A set program had been prepared but it yielded to necessity in many instances. The presence of Carl L. Schurz, of New York, son of the German patriot and American soldier and statesman of that name, who took the place of Governor Hughes of New York in opening the discussion of "Legal Aid by the Profession to Those Who Need it Most", was interesting to those in attendance for other reasons than on account of the merit of the address which Mr. Schurz delivered. W. H. Smith, of Massachusetts, Counsel for the Boston Legal Aid Society, participated in the discussion, as did J. H. Merrill, a distinguished lawyer of Georgia; Gen. Wm. A. Ketcham, of Indiana, Moorfield Story, of Massachusetts, and others. Charles A. Boston, of New York, offered a resolution which was unanimously adopted, urging the Bar Associations, State and local, to foster the formation and efficient administration of Legal Aid Societies for legal relief work for the worthy poor. There were three sessions of the Conference, morning, afternoon and evening. Nothing developed which might not have been properly considered by the Association as a whole and the Conference could scarcely be considered as representative of the American Bar, as is the American Bar Association, although, when in addition to those I have mentioned, it is noted that Richard W. Hale, of Massachusetts, Alfred S. Niles, of Maryland, W. H. H. Piatt, of Missouri, Roscoe Pound, Howard Townsend, of New York, John Lowell, of Massachusetts, Francis Lynde Stetson, of New York, H. U. Sims, of Alabama, and a number of other equally distinguished lawyers, participated in the discussions, it will be readily understood that the Conference was neither unprofitable nor uninteresting. The most interesting discussion of the Conference arose on the subject "HOW CAN THE BAR ASSOCIATION RAISE THE STANDARD OF THE PROFESSION?" This turned largely on the lamentable conditions which, it was disclosed by the New York members of the Conference, exist in the great metropolis of the country. This condition is illustrated by the statement of Mr. Howard Townsend of New York, made during the discussion, which I quote: "We have about 12,000 lawyers there. Just as I firmly believe that the upper 10 per cent are the finest type of lawyers that exist, so am I compelled to admit that when you get down near to the other end you find the type that I trust is not very prevalent." The following offered by Mr. Charles A. Boston, of New York City, was adopted: "Resolved, That this Conference recommends to state and local bar associations that they systematically |