nations dripping from thy teeth, may God Himself lead thee out into oblivion and cast thee forever into the black abyss of eternal night!

"My friends, hesitate before you vote liquor back into Atlanta, now that it is out. Don't trust it. It is powerful, aggressive, and universal in its attacks. Tonight it enters an humble home to strike the roses from a woman's cheek, and tomorrow it challenges this Republic in the Halls of Congress. Today it strikes the crust from the lips of a starving child and tomorrow levies tribute from the Government itself. There is no cottage in this city humble enough to escape it-no place strong enough to shut it out. Oh, my countrymen, loving God and humanity, do not bring this grand old city again under the dominion of that power."-HENRY W. GRADY,

K

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

THE TRUE LAWYER

(Address at the banquet of Missouri State Bar Association, held in St. Louis, Mo.)

A

FTER a good many years of attempted speechmaking, I come tonight for the second time to attempt to repeat a speech. Returning to my office three or four days ago, after a short absence in the country, I found on my desk a letter inviting me to be present at this time as one of the recipients of the hospitality of the members of the bar of the majestic city of St. Louis, and requesting me to repeat a toast delivered by me at a bar banquet held at my home city at the mouth of the Kaw, something over three years ago. It so happened that this speech was written out after it was delivered, but I could not recall a single sentence it contained, and a search amongst the rubbish in my office for the purpose of refreshing my memory failed to resurrect it. The hand of one, however, who places a far greater value upon her husband's effusions than he does himself, had laid it away, and while I am not able to repeat the address, in haec verba, I can at least comply with your request to the extent of making it the basis of my poor remarks tonight.

Of all the children of men that individual who is the most completely misunderstood and the most thoroughly depreciated, is the true lawyer. Men may indeed admire him for his supposed shrewdness; from necessity they trust him as they do no other human being, but we cannot close our eyes to the fact, that back of all this, due either to ignorance or to a strange and slanderous tradition clinging to our profession, there lurks a widespread popular notion that even the best type of an attorney falls below the average of his fellows in his observance of two of the great cardinal virtues, honesty and truthfulness.

Old Peter Cooper, the noted New York philanthropist, used to delight in telling a story illustrative in part of a popular notion as to the legal profession. Mr. Cooper was acquainted with an old farmer up in New York State who was an astrologer and whose nightly visits to the heavenly bodies revealed a terrible fate for his three sons. The eldest was to be a mendicant, depending on

charity for food and raiment, and without a place to lay his head. The second son was to be a professional murderer, and the third a notorious liar. In great distress the old man divulged the divinations of the stars to an intimate friend, who assured him that his grief was groundless and that the whole matter could easily be arranged. "Let the son," said he, "who is to be a mendicant, study for the ministry, and the tighter he is pinched by poverty, the happier he will be, and the more he will be petted and sympathized with by his hearers. Let the son who is to be a professional murderer study medicine, and then he can kill people ad libitum, with no eye to detect and no arm to stay him in his deadly work. And the son who is to be a notorious liar, let him study law, and then the more he eclipses Ananias and Sapphira the more he will be honored and applauded by his fellowmen."

"The true lawyer." Using the word true in its broadest, loftiest signification, does the noble sentiment thus expressed find its incarnation in the person of the legal practitioner? I maintain that it does, and that this personification is proven by the lives and conduct of a large majority of those in the ranks of our profession. Especially is this true of the Missouri Bar, to be a worthy member of which should be the pride and glory of any living man. What, in brief, then, are some of the elements that constitute the true lawyer?

I. To begin with, he must be the possessor of that something of inestimable value, comprehended by the word character. It goes without saying that he shall have mastered the science of his adopted calling, but he must possess something beyond and better and higher than this, before he is entitled to the respect and confidence which he seeks. We sometimes meet in the walks of our profession an attorney who lacking moral worth aptly illustrates the proposition for which I now contend-a man of wonderful mentality, but who holds that all the prowess and excellence of manhood begins and ends in intellect. Who laughs at what ordinary men call heart or metaphysicians denominate the emotions, scoffs at conscience, and claims that the will is the wheel and not the throttle in the human engine; who maintains that this life of ours is an expedition of conquest unimpeded by any boundary line whatever. He is an untiring student, and the leading principles of the law are as familiar to him as the letters of the alphabet. The decisions are at his fingers' ends. To this he has brought vast stores from all other fields of knowledge, until he has come to be