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On the contrary, it argues that we have faith in the proprietor's ultimate purpose to move his charity back a peg, and to provide participation, based on merit and service. True to the fundamental rule so aptly expressed by Von Ihering:

"Only through a lasting connection with labor, can property maintain itself fresh and healthy".

Most of us are persuaded that labor unions have been a power for the wage earner's betterment. But that does not mean that we approve a system of exemption which would constitute these unions a class, putting them fairly upon the road to become a caste. The objection to such exemption is not so much that it is unfair to the proprietor, as that it is unjust to the wage earner. There is no such thing as special political privilege without corresponding surrender of right and independence. And if this trend to special exemption shall prevail and grow, there must come a time when the question is bound to be asked, whether an American citizen can be permitted to enjoy such privileges, and, at the same time, can be trusted, competently and impartially, to exercise the suffrage.

It is the ultimate result of novel doctrines that must be weighed in the balance. No one will dispute the correctness of Von Ihering's contention:

"For the law is Saturn devouring his own children. The law can renew its youth only by breaking with its own past. A concrete legal right or principle of law, which, simply because it has come into existence, claims an unlimited and therefore eternal existence, is a child lifting its arm against its own mother; it despises the idea of the law when it appeals to that idea; for the idea of the law is an eternal Becoming; but That Which Has Become must yield to the new Becoming, since

Alles was entsteht,

Ist werth dass es zu Grunde geht".

But he does not argue that we must accept only those suggestions which have no tradition or experience to justify them; or that we dare not act upon the experience of other countries. The growth of the law presupposes a building from one standard to another-peaceably, if possible; by struggle, if need be. But in either case experience is the foundation for the new structure. If we look with some misgiving upon the trend to over-legislation, it is not because we would stay, but because we would conserve the splendid spirit of altruism which has arisen in our country. And when I say "conserve" I do not mean to legislate to a standstill, but to provide for rational development. As many of the late measures affecting the interests of the great West well illustrate, conservation should mean intelligent use, and is not served by letting trees rot, or by having enterprises halted and human energy held in check. The uplift has manifested itself in some peculiar forms; but it is the part of statesmen to help mold it and not merely to resist and to deny. It is to be remembered that when John Stewart Mill, who was one of the great critics of over-legislation, said that the usual results of a new law are those that no one has anticipated, he should have added that these results may at times be gratifying, as well as disappointing.

To conclude, it has seemed to me that we have strayed from the path of normal legislation. We are disposed to forget some of the rights of individuals upon the enjoyment of which, after all, that individual's contribution to the general public depends. I am persuaded that we teach and think too much of the mere practice of the law, and too little of its history and philosophy; and that some acquaintance with the meaning of law is more necessary to our younger generation than is a smattering of Latin and Greek. The public's appreciation of the law's purpose and its limitations, and the ability to give it clear and comprehensive expression, are essential to the maintenance of liberty. It involves what Morley says Rousseau left wholly untouched, or at least wholly un

illumined; "The modern question, which is of such vital interest for all the foremost human societies, of the union of collective energy, with the encouragement of individual freedom".

ADDRESS

OF

JOHN D. FLEMING

OF

BOULDER

COMMON LAW AND CODE

I.

About the year 1613, the year in which he was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir Edward Coke wrote these words by way of comment upon Littleton's exhortation to his student to have regard to the science of well pleading: "Here is to be observed the excellency of good pleading, and Littleton's grave advice that the student should employ his courage and care for the attaining thereof, which he shall attain unto by these means, first, by reading; secondly, by observation; and thirdly, by use and exercise. For in ancient times the sergeants and apprentices of the law did draw their own pleadings, which made them good leaders". And he adds one of his quaint etymologies to the effect that placitum, a pleading (observe that he is speaking not in terms of prophesy) is derived from placendo, "because it pleases everybody"!1

Coke refers the perfection of the art of pleading to the reign of Edward III. "In the reign of Edward III", he says, "pleadings grew to perfection without lameness and curiosity". And Lord Hale observes that though pleadings in the time of some later sovereigns were "far shorter than afterwards, especially after Henry VIII, yet they were much longer than in the time of King

13 Th. Co. Lit., 376.

Edward III; and the pleaders, yea and the judges, too, became somewhat too curious therein; so that art or dexterity of pleading, which in its use, nature and design was only to render the fact plain and intelligible, and to bring the matter to judgment with a convenient certainty began to degenerate from its primitive simplicity, and the true use and end thereof, and to become a piece of nicety and curiosity". And Lord Hale accounts for this needless length and nicety in part by the fact that the pleadings were mostly drawn by the clerks who were paid according to their length, and therefore took care not to study brevity.2

What is the inherent difficulty in these mutual altercations between the plaintiff and defendant? Their obvious purpose is to analyze the merits of the cause, and to ascertain the precise subject of controversy preparatory to trial. We are told that the sergeants and apprentices in the old days drew their own pleadings. After the abandonment of alternate allegations by word of mouth, by the parties or their counsel, they would naturally fall into certain formulae, and we gather from Reeves History of English Law that as early as the time of Edward I the declaration was drawn with form and precision and was liable to be excepted to if deficient in either of those qualities. But certain logical processes have not changed in all these centuries; and with all our progress and the demands of an advanced civilization certain necessities survive. For example: A holds B's bond for $500, and proposes to institute suit upon it. Being a teacher of law, I once asked a group of young men, novitiates in the subject, to draw up and submit to me, not necessarily in the dialectics of pleading, a statement of that cause of action. It was surprising how closely the best of them approached the accepted formula: "This man B owes me, A, $500, as witness his bond here, which I now show to the court; yet he has not paid me".

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