Our a debt of gratitude which no words can express. toilsome way has been constantly cheered and lightened by his delightful companionship and his never-failing assistance. The Bar of the State owes him an enduring debt of gratitude for his noble part in upholding the ideal standards of our profession, and for his self-sacrificing assiduity in striving to keep our Court of last resort worthy of its great name. The people of the State owe him a debt of gratitude not merely for upholding our dignity and prestige in the administration of justice, but in responding to the call of duty without regard to financial reward. To his everlasting credit be it remembered that when he received the call to the Court of Appeals, he counted not the cost, but responded as patriotically as in the sixties when he donned the uniform of a patriot soldier. (Applause.) His judicial career has come to a close by the mandate of the Constitution. His has been a life of sacrifice and toil, but not of cheerless drudgery. It has been a labor of love quickened by a keen delight in serving the cause of justice. With the swelter of modern existence, and its false ideas of the value of wealth and so-called luxury he has had little concern. In an age when there seems to be an unreasoning and futile haste in the pursuit of passing phantoms, our Spartan comrade has quietly followed the path of duty. With each succeeding year of his long judicial career he has taken up his unselfish labor in the calm assurance that in serving his fellow men he was serving the Lord of the Universe. Happiness may escape the searcher for wealth, but it cannot elude our brother whose well-spent years have brought him to the scriptural goal of threescore and ten with the richness of his faculties undimned and his soul unseared. Let us, therefore, not indulge in vain regret over his enforced retirement in the fullness of his powers, but rather rejoice that he has survived the ordeal unscathed in body and spirit. With the wisdom of the constitutional mandate which ends a great judicial career we have no quarrel. The Constitution may unmake Judges, but it cannot unmake men. As our brother passes from the judicial chamber to re-enter the guild hall of his chosen profession we greet him with the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes: "At sixty-two life has begun; At seventy-three begin once more; At ninety-five, Should'st thou arrive, Still wait on God and work and thrive." The President: (Applause.) I have a telegram from Governor Glynn, which reads: To the Members of the State Bar Association: Gentlemen, the taskmaster, from which none of us escapes work that must be done, has chained me to my desk this evening. Instead of the pleasant hours I had anticipated with the State Bar Association, I find myself condemned to a night at hard labor, and I lack even the hope of a reduction of sentence for good behavior. My disappointment at this enforced absence from your dinner is the greater because I earnestly desired to explain to the members of this body what I conceive to be the present needs of New York. The Legislature has just placed upon the Statute books two laws for which public-spirited men of all political persuasions have long been striving. New York has adopted a thorough-going direct primary system, and an effective Workmen's Compensation Act. The benefits arising from this new legislation may be increased or retarded according to the degree of encourage ment these laws receive from those who are leaders of public thought. Government has done its utmost when it supplies the means whereby the governed may lift themselves to higher things. The actual uplift must come from those who are the beneficiaries of good laws. No body of men can do more to make good legislation effective than the members of the legal profession. The public looks to its lawyers to pass upon the merits of new laws. And if a lawyer is convinced that a law is calculated to improve the condition of the body politic, few are in a position to contradict him. The history of American political progress is a history of benefits conferred on the nation by men of your profession. The Declaration of Independence was drafted by a lawyer. The Constitution was the result of legal acumen and patriotism. Most of our Presidents have been men of legal training, and there are few pages of the Nation's story on which men of law have not left an indelible mark. It is, therefore, because I realize how great an influence the State Bar Association can wield in making legislation effective, that I appeal to you to advance what the Governor and the Legislature have begun in the way of direct primaries and workmen's compensation. Point Give to those laws the attention they deserve. out to those who consult you how they may best take advantage of this new legislation. Help me to throw a strong, clear light on the conditions which these laws seek to remedy. And if you become convinced that there is any way in which the Direct Primary or Workmen's Compensation Act may be made fairer or more effective, I shall welcome your criticism and your advice. I can assure the gentlemen of the State Bar Association that the presence of a strong conservative patriotic organization, such as your body has ever been, is the source of much comfort to an Executive entrusted with great duties and great responsibilities. To know that there is ever at hand a united and efficient organization which can be depended upon to stand firmly for what is just and legal, and against what is unjust and revolutionary, is to feel that the Governor has an ally alike incorruptible and strong. New York has reason to congratulate itself, as I congratulate it, on the possession of a Bar Association which has proved its dignity, its sanity, and its patriotism in a hundred political and economic arenas. The President: MARTIN H. GLYNN. (Applause.) I can assure the Governor that the members of this State Bar Association appreciate the estimate which he makes of us and which is not an exaggerated estimate. (Applause.) I can assure him, moreover, that if he makes mistakes, so long as they be not mistakes of the heart, the Bar Association will be charitable and kindly and gentle, and I can also assure him that whenever he makes real achievement he can have the support of the State Bar Association without regard to party. (Applause.) When I received this telegram I was so disappointed I had a notion to call on Governor Hedges to respond to the State, then I thought after a moment perhaps Hedges would rather speak for himself as he can do a little later, so I went down among the brethren here in front of me to draft somebody to speak in the place of the Governor, and it was the hardest work I have had to do in a long time. I succeeded in drafting Harry St. George Tucker, of Virginia, and our friend John Proctor Clarke, and I am going to call first on Mr. Justice Clarke to say a few words. Mr. Justice Clarke: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, I am quite in sympathy with the sentiment expressed by the late Chief Judge in his memorable speech at Carnegie Hall last evening in protesting against unwarranted attacks upon personal liberty. (Laughter.) But a few moments ago I was sitting at a round table upon the floor, enjoying my constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness in unrestrained liberty, amidst a group of congenial friends, with an unused ticket for a bottle of champagne under my hand, when, with ruthless tyranny, like unto that exhibited prior to the French revolution in haling subjects to the Bastille, or even now when people are thrown into the great prison of St. Peter and St. Paul in Russia, your President dragged me into this position. But I cannot feel other than gratified at having the opportunity of expressing the views of the Appellate Division of the First Department of Chief Judge Cullen. When I was last in this hall a year ago, before the County Bar Association, and was called upon to make a speech, I said that I would not give my opinion of the Court of Appeals, although I had one. (Laughter.) I venture upon that delicate subject to-night. The Lord loveth whom he chasteneth, but the opinion of the chastened is not so prominently displayed. Our opinion, upon the whole, is, that the Court of Appeals is often right. (Laughter.) And if we had the opportunity we could often make them oftener right. (Laughter.) The Chief Judge has embodied in the minds of the lawyers and Judges of the State the highest standard of personal and judicial merit, and we will long miss that leonine figure, that splendid courage, that sound common sense, and that noble honesty which he has given to the State for these now thirty-three years. (Applause.) The great Court has suffered the loss of a majority of its |