There is no reason why this percentage should not be 50 instead of 10. The cost of membership in the Association. is small, but its benefits are many. The close association of lawyers at the present time is more essential than ever before, and more necessary than the association of any other class, professional or lay. The committee, therefore, reports progress, of which it feels justly proud, and which it hopes will prove acceptable to the Association, and recommends its continuance with such changes in its personnel as experience has shown desirable. EVERETT SMITH, WARNICK J. KERNAN, TIMOTHY M. GRIFFING, JOHN F. BRENNAN, D. P. MOREHOUSE, JAMES A. PARSONS, MORRIS L. STRAUSS, BAYARD J. STEDMAN, Francis B. Taylor, of Hempstead: Mr. President, may I rise a moment. I deprecate the canvassing for membership. It seems to me if membership in this Bar Association, or in any Bar Association, is worth having, it is worth seeking. All of us here who are members of the American Bar Association know what canvassing for membership has done for that association. At one time it looked as if that association might have been disrupted because access was made so easy and members were elected who would not have gotten in if we had known who they were. My friend, the Chairman of this Committee, who has just made this report, says that the members of his Committee have endeavored to be a little discriminating. That is not enough, we should discriminate more than a little, a little is not enough. A canvassing for membership, a rounding up and an endeavor to get more members in this Association is not going to help us in any way. I hope that this Committee will not be encouraged to round up thousands of members. I think if the membership is worth having it is worth seeking. Samuel P. Goldman, of New York: Mr. President, may I take just half a minute to enlighten the gentleman who spoke last. I trust the members present will give me and my committeemen some credit for modesty. It is rather unusual in young men and somewhat unusual in lawyers, but we really are trying to be modest. We did not round up members and we were really discriminating. I think Mr. Victor Morawetz or Mr. Francis Bangs, if they are here, will say I was particularly careful to find out from each proposer that he knew the man and would be quite satisfied to sit next him in this body, and Mr. Victor Morawetz declined to approve the election of persons until he had some such assurance. In view of our efforts and in view of the care that the Committee on Admissions have exercised I feel that my associates are entitled to some extra credit on account of the criticism which has been made and which brings out the credit which they really deserve. Virgil K. Kellogg, of Watertown: Mr. President, I was a member appointed on this Com mittee, but was conspicuous by my inactivity, which I desire to acknowledge and confess now with all humility. I want to say to Mr. Taylor that my observation has been that the lawyers who are not members of the Association little appreciate the benefit which the Association is to all lawyers in general and to the public as well. I think that not knowing of this benefit they therefore fail to avail themselves of it and unless their attention is specially called to these benefits by some agencies within the control of the Association they will not be impelled to join us as they otherwise will if their attention is so called, and therefore the Committee is serving a very useful purpose. The President: Are you ready for the question? The motion was duly put and the resolution was adopted. The President: Report of the Committee on Amendment of the Election Law with Regard to Judicial Candidates. Ansley Wilcox, of Buffalo, read the report of the Committee, as follows: REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON AMEND MENT OF THE ELECTION LAW WITH REGARD TO JUDICIAL CANDIDATES To the New York State Bar Association: Your Special Committee on Amendment of the Election Law with regard to Judicial Candidates, which was appointed at the annual meeting in January, 1911, and continued in 1912, makes further and final report as follows: Our reports at the last two meetings of the association have given sufficient reviews and discussion of this subject, and have contained copies of the proposed bill, approved by the association unanimously on several occasions, seeking to amend the Election Law by adding a section to be known as section 346, entitled "Special provisions when candidates for judicial office are to be voted for." This section, which was subdivided into numbered paragraphs, provided for taking the names of judicial candidates off from the party columns on the official ballots and voting machines and placing them on a separate ballot, or in a separate column on the voting machines, where they would be arranged alphabetically and numbered consecutively, but not otherwise identified or designated, each candidate to be voted for individually. The object of the measure was to remove judicial candidates after their nomination from the region of active political influences, and to place them in a position where they must be voted for individually and on their own merits, and where they would not be swept into office or defeated by an overwhelming party majority, one way or the other, thus tending to free them from political obligations, and to insure the selection, and indeed in directly to promote the nomination, of the most fit candidates. Our measure has received the very hearty endorsement of the lawyers and judges of the State and of the public generally, and has only been opposed by certain politicians wedded to the old political system of nominating and electing judges. However, these influences have been sufficient to prevent its passage by the Legislature, in spite of repeated urgings by your committee. The committee was preparing for another report urging further action in favor of our bill, and an active campaign at the legislative session of 1914, with hope of better success. At the extraordinary session of the last Legislature in December, 1913, there was passed as Chapter 821 “An Act to amend the Election Law, generally," which appears to abolish the party column arrangement of the official ballot entirely, and to substitute for this a form of ballot in which the names of candidates are grouped under the title of their offices, identified by the names of the party nominating them and by the emblem of that party, but the candidates have to be voted for individually. This has now became the law of the State. Under these circumstances our bill of last year would no longer be appropriate, in the form then used; and while the change which has been made in the form of the ballot and the method of voting for candidates does not accomplish quite all that we aimed at, in the way of freeing judicial candidates from political associations, yet it goes so far in that direction that we think it best to recommend an abandonment of any effort to pass a special bill governing the method of voting for judicial candidates, for the present. It is best to wait at least |