two million strong, into France and accomplished its grand mission in eighteen months time without mistakes, nor can one man no matter how absolute his authority, be held humanly responsible for all the mistakes of subordinates where precedent and experience were lacking as well as the time required to issue the necessary instructions for guidance of subordinates before the mistakes actually did occur. No one who had even scanty opportunity to observe the high purpose, excellent judgment, and the indomitable energy which the Commander-in-Chief gave to all of his work and duties, or to realize even in small measure the earnest, well considered and never ending efforts of the whole staff to raise the efficiency of the A. E. F. to the highest possible standard can fail to give due credit for a remarkable accomplishment or to reach the conclusion that he must be well prepared to prove his point who undertakes to criticize in the face of such accomplishment.

The Secretary: I am sure that this audience, composed of our own members, also of many distinguished visitors, wishes to express, by a rising vote, its great appreciation of this very clear, definite, helpful and intelligent address which Colonel Kelton has just made, and I therefore make the motion that such a vote be now given.

The motion was duly seconded and on the question being put it was decided unanimously in the affirmative by a rising vote.

Then on motion duly seconded the Association adjourned until Saturday, June 28, 1919, at 10 o'clock A. M.

MORNING SESSION.

Pursuant to adjournment the Maryland State Bar Association reassembled Saturday, June 28, 1919, at ten o'clock A. M., the President in the chair.

The President: Ladies and Gentlemen. A few months ago there started in this country a very vigorous discussion of the administration of military justice. I might say that General Ansell was the starter, I was going to say of the trouble, but I won't call it that.

It fell to Colonel John H. Wigmore, Author and Dean of Northwestern University Law School to, I may say, represent General Crowder's side of the question, and I hope I will not offend Colonel Morgan, who is Professor of Law at Yale University, if I say that he was General Ansell's understudy. I am rather inclined to think also that Colonel Morgan was putting General Ansell up to a good deal that he was doing.

These two gentlemen have very kindly consented to come here, at great inconvenience to themselves, in order to talk to us on the subject of "Military Justice."

I am going to now state the rules of the game. · Colonel Wigmore will open and Colonel Morgan will follow and Colonel Wigmore will be allowed a few minutes in reply and then each will be open for any questions that the members of the Assocition may desire to ask them.

I now have the pleasure of introducing to you Colonel John H. Wigmore, Author, and Dean of the Northwestern University Law School.

Colonel Wigmore: Mr. President and Members and Guests of the Maryland State Bar Association. I wish first to express to you my appreciation of the distinguished privilege of the opportunity of presenting my thoughts before you today. I do not feel that I am sufficiently apt for such an important purpose. I must acknowledge at the outset that I perfectly understand that I have none of the accomplishments of the orator to entertain you or uplift you. I wish to confine myself to the matter of fact role of stating in a plain way some plain facts and simple views. I presume that the professional lawyer ought to be able to stir and uplift. What are the qualities that most round cut every accomplished lawyer is of course a matter of much opportunity for difference of opinion. I was at a meeting of the Illinois State Bar Association at Decatur, and my attention was attracted by an announcement at the end of the program offering a prize of $25 for the best definition of a successful Illinois lawyer. I thought that prize was at least worth trying for with a few minutes' thought, but I found it was not so easy to define the successful lawyer as I thought it was before I tried my hand at it.

My definition did not obtain the prize and I have naturally forgotten the definition that did. My definition ran some

thing like this: The successful Illinois lawyer is one who possesses a comfortable living, a quiet conscience, an enviable reputation and who has no enemies except those who hate him for the injustices that he has prevented.

There is nothing in that definition about public service, about being a reformer, about taking any part in the improvement of the law and so on. I felt that the normal occupation of a lawyer gave him a sufficiently full scope for his best qualities in the doing of justice between man and man without necessarily becoming a public servant in any aspect.

I was, however, led to see the other side of that in coming on the train from Chicago to New York with a distinguished professor of American history. He talked about all kinds of things in the smoking room. He has been and still is a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention and he was one of the committee who had in charge at the end of the first session of the convention the matter of arranging and restating the results of the eighteen amendments which the convention had adopted. He sat in that committee with the Chief Justice, I think, of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court, they call it, two former Attorneys General, and so on. I think he was the only member of that committee who was not a lawyer.

He sat there in a reminiscent mood in the smoking room and said: When I came out of the final meeting of that committee I had made up my mind about three truths which

I had not appreciated before. One truth he mentioned to me was this: He said, Lawyers, I now know have professionally no interest in the improvement of the law.

That is a very pessimistic view of it, but you see how he had reached that conclusion. Of course, I took the defensive and argued with him about it and explained that he ought to recollect that the lawyer's, necessarily I think, point of view is the defense or maintenance of things as they are. In great contrast stands the medical profession. The medical profession naturally must look out for every new fact and method and every new way of curing and preventing disease more quickly and consequently in the medical profession naturally everything is scrapped that is old as soon as you can get hold of something newer. That becomes the attitude of the medical profession. There is not a medical book twenty-five years old that is worth anything.

The intellectual attitude of the professional lawyer must be to hold on to what is settled and not to wade in and try every new experiment. I urged this distinguished professor of American history to make that allowance for the professional point of view of the lawyer.

At the same time something must be done for leadership in the constant improvement of the law. Something that will furnish a personnel that will have the duty and perfectly natural function to take a large and abstract view of the entire condition of the law of the State or of the Nation and whose business it will be to inspect it just