PROCEEDINGS

-OF THE

TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING

-OF THE

Maryland State Bar Association

-HELD AT

Hotel Traymore, Atlantic City, N. J.

JUNE 29, 30, JULY 1, 1922.

MORNING SESSION - JUNE 29, 1922

The first session of the 27th annual meeting of the Maryland State Bar Association was called to order at ten o'clock by President Sylvan Hayes Lauchheimer.

THE PRESIDENT: Ladies and gentlemen: It gives me great pleasure to bid you welcome to this 27th annual meeting of the Maryland State Bar Association. The Secretary and Treasurer have prepared a very elaborate, instructive and entertaining program which merits, and will, I am sure, receive your commendation.

The Secretary and Treasurer are strict constructionists and believe in upholding the Federal Constitution. They have viewed with slight favor the recent amendments to that instrument and hope that it will be left free from further attack. They think, however, that it might be wise to amend the Constitution of this Association, especially in one respect. This Constitution requires the President to make an annual address and they think that perhaps that might be eliminated, or, at least, honored in the breach, rather than in the observance. They have refused to take any responsibility for that portion of the program which includes the President's address and have cast that responsibility upon him.

Whatever may be my own personal preference I am constrained to follow the Constitution and in strict compliance with its mandate I am compelled to deliver this address.

THE LAWYER'S DUTY

Address by PRESIDENT SYLVAN HAYES LAUCHHEIMER

I have called this paper "The Lawyer's Duty" because it involves a discussion of problems, which, although affecting the entire public, will require for their solution the thoughtful consideration and constant endeavors of the lawyer. It is upon the lawyer that the burden rests for their proper determination, though he must have the co-operation of all good citizens.

These problems, though old, are perennially fresh.

The Increasing Power of the Government

I might well have called this paper "A Warning," because the increasing power of the Government necessarily connotes the decline of personal liberty.

The reason given for much recent legislation is the common good. The intention being that social legislation, designed to change human nature, to make over and bring about the glorious day, should be kept in the foreground, and that where it conflicts with individual rights, the individual must yield.

I have said the problem is old, because there has always been some limitation upon personal liberty, as without it, civilization would have been impossible, but the limitations themselves have so changed that, at the present time, the presumption seems to be against the right of individual liberty and in favor of social activities.

Hippotamus of Miletus in the fifth century, B. C. said, "There were but three subjects of legal proceedings, viz: Insult, Injury and Homicide."

Justinian sought to reduce the whole law to three precepts: "To live honorably, not to injure another, and to give to each his own."

"To

Lord Bacon limits the true purposes of the law: secure us in property, to secure us in life and to secure up in our reputation.

Jefferson said, "That Government is best which governs less."

Macaulay, "The primary end of Government is the protection of the persons and property of men.

Lord Melbourne, "The whole duty of Government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts."

These observations indicate the views held as to the duties of Government, up to and including a part of the Nineteenth Century. Then the rights of the citizen were considered to be superior to those of the Government and within certain limitations, the individual was permitted to follow his own purposes.

The late Judge Cullen (former Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of New York) thus laments: "In those days liberty was deemed to be the right of the citizen to act and live as he thought best so long as his conduct did not invade a like right on the part of others. Today, according to the notions of many, if nct mest people, liberty is the right of part of the people to compel the other part to do what the first part thinks the latter ought to do for its own benefit.

Although many are rebellious and decline to acquiesce in the present trend and still insist on their individual rights, recent tendencies would indicate that they are in the minority or else it would appear that well organized minorities are in control of the Executive and Legislative portions of the Government, and thus able to enforce their views.

Have you ever considered what limitations are placed upon your conduct from the moment you arise in the morning until you retire at night? These limitations have been so felicitously described by Professor Wambaugh that I quote:

"To get an every-day basis for discussing the scope of government, let us assume that statutes recently in force are in force still, and let us then view rapidly the experiences of an imaginary Bostonian during a day differing in no respect from ordinary days-in short an average daily record of an average man.

"He begins the day by bathing in water supplied by the public through an elaborate system of public pumps and reservoirs and pipes, and his use of water is guarded by public regulations as minute as those contained in a carefully drawn contract. After use, the water escapes throught

the citizen's own plumbing system; but this private plumbing system has been constructed in accordance with public regulations, is subject to inspection by public officials, and empties into sewers constructed and managed by the public. After dressing himself in clothing of which every item is probably the subject of a national tariff intended to affect production or price, our Bostonian goes to his breakfast table, and finds there not only table linen, china, glass, knives, forks, and spoons, each of them a subject of the same national protection, but also food, of which almost every item has been actually or potentially inspected, or otherwise regulated, by the national or state or municipal government. The meat has been subject to inspection. The bread has been made by the baker in loaves of a certain stautory weight. The butter, if it happens to be oleomargarine, has been packed and stamped as statutes require. The milk has been furnished by a milkman whose dairy is officially inspected and whose milk must reach a certain statutory standard. The chocolate has been bought in cakes stamped in the statutory manner. The remnants of the breakfast will be carried away by public garbage carts; and the public will also care for the ashes of the coal that cooked the meal.

"Nor do this average Bostonian and his family escape from public control upon rising from the table. The children are by law compelled to go to school; and, though there is an option to attend a private school, the city gratuitously furnishes a school and school books. As for the father himself, when he reaches his door he finds that public servants are girdling his trees with burlaps and searching his premises for traces of the gypsy moth. Without stopping to reflect that he has not been asked to permit these public servants to go upon his property, he steps out upon a sidewalk constructed in accordance with public requirements, crosses a street paved and watered and swept by the public, and