Do You Use Text-Books Encyclopedias or Annotated or Selected Cases WHEN briefing a point how do you get at the cases decided since the "notes" in your set were published? Many of these "notes" are now one, three, five---even ten years old. WE CAN bring these old books down to about it. date and keep them there. Ask us West Publishing Co. New York St. Paul Chicago The Bar VOL. XVIII AUGUST--SEPTEMBER, 1911 Nos. 8-9 AN OPEN FORUM This journal is intended to furnish an open forum to every lawyer for the discussion of any polIcy or proposition of interest to the Profession. It invites a fres Interchange of views upon all such topics whether they agree with the views of THE BAR or not. THE BAR goes to every court house in the state, and is read by, probably, three-fourths of the lawyers of the state, and thus furnishes not only a ready medium of communication between members of the Profession, but of unification of the Profession on all matters of common concern, which is its prime mission. Every clerk of a circuit court is the authorized agent of THE BAR in his county, and has the subscription bills in his possession, and will receive and receipt for all money due on that account, or for new subscriptions, and his receipt will always be a good acquittance for money due THE BAR. THE BAR is furnished at the nominal rate of $1.00 & year, which is less than the cost of publication, and we would like to have the name of every lawyer in the state on our subscription list The Date of the Next Annual Meeting of The Bar Associatiion At the recent meeting of the West Virginia Bar Association at White Sulphur Springs, the invitation of the Taylor County Bar, to hold the next annual meeting at Grafton, was accepted by the Association. No date for the Grafton meeting was fixed. It is the custom of the Association to commit the matter of fixing the date of any annual meeting to the Executive Council, in order that they may examine the schedule of courts, confer with the local committee, and find the most opportune date for all concerned. In this instance the situation would seem to involve the question of holding the meeting in summer or winter. For the last three years the annual meetings have been held in the summer at summer resorts. Previous to that time the established custom was to have winter meetings. So long as summer resorts were chosen it went without saying that the meetings were to be held in the summer months. But we do not know that Grafton aspires to be placed in the category of summer resorts. If she does there are some people who will begin now to lay in a stock of fans and shirt-waists in anticipation of that meeting-for it starts the perspiration to think about a summer meeting at Grafton. We do not know that the matter of resuming winter meet ings was raised or considered by the Association when it accepted the invitation to meet at Grafton. We have not the stenographic report of the minutes of the Association before us. If nothing was said on that point, the natural inference would seem to be, that the Association in determining to abandon the "Summer Resorts" and selecting a distinctly "Winter Resort," had in mind a resumption of the winter meetings. Of course the Executive Council will carefully inspect the minutes of the Association, before acting on this question, but if the minutes are silent, it will be up to the Council to determine between a winter and a summer meeting. On this question there exists, we think, some distinct division of opinion and judgment among members of the Association. THE BAR has had a considerable number of very forcibly expressed opinions from time to time through the mail-not intended for publication. If only the social interests and concerns of the Association are considered, (and they are not to be minimized or ignored), there is a class of members who prefer summer meetings. There is another class who think summer meetings are simply a big professional frolic, and that if the Association has any sincere purpose or expectation of "doing things," it will have to resume the winter meetings to maintain its life. THE BAR has received some very pronounced views on this side of the question In view of this division of sentiment, THE BAR would be glad to have a general expression from members who have decided convictions on the subject, in order that the Executive Council may be advised of the general judgment, before their semi-annual meeting, when this matter will have to be decided one way or the other. We hope to have a general expression. Andrew Carnegie is a genius in contriving ways of recording the progress of peace. The last and the most sententious is in this paragraph from a recent letter: "Men no longer eat each other; they no longer kill prisoners, or sack cities, or poison wells, and men of civilized countries no longer buy and sell each other. It is sure that there will be many who hear these words who will also hear before they take their departure that the civilized nations of the world have banished the killing of man by man as a means of settling international disputes." It All Depends on the Viewpoint The much mooted question of the propriety and the need of reforming the practice and procedure of our Courts is one determined by every man for himself from his own viewpoint. It is altogether a question of viewpoint. A man who has not moved with the age looks at it from an archaic standpoint. The man who lives in and breathes the business ozone of the Twentieth Century, turns away from the methods of our Courts with an intense sense either of surprise or contempt and disgust. The former is content and inmobile and furnishes the characteristic impedimenta which obstructs every advance. He is the same fellow who thought a stage coach was fast enough and the cars would be noisy and interfere with the repose of the cattle and prevent them from fattening; the same fellow who thought a tallow candle good enough and was not interested in gas and electricity; the same felow who adjudges the whirl and push of modern business methods as modern madness, and the cross-roads grocery style of business as exemplifying the only sensible standard. But the fact remains unchallenged that the man, or the business, or the institution, or the industry that attempts to do business today on the lines and on the primitive methods, and standards, and at the pace of even a generation ago, will go pell-mell to pot-everything but the buzzards will instinctively turn away from it. The only institution that has seemed to be immune from the operation of this natural law is the court. It must be conceded that the Courts have not moved. They have defied in large measure the reactionary laws that blight everything else. They have stood still in defiance of advancement in every other line of human activity. They have been deaf and defiant to every suggestion for getting into line with. |