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THE PRESIDENT: If there is no objection, the report will be received and placed on file and printed in the proceedings.

Next is the report of the delegates to the American Bar Association, by Judge E. M. Carr.

REPORT OF DELEGATES TO AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION

Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Iowa State Bar Association: I have no written report. I did not understand that I was Chairman of the delegates appointed last year to attend the American Bar Association, and made no report. But I attended and know something about what was done, and I can tell you in brief some of the important happenings at that meeting last year.

The most important question we had to deal with was the negro question. Two years ago, when the American Bar met at Boston and the tables were spread for the annual banquet, we learned for the first time that there was trouble, that Mr. Lewis, a man with colored blood in his veins, had been elected a member of the Association, and many of the ladies that were in attendance there refused to go to the banquet room, even to look on as guests, if Mr. Lewis sat down at the annual banquet. That was no frivolous affair. Mr. Lewis, I think, had to give us assurance he would not attend before a great number of the ladies would come into the room. You would hardly suspect, to look at Mr. Lewis, that he had any colored blood in his veins. I think he is a graduate of Harvard University, and was Assistant Attorney General of the United States, and the peer of any lawyer from an educational standpoint.

The General Council of the American Bar Association is, in theory, the governing power of the Association, but during the interim between sessions, its committees act in its stead, and its Executive Committee, between the meeting at Boston and the one at Milwaukee last year, undertook, on a technicality, to deprive Mr. Lewis of membership in the Association. That stirred up the blood, so to speak, of the General Council, and your delegate as the member for Iowa in that Council, and a majority, I think, of the General Council, did not propose standing by the action of its committee. After considerable negotiation, it was

concluded to pass the whole subject up to the Association itself to be determined. The trouble was in the mouth of nearly everybody before the first meeting of the Association there at Milwaukee, and it was decided to hold a caucus, because it was thought if the debate was public and found its way into newspapers, it would disrupt the Association. So we held a caucus with closed doors. The men from south of the old Mason and Dixon line were largely in favor of sustaining the committee on technical grounds and approving of the rejection of Mr. Lewis. I, as the member of the Executive Council from Iowa, received many telegrams from my State, protesting against treating Mr. Lewis different than any other human being.

The people from the South said they came to meetings of the American Bar Association with their wives and daughters, and that it was social as well as educational, and they did not propose to remain in the Association if it was going to admit colored men to membership. It was fortunate for the Association that there were no newspaper reporters there. It was finally determined to appoint a committee to see if the matter could not be compromised and have no debate in the open session. Your delegate took the position in that contest that human rights rose higher than any color line, and, when that question was put up to the conscience of the American Bar, he did not believe that they would discriminate against Mr. Lewis because he had colored blood in his veins, and the committee appointed by that caucus decided in that way. Mr. Lewis is still a member of the Association, and the committee of the General Council was turned down. He is a gentleman and a scholar, and I am glad of the result. But new applications for membership in the American Bar Association provide, that the applicant must state his race, color, and sex, and I infer from that, that it will be quite difficult for any person to become a member of the American Bar Association in the future, who is not of the Caucasian race, and a man. I do not think the Association intends to hereafter admit women, or any men of color, no matter what race, to the Assciation. The probabilities are the applicant would not get past the General Council, consisting of one member from each State and Territory, or the Executive Committee elected by that Council.

Now, I have little more to say, further than this: there were three great papers or addresses listened to during that session of the American Bar Association. You all recall the political conditions in this country last year. There were really three great parties. Now, it is one of the glories of the common law, and I believe it has a distinctive excellence over any other judicial system, that it has growth in it; it grows. In the civil law, there is no growth in it, but the common law continues to grow. We had Democrats and Republicans and Progressive Republicans last year, all three contending that this great governmental system of ours should grow in certain directions, in somewhat different directions. The Democrats said it should branch out here; the Progressive Republicans said it should branch out in another direction, and the Republicans who were in power were in favor of keeping the past upon its throne and growing the tree straight up without any branches.

The Association selected three men, each a representative of one of these great parties, to deliver addresses. President Gregory of the Association is a Democrat, and he delivered the annual address. Frank B. Kellogg of St. Paul, the present President of the Association, a follower of Theodore Roosevelt and the attorney who tried the great case against the Standard Oil Company, read a paper. And I was surprised by the masterly address of Senator Sutherland of Utah, who was selected to represent the standpat Republicans. These three men delivered three addresses the equal of which I never heard at any meeting of the American Bar Association, and I have attended most of them for many years. I say this notwithstanding the fact that it has been the privilege of the members of the American Bar to listen to many great jurists and great orators. We have heard John F. Dillon, and John W. Foster, a former Secretary of State of the United States. Both of these men stand close to the head of the list of American lawyers. And we have heard Judge David J. Brewer, in his time one of the greatest jurists and orators in America. He was a member of that great Field family and more need not be said of his exceptional ability. And we have been talked to by another man, Le Baron B. Colt, who has recently been elected a United States Senator by the Republicans

of Rhode Island. If he lives, you will all hear from him. He is one of the greatest orators in America, and a jurist of commanding ability. You will hear from him in the United States Senate. At our meeting in Hot Springs, Virginia, in 1903, we heard Sir Fredrick Pollock, the noted English lawyer, but he was outclassed by Judge Colt. We have giants in the American Bar Association, and there is no greater lawyer at the American Bar, in my opinion, than this recently elected Senator. He was United States Circuit Judge for the New England District before his election.

These three addresses last year rank up the equal of anything I have heard in a dozen years in the American Bar Association, and we frequently have men of distinction from abroad to talk to us. Once we had a Chinaman, Chow Tszchi, a delegate from the Imperial Chinese Government. He was a great lawyer. He seemed to have a comprehensive grasp of the law of every country in the world. But these three addresses last year were the equal of any three addresses I ever heard at any session of the Association. Now, gentlemen, these were the leading features of last year. I thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: The report is received and placed on file.

We have with us a representative of the American Bar Association, in the person of Mr. Charles W. Farnham, of St. Paul. I think we should like to hear from him for a few minutes.

MR. FARNHAM: Gentlemen of the Bar Association: I am going to take but a very few minutes of your time. Fraternity, that fine thing Judge Wade has so nicely spoken of, is what brings me here. I just want to say a few things on the question of membership in the American Bar Association. It was organized in 1878, and for many years made no special effort to increase its membership. The meeting was nearly always held at Saratoga, but ten or a dozen years ago they broke away from Saratoga and went to various places of the country, but no effort was made throughout the country to increase its membership until last year, when a special committee on membership was formed, with the result that there was an increase of membership of twelve hundred members. This year we have a similar committee and

we hope for even better results. The American Bar consists of one hundred and twenty thousand lawyers. About six thousand of them are members of the American Bar Association. The American Medical Association recently closed its meeting with nearly six thousand men present at that meeting. It goes without saying that that makes the American Medical Association a power, and the same thing should be true of the American Bar Association.

Now, Iowa has a very small membership in the American Bar Association. You have in the neighborhood of three thousand lawyers. About ninety of them are members of the American Bar Association. Your State Association has something over six hundred members. Des Moines has twenty-five members who belong to the American Bar Association. Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Burlington, Keokuk, and Davenport, and all these places, have only one or two members each. Here is Sioux City with a bar that has been estimated to have one hundred and twenty-five lawyers, with but two members.

The Eighth Circuit has been given to me to increase the membership. Geographically it has the largest number of States, the biggest bar in the circuit. We have started a little campaign in Minnesota and we have some eighty or ninety members, and we will run well over one hundred. Mr. Kellogg asked me what we were going to do about the rest of the circuit. I said, a good way would be to go over the circuit, but the American Bar Association wouldn't do that, it would be too expensive. He told me to go ahead, and so I started and covered the whole circuit, from Utah on the West to Oklahoma on the south. I came back with over one hundred members, and with more money for the American Bar Association as a result of the trip than Mr. Kellogg had to spend for me on that trip. Now, I have come down to Sioux City. I took a drawing room on the train, am going to take it to-night going back, and I may not be able to say that all the money I spent to-day I got back. I hope some one will move that we have a committee, say, two from Sioux City and two from over the State to help me to get new members for the American Bar Association.

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