Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

in such cases, and have not brought a divorce suit for twenty years. I consider the lawyer little less than a criminal who advises divorce except as a last resort. The bar is to blame for bringing, the court for entertaining, this shameless docket of divorce cases; and when I read of a record of divorce tried in three minutes, or half a dozen divorces tried in one day, I say that the judges who do these things and allow these things demand of a bar association a reminder that the bar has not yet come down to the level of the bench that does these things.

And I speak of strict construction in cases of crime because under our emasculated bill of rights there are few safeguards left in this state to prevent reckless and wholesale conviction of innocent men.

I speak as an amicus curiae to the courts above me, who live in a plane beyond me and exercise the divine attribute of sovereign power, while I can exercise only the human attribute of reason. And as a member of the Bar Association addressing my fellows on an equal plane, I say that our best friends are not the immaculate, found only in the lives of the saints, but the judges chosen from among us, who make a few mistakes, and if the average record of an advocate only approaches the rec ord of our judiciary, we may well be content.

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

ADDRESS

OF

JOHN L. WEBSTER

OF

OMAHA, NEBRASKA.

HAS THE UNITED STATES OUTGROWN THE CONSTITUTION? Mr. President and Members of the Colorado Bar Association: In considering what point of view of the world's progress might most justly occupy our thoughts at this time, I have been impelled to select an interrogatory, Has the United States Outgrown the Federal Constitution?

It may seem an ambitious subject of inquiry, and I would not venture upon its discussion did I not know that the Bar of Colorado stands so eminently high in scholarly attainments that your members will accept my remarks as mere suggestions, to be weighed in the scales of your ability and learning, and that you will willingly aid the American people in reaching a wise conclusion.

The Constitution of the United States was written by lawyers. It has been interpreted by judges and expounded by lawyers. Thousands of lawyers and hundreds of judges are daily engaged in sustaining, applying and enforcing its provisions for the protection of the constitutional rights and privileges, in property and person, of seventy-five million American citizens. It is highly appropriate that they should consider whether it is still adequate, in its letter, and spirit, and scope, to the needs of so vast a population, and the demands of a nation so great and all powerful as the United States.

This is a question that is fast coming to public attention. A year ago a political party in one state declared in favor of calling

« ZurückWeiter »