No man should enter the profession of the law through merely mercenary motives. If he has no higher aim than the accumulation of wealth, it were better to seek some less laborious and more profitable calling. The same intellectual ability in another vocation, with one-half of the toil, anxiety and weariness of the lawyer's life, would bring far greater gains to his coffers. He who enters this profession should do so inspired by a far nobler, holier purpose. It should be his aim to master the great principles upon which the structure of human society rests, and the great principles and laws by which right is made superior to might; by which the moral and intellectual attributes of our nature are made to rise superior to, and control, mere brute force. Nay, more than this, it is his high prerogative to assist in administering that God-like quality, justice-tempered ofttimes by that still more God-like attribute, mercy. Let no man, then, enter this profession with a mistaken idea of its duties, its responsibilities. The life of the lawyer is not one of ease, but of weariness of body and of mind. There is no royal road to victory, but he who ascends to the highest niche in the temple does so only after years of unwearied effort.

While this is true, it is also true that no mere human calling affords such opportunities for the attainment of noble ends-the accomplishment of glorious purposes. Upon the lawyer of great opportunities rests great responsibilities. To whom much is given, of him much will be required. In proportion as the lawyer is endowed with great talents, are his responsibilities great. In proportion as are his opportunities, will be demanded of him the talents given, with usury, at that tribunal whose judgments are founded in wisdom, and from whose decrees there is no appeal.

I have spoken something of the duties and the requirements of the profession; need I speak of its rewards? The greatest is, in the retrospect of a busy life, to know that your high office has never been prostituted to base purposes; that it has never been an engine of oppression; that in you the weak and the helpless have ever found a defender; that the victims of injustice and wrong have never sought your aid in vain; that your influence and example have ever been on the side of the right, for compassing the ends that purify, elevate and ennoble our race. As we approach the dark river, from whose further shore no traveler has yet returned, the consciousness that we have caused the faces of sorrowing childhood to light up with joy; that to the widow

in her weeds of mourning we have indeed been benefactors, will be more glorious far than to have left behind us monuments of marble, a name in history, or to have worn the jewels of royalty.

Finally, gentleman of the bar, may we not abide in the faith, that inspired by the words and the deeds of the men of this noble calling, who have made resplendent every page of the first century of our nation's history, their successors-in the near and in the remote future-on the bench and at the bar, whatever dangers may menace, will faithfully guard and transmit to coming ages the precious legacy of constitutional government.

ADDRESS

OF

MOSES HALLETT,

JUDGE OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR COLORADO.

THE PRIVATE CORPORATION IN SOCIOLOGY.

The state of Colorado, thirty-eighth in numerical order of the great family of states, entered the Union towards the close of the Centennial year. In less than twenty-three years of state sovereignty she has given birth to more than 19,000 corporations. We shall not be too considerate of the reputation of our commonwealth in saying that it is neither the first nor the last in point of corporate fecundity among the states of the Union. From all that appears in the public prints, there must be several states on and near the Atlantic seaboard which in this respect far outrun everybody in the West. Has any one essayed to count the corporate lives of the Empire state, or of its amiable little neighbor, New Jersey, which stands at its foot, a commercial offshoot of the great American city? Not many years back a writer for the press referred to the state of West Virginia as "at present the snug harbor of roaming and piratical corporations," and the president of the State Bar Association, in an address to his brethren, accepted the suggestion with becoming humility. In the absence of statistics it is not easy to estimate the whole number of corporations in the United States, but all will agree that the number is very large. They resemble other office-holders in that "few die, and none resign." Ten years ago the Court of Appeals of New York decided that a franchise may survive the corporation to which it is granted, and we all know by what easy trans-substantiation the life of one corporation may be put into another corporation. However the corporations may come and

go, they do not die. If for some time they slumber in the grave, they do not moulder, as did John Brown's body. When syncope supervenes, the courts coddle them back into life, so that they may answer at roll call and fulfill the glorious destiny to which they were created.

The growth of corporations in numbers and influence in recent times has been the subject of much discussion in schools of political science, and in legislative and executive departments of government. That the subject should be considered with reference to the moral, social and domestic life of the people, is greatly to be desired.

Mr. Bryce says that corporations have become offensive in this country, but they are so useful that they can not be displaced. Opposition to them is likely to take the form of taxing franchises, and other measures of repression. Mr. Bryce does not explain the usefulness of corporations, but he probably means that they promote the business of the country. The meaning is that more business will be done in the country at large through and by means of corporations than can be done without them. Like all Englishmen, he has the commercial spirit of his nation, to command and control the marts of the world. He puts business above the moral and physical health of the people, thus aggrandizing wealth, and correspondingly degrading mankind.

The gravest charge in any indictment that may be made against corporate life is to the same effect. A private corporation is the outward and invisible manifestation of the power of money, established by the government, for controlling the affairs. of men. This definition may not be found in any law book, because the law has not been brought to this view of the matter, but its verity can easily be shown. The legal or artificial entity called a corporation is composed of one or more natural persons, and the question arises, What need is there for making an arti ficial man from the human kind? Is the human entity so deficient in power and capacity that means must be contrived to supplement his efficiency? The early writers thought that man's defect was in his mortal part; his life was not long enough to accomplish the purposes in view. Therefore, as Blackstone puts it, he was given perpetual succession, and a kind of legal immortality. This was a sufficient reason for the corporations of Blackstone's time, which were, as he says, for the advancement of religion, of learning and of commerce. The greater number were

of the ecclesiastical and eleemosynary kind, and the trading cor porations referred to, as made for the advancement of commerce, were largely invested with powers of government. They carried on their operations in the East and West Indies, in America, and in other parts of the world. When the United States shall conquer the Philippine islands, and shall charter a company for their government, we may have an example of the commercial corporation mentioned by Blackstone. Such corporations were of a public nature, and therefore they were reasonably endowed with perpetual life. If the private corporation of the present time had been known to the writers of the last century, it is not probable that immortality would have been assigned as one of its essential virtues. Of course, in any attempt to establish a monopoly in the form of incorporation for purposes of trade, the element of time would be an important factor; the danger from that source probably led to limitations upon corporate life, constitutional and statutory, in most of the states of the Union. The wisdom which recognized the value of such limitations failed to comprehend that avarice and greed are virile forces of human nature, which should be restrained, or suppressed, rather than to be licensed and established in a course of cruelty and oppression.

What then is the purpose of creating an artificial man to engage in the ordinary business of life such as described in a statute of the United States "as mining, manufacturing and other industrial pursuits." Plainly the law declares the purpose to give lucre and gain to the natural people who make the artificial man. You can read in the last edition of Bouvier's dictionary this definition: "Private corporations are which are created wholly or in part for purposes of private emolument." The course of proceeding in these matters is well understood by everybody. The man with a bank account is called "Capital," probably in deference to the corporate idea, which forbids the use of cognomen or praenomen, except at the baptismal font. When there are several of him he becomes a "Syndicate," in which state he is more undiscoverable than when he was simply Capital. He is the essential element of the corporation, although the promoter who knows him intimately and ardently is not to be overlooked until the business has been fully launched. There is another man with a shovel and no bank account who is called "Labor," in deference to that same corporate idea which forbids the use of proper names. However