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 PRESENTED BY"/ 
 
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Harvard Law School Association 
 
 REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING 
 
 At Cambridge, June 28, 1904 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION 
 
 1904 
 
GUIL 
 
 AitfVioi* 
 20 D '04 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FAOB 
 
 ' Portrait of Dean James Barr Ames, from the Painting 
 
 7 BY Wilton Lockwood, Esq Frontispiece 
 
 ) Officers of the Celebration of June 28, 1904 .... v 
 Presentation of Portraits at the Law School: 
 
 Portrait of Professor James B. Thayer, from the paint- 
 ing BY Wilton Lockwood, Esq. 
 
 James Byrne's Address 3 
 
 Henry W. Hardon's Address 5 
 
 James F. Curtis's Address 8 
 
 Professor John C. Gray's Address 9 
 
 Exercises in Sanders Theatre : 
 
 Hon. William H. Taft's Oration 15 
 
 The Dinner in the Harvard Union: 
 
 Chief Justice Fuller's Address 65 
 
 Hon. William H. Taft's Address 66 
 
 President Charles W. Eliot's Address 68 
 
 Dean James Barr Ames's Address 70 
 
 Chief Justice Marcus P. Knowlton^s Address 73 
 
 Hon. Richard OIney's Address 75 
 
 Baron Kentaro Kaneko's Address 82 
 
 Hon. John D. Long's Address 87 
 
 Justice Francis J. Swayze's Address 94 
 
 William Rand, Jr.'s Address 99 
 
 Blewett Lee's Address 103 
 
 Constitution op the Harvard Law School Association . 107 
 
 Officers of the Harvard Law School Association . . 113 
 
OFFICERS 
 
 CELEBRATION OF JUNE 28, 1904 
 
 Committee of Srransementct. 
 
 Joseph H. Choate, LL. B., 1854, President. 
 Joseph B. Warner, LL. B., 1873. 
 Henry W. Putnam, LL. B., 1872. 
 WiNTHROP H. Wade, LL. B., 1884. 
 Charles B. Barnes, Jr., LL. B., 1893. 
 Edmund K. Arnold, LL. B., 1898. 
 Robert L. Raymond, LL. B., 1898. 
 
 Francis C. Lowell, 1879. 
 
 Henry W. Swift, LL.B., 1874. 
 Louis D. Brandeis, LL.B., 1878. 
 RocKWOOD Hoar, LL.B., 1879. 
 William D. Sohier, 1879. 
 David T. Marvel, 1879. 
 Charles R. Saunders, LL. B., 1888. 
 Robert D. Weston-Smith, 1888. 
 Ezra R. Thayer, LL. B., 1891. 
 Arthur D, Hill, LL.B., 1894. 
 Lawrence M. Stockton, LL. B., 1894. 
 Jeremiah Smith, Jr., LL.B., 1895. 
 EuoT Tuckerman, LL. B., 1897. 
 Roland Gray, LL.B., 1898. 
 J. Lewis Stackpole, LL.B., 1898. 
 Robert Walcott, LL. B., 1899. 
 John Noble, Jr. 
 
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAITS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 LAW SCHOOL 
 
^.IV^.-sa-tH. Si. Be, 
 
 K-(^u>-2/^ 
 
PEESEKTATIOK OF POETRAITS 
 
 JAMES BYRNE, ESQ. 
 
 Mk. Chairmak, Me. Gray, Graduates Amy Stu- 
 dents OF THE Law School : On behalf of men 
 who have studied under him, I present to the Law 
 School this portrait of Professor Thayer (drawing 
 aside the covering from the portrait of Professor 
 Thayer which hung on the wall). 
 
 It is a fitting honor to one who has served the 
 School, that from her walls his pictured countenance 
 should look down on the scenes of his work; and to 
 those for whom the work has been done it is pleasing 
 to think that through this portrait their gratitude and 
 affection may help to keep alive in the traditions of 
 the School the memory of an eminent jurist, a great 
 teacher, and a man of singular personal charm. 
 
 I welcome the opportunity to speak of the debt that 
 his pupils owe him, and to pay tribute for them to his 
 many noble qualities ; but I can only say once again 
 what every one who has spoken or written about him 
 since his death has said, and what hundreds of times 
 while he was ahve men have said to me and I have said 
 to them. For we all thought the same about Professor 
 Thayer, — it was not possible to misunderstand him ; 
 he was not profound in his work to-day and superfi- 
 cial to-morrow; he was not kind to this man and cold 
 to that; years did not change him; and so those who 
 knew him as I did a quarter of a century ago, in the 
 
4 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 intimate way that a scholar of this School knew the 
 teachers, and afterwards saw him only at rare inter- 
 vals, and those who will be graduated to-morrow and 
 were under him during his last months, and those who 
 were his colleagues during the long term of his ser- 
 vice here, all of us at all times saw the same qualities 
 of mind and heart as clear and distinct as to-day we 
 see his face in this portrait. To the lips of all of us 
 when we speak of him the same words arise, — depth 
 of research and learning, infinite pains and patience, 
 accuracy, sincerity, high ideals, perfect courtesy, and 
 kindness of heart. 
 
 He taught us methods of study; to get out of a 
 case, as one of his colleagues has said, " Everything 
 that was in it, and nothing that was not in it." He 
 gave us also a body of principles and facts, the result 
 of his own application of his own methods, which we 
 rightly accepted as truths that did not need reexam- 
 ination. I do not think that any earnest man ever left 
 the lecture-room of Professor Thayer without carry- 
 ing with him in his notes some sentence around which, 
 then and years after, crystallized knowledge that with- 
 out it would have been formless and useless. 
 
 His portrait will recall not only the lawyer and 
 author and man, but a great era in the history of the 
 Law School. At the close of his life, as he looked 
 over his career in the Law School, the retrospect must 
 have been a pleasant one. About him were three of 
 the men who had been his colleagues for nearly a gen- 
 eration ; they together from the beginning had done 
 work as teachers in this School not surpassed by any 
 work done by any body of men that I have ever met. 
 About him, too, were newer colleagues, bound to him 
 
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAITS 5 
 
 also by ties of esteem and affection. The administra- 
 tion of the University and of the Law School that he 
 joined as a young man was still in power. IS^ew sys- 
 tems of study that he had seen introduced into the 
 College and the Law School amid doubt and distrust 
 had been gradually adopted by the leading colleges 
 and schools of the country. He had seen the Law 
 School keep pace with the College in its marvellous 
 expansion in reputation and in numbers. Twenty-five 
 years ago, in the class-room, he had said to us one day 
 that the best gift a lawyer could make to his profes- 
 sion was a book upon which had been spent all the 
 time and labor and thought needed to make it as good 
 a book as the author could possibly write. He had 
 lived to write such a book. For himself, his col- 
 leagues, his College, and his University, all things 
 had gone well ; he had seen their reputation and influ- 
 ence increase from year to year, and success had 
 come from nothing weak or mean, but from pure pur- 
 poses and high aims. 
 
 Professor Thayer was at work in the Law School 
 until the day before his death. The noble soul, Dante 
 says, is like a good mariner, for when he draws near 
 the port he lowers his sail and enters softly and with 
 gentle steerage. More fortunate, it seems to me, the 
 mariner who sails in such quiet waters and with such 
 favoring breezes that he can keep his sails unfurled 
 until the anchor is ready to be dropped. 
 
 HENRY W. HARDON, ESQ. 
 
 Me. Chairman: If I may be indulged for a few 
 moments, I should like to add a foot-note to the address 
 
6 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 which Mr. Byrne has just made, an address to which 
 it is clear that we all respond earnestly. 
 
 Some fifteen years ago, Professor Thayer per- 
 formed a piece of work by no means unimportant, for 
 which, so far as I know, he has not yet received pub- 
 lic credit ; and this would seem to be the proper occa- 
 sion on which to mention it. 
 
 In 1889, the Territory of Dakota was about to be 
 admitted to the Union as two States. Mr. Henry 
 Yillard was at that time Chairman of the Finance 
 Committee of the Il^orthern Pacific Eailway, the most 
 important corporation operating in that Territory. He 
 was sincerely desirous that the two new States should 
 start right, that they should have the best constitution 
 which could be framed for them, and with that pur- 
 pose in mind he consulted Mr. Charles C. Beaman, 
 then one of the leaders of the New York Bar. Mr. 
 Beaman advised him that if he could get Professor 
 Thayer to draft a constitution for the new States, 
 they would have the benefit of all that expert know- 
 ledge and sound judgment could accomphsh in that 
 respect. Professor Thayer undertook the task. His 
 draft-constitution was submitted to the two conven- 
 tions, and was in large part adopted by them. The 
 legislative article in the Constitution of IS'orth Dakota, 
 for example, is substantially word for word the lan- 
 guage of Professor Thayer's draft. 
 
 It rarely happens to a teacher or to a lawyer to 
 accomplish a piece of constructive work of this kind, 
 a piece of work affecting so widely the interests of so 
 large a community, affecting them not merely for the 
 present but for the future. 
 
 You may think it singular that the authorship of a 
 
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAITS 7 
 
 work of this importance should wait until this time 
 for public disclosure. The fact is, that it seemed pru- 
 dent when the work was doing to conceal its author- 
 ship. Though Mr. Yillard was moved only by a 
 single-hearted desire to promote the welfare of the 
 two new States, it was feared that a draft-constitution 
 prepared by an Eastern college professor, under the 
 direction of a Wall Street lawyer and at the instance 
 of the head of the largest corporation in the Territory^ 
 might fail of adoption if its authorship were known; 
 that the people whom it was designed to benefit might 
 entertain a suspicion that a constitution so prepared, 
 however fair upon its face, concealed some sinister 
 attack upon their property rights. The two consti- 
 tutions have now been in force some fifteen years. 
 Their merits have been proved in that time. But two 
 amendments have been made to the ^N^orth Dakota 
 Constitution, and one of these incorporates a clause 
 from Professor Thayer's draft omitted by the consti- 
 tutional convention. The principal actors in this 
 scheme to help the people of the Dakotas are now all 
 dead, and I am the only survivor of the two young 
 men who were engaged in the preliminary work under 
 Professor Thayer's direction. The occasion for con- 
 cealment of the origin of these constitutions has now 
 passed, and the facts I have narrated should not be 
 lost for lack of a record. 
 
 Professor Thayer's case-books, as we all know, we 
 who have studied them, are among the best. His 
 " Preliminary Treatise on Evidence " has given him 
 fame wherever the common law is known and studied. 
 The draft-constitution which he made is an epitome 
 of the learning on that subject. But I still feel, as 
 
8 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 Mr. Byrne has said, that the great influence that Pro- 
 fessor Thayer has exercised is the influence of the 
 teacher in this School, that in the class-room he so 
 combined his fine qualities both of mind and heart that 
 we may justly say of him in the words of Schiller : — 
 
 " Wer den Besten seiner Zeit genug gethan 
 Der hat gelebt fuer alle Zeiten." 
 
 JAMES F. CURTIS, ESQ. 
 
 Me. Chaikma]^ and Graduates of the Harvard 
 Law School : A little over a year ago some members 
 of the graduating class of the Harvard Law School 
 thought that it would be a gratifying and fitting tribute 
 to the labors and the character of Dean Ames if they 
 had a portrait of him painted and hung in the Library. 
 They communicated their plan to their Class and then 
 to the other classes. It was received with tremendous 
 enthusiasm. A committee was immediately formed to 
 collect the necessary funds, and to have the portrait 
 painted and the scheme put through. It is for that 
 committee that I speak. 
 
 We set to work secretly, very secretly, for we all 
 felt that had Dean Ames any idea that such a plan 
 was on foot, he would have suppressed it at once. Our 
 feeling was well justified, for even after we had got 
 the plan thoroughly put into commission, as it were, 
 the Dean did his best to get out of it. He tried hard 
 to squelch us, and modestly but resolutely refused 
 to have anything to do with us. However, we per- 
 suaded his colleagues that it was a proper thing to do, 
 and he submitted to their judgment. 
 
 That, Gentlemen, is the history of how this portrait 
 
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAITS 9 
 
 came to be painted. Why we wanted it, I need not 
 tell this audience. You all know how he has given his 
 life for over thirty years to the sole interests of this 
 School; you all know how he has succeeded; you all 
 know his character and lovable personality. But those 
 of you who graduated before 1895 cannot know how 
 we younger graduates value our knowledge of him not 
 only as Professor, but in that more intimate capacity 
 of Dean and personal adviser. 
 
 Gentlemen, on behalf of last year's undergraduate 
 body I take pleasure in presenting to the Corpora- 
 tion of Harvard, to be hung in its School of Law, this 
 portrait of its present Dean (uncovering the por- 
 trait). I trust it may hang somewhere near the portrait 
 of his immediate predecessor. ^N^othing, I thmk, could 
 be more fitting. The one revolutionized the theory of 
 teaching law, and established a magnificent system; 
 the other has nobly carried forward that work, and 
 has built up an institution admittedly without a peer 
 in the English-speaking world. A keen and forceful 
 thinker and writer, a sympathetic and inspiring teacher 
 and friend, and above all, an ideal Harvard gentleman 
 — James Barr Ames. 
 
 PROFESSOR JOHN C. GRAY. 
 
 Mr. Chairman aotd Brethren of the Associa- 
 tion : It has fallen to me to accept these portraits on 
 behalf of the Faculty and of the Corporation. They 
 are accepted with gratitude, and are added with much 
 satisfaction to the goodly company of portraitures of 
 those whom the University in its various departments 
 delights to honor. 
 
10 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 We all owe much to the University; to some, as to 
 the subjects of these pictures, it has been given to pay 
 that debt a hundred-fold. 
 
 Of the Dean, the fact that he is still with us pre- 
 cludes us from speaking out our minds and hearts. 
 Criticism has often to be silent over the dead, so 
 eulogy must often be silent in the presence of the Hv- 
 ing. We must not jar upon his taste or offend his 
 modesty. If I were speaking to strangers, I should, 
 notwithstanding, be tempted to say what is in my 
 mind ; but to you — you will speak that eulogy in 
 your own hearts. 
 
 Yet I may, without offence, say what he stands for 
 to the School ; he stands, me judice, as the philoso- 
 pher in the law, — I do not say as the scholar in the 
 law, for that has a smack of dilettanteism, and nothing 
 is more abhorrent to his nature than dilettanteism, — 
 but as the philosopher in the law. It is the intellectual 
 and moral sides of the common law that appeal to 
 him ; he pities Socrates and Plato, that they had it not 
 to talk over in the groves of the Academy ; he deems 
 it a fit theme for the high discourse of the cherubim. 
 We all of us are fond of the common law, but perhaps 
 with a greater or less dash of skepticism; to him, 
 common law and equity are twins altogether lovely, 
 
 " Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute." 
 
 He believes in them, he loves them, and faith and love 
 are great powers, they have been great powers with 
 him. Yet there is a rival in his thoughts and affec- 
 tions, there is something that he cares for even more 
 than for the doctrine of unjust enrichment or the 
 
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAITS 11 
 
 specialty character of negotiable paper, and that is the 
 Harvard Law School. May he long live to care for 
 it, and to bless it with his benign rule. 
 
 In speaking of Professor Thayer, who, alas, is no 
 longer here, there is no obstacle to giving expres- 
 sion to our full feeling, and to saying that no one in 
 the line of teachers in the School has ever deserved 
 and won more honor and more affection than he. 
 
 This is not the place for an elaborate statement of 
 Professor Thayer's work as a teacher and writer, but 
 I may be pardoned if I try to say in a word what 
 seems to me its most striking characteristic. Mr. 
 Thayer's mind moved slowly, but when he knew a 
 subject, he knew it thoroughly; he knew it as one 
 knows his friends or his children, in a very live and 
 real way, and in its broad relations, and he imparted 
 this sense of life and reality to his hearers and readers. 
 
 Many of you could give personal experiences of 
 what you have gained from him. One I have had, of 
 a very special character, and that must be my excuse 
 for mentioning it. Before Mr. Thayer came to the 
 School, I gave, in one or two years, as an outside lec- 
 turer, a course on Evidence. I fear that will seem to 
 many of you as if I were making myself out a pre- 
 historic man, but it is the fact. Sir James Stephen's 
 "Indian Evidence Act" had then just come out. 
 I studied it with enthusiasm, and made it the basis 
 of my lectures. When, on Mr. Thayer's death, I 
 again took up the subject of Evidence, I knew, in a 
 general way, that Mr. Thayer was not a follower of 
 Stephen and, as an ardent Stephenite, I was quite 
 prepared to disagree with Mr. Thayer's views. I was, 
 in short, in a critical frame of mind. But I found my- 
 
12 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 self coming to Thayer's conclusions, one by one ; he 
 conquered me. (I may say that I think the difference 
 between Mr. Thayer and Judge Stephen was mainly 
 one of words, and on that question Mr. Thayer was 
 in the right.) 
 
 But Mr. Thayer was not only a wise and learned 
 lawyer, he was the most lovable of men. 
 
 There is an old saying, "Manners maketh man;'* 
 and I have often thought that Mr. Thayer had the 
 best maimers of any man I have ever known. There 
 was in him a simple dignity, a genuine cordiality, a 
 thinking of others, a lack of self-consciousness, which 
 made him the most delightful of friends. He would 
 have been at his ease if sitting at table between the 
 Pope of Rome and the Czar of all the Russias, and 
 he was equally at his ease in talking with the shyest 
 of young men, without condescension and without 
 strained familiarity. 
 
 He was the best type of a Kew Englander, without 
 the creaking of the joints that sometimes marks and 
 mars that estimable personage. It has been said that 
 the difference between a good Bostonian and a good 
 Philadelphian is that the Bostonian thinks everything 
 wrong that is not right, and the Philadelphian thinks 
 everything right that is not wrong. In this matter, 
 Mr. Thayer was of the Philadelphian school. A large, 
 tolerant, kindly nature, too busy in his work for 
 others to worry himself with the pettinesses and mis- 
 eries of introspection. 
 
 Not to have been influenced for good by the exam- 
 ple of such a man would show a strange incapacity 
 to discern what is noble in human nature. In honoring 
 his memory, we honor ourselves. 
 
ORATION IN SANDERS THEATRE 
 
ORATION ra SANDERS THEATRE 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT, LL. D., 
 
 Secretary of War 
 
 THE UNITED STATES IN THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 At twelve o'clock noon, Chief Justice Fuller called 
 the meeting to order and said : — 
 
 Coming to us after signal success at the bar and on 
 the bench, crowned with the honors of a thoughtful, 
 wise, and humane government of a distant people, the 
 Association extends a hearty welcome and an appre- 
 ciative acknowledgment to the distinguished son of a 
 sister University, whom it is my pleasant duty to pre- 
 sent as the Orator to-day, the Hon. William H. Taft, 
 Secretary of War. (Applause.) 
 
 Me. Chief Justice and Gentlemen of the 
 Harvard Law School Association : It is an honor 
 which I greatly appreciate, to be asked to address 
 your Association. You are the alumni of the greatest 
 law school in the world. It may be that there are law 
 schools having a larger list of students, but there is 
 no school within my knowledge, in which the study 
 of the law has evoked from students properly pre- 
 pared by academic education the enthusiasm which 
 we find in yours. The study of the profession of 
 
16 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 medicine has generally awakened in the graduates of 
 academic institutions — even in those who have dis- 
 played no particular interest in their collegiate studies 
 — greater enthusiasm and greater apphcation than 
 that of any other profession. But this advantage in 
 favor of the study of medicine is not maintained when 
 comparison is made with the study of law at Harvard. 
 The case system of study which was introduced under 
 the guidance of Professor Langdell, and which has 
 been improved and developed under Dean Ames and 
 his able associates, aroused an interest and a spirit of 
 investigation and a search for truth in the study of 
 the Anglo-Saxon law not known before. I speak with 
 some confidence on this subject because I was associ- 
 ated in an humble way with the reorganization of a 
 law school in which the Harvard method was followed, 
 and because in the experience of a decade upon the 
 bench I was able, in the many graduates of the Har- 
 vard Law School before me as advocates, to trace the 
 excellence of the preparation which they had received 
 for their life-work under the guidance of Langdell 
 and Thayer and Gray and Smith and Ames and all of 
 their associates. Under the auspices of the Harvard 
 Law School, the modem tendency of an academic edu- 
 cation to produce the nil admirari and pessimistic 
 spirit which dwarfs all energy and paralyzes the dis- 
 position to be useful in the world finds no encourage- 
 ment, and the enthusiasm aroused, while it does not 
 permit bhnd servility to unreasonable precedent or 
 authority, stimulates interest in the practical problems 
 of life, strengthens the motive for doing things, and 
 nerves those who diligently pursue the study to con- 
 stant practical effort for success. The system of study 
 
HON. WILLIAM H, TAFT'S ORATION 17 
 
 thus inaugurated and continued for now nearly thirty- 
 five years has had a profound influence upon the legal 
 educational methods of the country, upon its mode of 
 judicial investigation and decision, and so upon its 
 jurisprudence. 
 
 Invited to address the alumni of an institution of 
 legal learning like this, I hope that I do not bring 
 to their attention a subject lacking in interest if I 
 attempt, during the time which is allotted to me, to 
 speak of the United States in the Phihppines. I have 
 thought that this subject might present some interest- 
 ing questions of mixed law and politics. The study 
 of the law on its public side necessarily involves ques- 
 tions which are for the politician or statesman, and 
 no matter how anxious a lawyer may be to avoid poli- 
 tics or participation in it, he finds that his training 
 and his methods of thought inevitably lead him into a 
 constant weighing of the reasons for or against state 
 policies, and that a thorough preparation in the law 
 is perhaps the best foundation for sound political 
 views or a successful pohtical career. 
 
 "Wlien news that the protocol had been signed and 
 hostilities had ceased between Spain and the United 
 States reached the Philippines in August, 1898, 
 Dewey's fleet controlled the bay and Merritt's soldiers 
 were in possession of the city of Manila, which was 
 the key of the islands. The question of what should 
 be done with the Philippines was left by the terms of 
 the protocol an open one, to be determined in the final 
 treaty of peace between the two nations. In Decem- 
 ber, 1898, the treaty of peace was signed. By one 
 of its terms and in consideration of $20,000,000, the 
 sovereignty and ownership of the Philippine Islands 
 
18 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 were transferred by Spain to the United States. On 
 April 11, 1899, it was ratified by exactly a two-thirds 
 vote of the Senate. 
 
 In the light of the facts as we know them now, could 
 any other course have been taken by the United States? 
 Could we have given the islands back to Spain? 
 With our consent and indeed at our instance and with 
 arms furnished by us, Aguinaldo had raised an army 
 which assisted us in investing Manila and in its cap- 
 ture, and which, during the suspension of hostilities, 
 had gone on driving the Spaniards out of their interior 
 posts. We were, in a sense, allies of Aguinaldo and 
 his followers, united for the purpose of driving Spain 
 out of the Philippines : they, to avoid further oppres- 
 sion by Spain, we, to cripple our enemy by taking what 
 he had. It was our destruction of the fleet in Manila 
 Bay that broke the power and prestige of Spain in the 
 islands, and on this Aguinaldo builded in his subse- 
 quent conquests of other points in the Archipelago ; 
 but for more than five months our action was joint. 
 To desert him as an ally, to restore to Spain Manila, 
 which was the key of the islands, and thus to enable 
 Spain to drive him back into the interior and finally 
 disperse his forces, would have been violating an obli- 
 gation which the circumstances of our joint action 
 created, and would doubtless have subjected the islands 
 to another and a bloody war. It is true that we might 
 have secured immunity for Aguinaldo and his followers 
 from Spain, and stipulations as to a better future gov- 
 ernment; but in their fight against Spanish maladmin- 
 istration, they had carried on one revolution without 
 securing reforms; and promises of Spain to that end 
 seemed " writ in water." 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 19 
 
 Second, could we have taken the islands from Spain 
 and then have turned them over to Aguinaldo and his 
 government ? Were we under obHgation to do so ? 
 Aguinaldo claimed that Dewey agreed on behalf of 
 the United States that we would acquiesce in the inde- 
 pendence of the islands, and that Pratt, consul at 
 Singapore, and Wildman, consul at Hongkong, did 
 the same thing. IS^either Admiral Dewey, nor Pratt, 
 nor Wildman had any authority to make such an agree- 
 ment. More than this. Admiral Dewey, Consul Pratt, 
 and Consul Wildman denied that any such statement 
 or promises had been made, and now, in the third place, 
 a document has come to light, signed by Mabini as 
 Aguinaldo's secretary of state, containing secret in- 
 structions to two envoys in respect to negotiations 
 with General Otis, in which occurs the statement that 
 the United States and Aguinaldo had made no agree- 
 ment, but had merely united with a common purpose 
 to drive Spain out of the islands. Aguinaldo knew 
 that it was for the government at Washington to de- 
 cide what was to be done with the islands. He was 
 so advised by General Anderson, and although General 
 Anderson expressed doubt as to America's holding the 
 islands contrary to a former policy of having no colo- 
 nies, he made no promise or guaranty and left the 
 matter to higher authority. A fair review of the evi- 
 dence shows that Aguinaldo was not misled, and that 
 the refusal of the United States to turn over the islands 
 was not the act of perfidy and treachery which certain 
 of our fellow citizens at one time seemed delighted to 
 call it. This view is corroborated by the signed pro- 
 ceedings of the Junta at Hongkong, to which Agui- 
 naldo was a party, in which the policy was agreed 
 
20 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 to, that Aguinaldo should go with Dewey, should per- 
 suade him to furnish him arms with which to drive 
 out the Spaniards, and then, if the Americans did not 
 leave and surrender the islands, that the arms obtained 
 from the Americans should be used to drive them out 
 of the islands too. This does not show Aguinaldo to 
 have been led on by promises of independence into a 
 course which he would not have taken but for the 
 promises. It shows that he anticipated the reluctance 
 and refusal of the Americans to abandon the islands to 
 him, and foresaw as possible the conflict which ensued. 
 But it may be asked, how can there be impUed an 
 obligation to our allies to withhold the islands from 
 Spain without extending the imphcation so as to 
 require us to give up the islands to the FiHpinos? 
 Where, in other words, is the ground for the line of 
 distinction, if in fact it was known to the Americans, 
 as it seems to have been, that Aguinaldo wished inde- 
 pendence ? The purpose of the jomt action was to 
 drive Spain out of the islands. Neither party was 
 justified in treating with Spain separately so that Spain 
 should remain in the islands to the prejudice of the 
 other ; but with Spain driven out and the joint object of 
 the alliance accomplished, the disposition of the islands 
 afterwards was a matter for subsequent settlement. 
 IN^ow I agree that the traditions of American policy 
 justified one in anticipating that the United States, if 
 she could do so with honor, would decline to govern 
 the islands as a dependency, and she doubtless would 
 have done so, had it been a possible solution. But if 
 the fact was, that she could not abandon the islands 
 to her ally without subjecting the islands to a much 
 worse fate than by turning them over to Spain, the 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 21 
 
 fact that Aguinaldo counted on her policy in the past 
 of avoiding the government of such dependencies 
 imposed no duty on her to satisfy his expectation. 
 Could she have safely turned the islands over to 
 Aguinaldo? They have a population of 7,000,000 
 Christian Filipinos, 300,000 Moros living in South 
 Mindanao and the islands of the Sulu Sea, and 
 300,000 of the wild tribes. The Christian Filipinos 
 are divided into six or eight civiHzed tribes speakmg 
 different languages. For 333 years they have been 
 under the tutelage of the Spanish friars, and they have 
 become devotedly attached to the Catholic Church. 
 Comparatively few of them are educated. ]^ot more 
 than 7 per cent, speak Spanish, and the good speaking 
 of Spanish is there a test of education. From ninety 
 to ninety-three per cent, are ignorant and uneducated. 
 The 600,000 of the Moros and wild tribes in the 
 islands, the friars were always miable to convert. 
 These included the Moros, who are Mohammedans, 
 the Igorrotes, who live in the mountains of north- 
 ern Luzon, the ISTegritos, who are the aborigines of 
 the islands and the lowest form of humanity in them, 
 found in the mountains of nearly all the islands, and 
 the Bagobos and other mountain tribes of Mindanao 
 that seem to have an Indonesian origin. I cannot too 
 strongly emphasize the fact that these wild tribes, in- 
 cludmg even the Moros, do not represent one tenth of 
 the population, and should not discourage us in the 
 development of the Christian Filipinos as a people 
 toward a higher level of civilization. The presence of 
 the Moros and the wild tribes in the islands, however, 
 in such considerable numbers, materially varies the 
 problem to be solved, increases the diflaculties of the 
 
22 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 present government, and constitutes one of the serious 
 objections to turning the islands over to the Christian 
 Filipinos in the near future, because it requires that 
 the latter should not only be capable of self-govern- 
 ment, but also capable of governing with kindness and 
 wisdom other peoples who are of savage and semi- 
 barbarous types. The 90 per cent, of the Christian 
 Filipinos who do not speak Spanish are really Chris- 
 tians. They are capable of education, and they have 
 no caste or arbitrary customs which prevent their de- 
 velopment along the hues of Christian civilization. 
 They are merely in a state of Christian pupilage. They 
 are imitative. They are glad to be educated, glad to 
 study some language other than their own, and glad 
 to follow European and American ideals. They differ 
 utterly in these respects from the East Indians, from 
 the Malays of Java, and the Malays of the Straits 
 Settlements, and thus make our problem different from 
 and vastly easier than that of England and Holland. 
 They have aspirations for self-government; they have 
 aspirations for independence; and they have at times 
 laid down their lives in defence of what they believe 
 to be the interest of their race and their nation. They 
 are not a boisterous or turbulent people. If not aroused, 
 they are gentle and kindly. Like all Orientals, they 
 are a suspicious people, but when their confidence is 
 won, they follow with a trust that is complete. In war- 
 fare, when their angry passions have full vent, they 
 are cruel, and they execute orders of a supposed supe- 
 rior to commit homicide with a stoicism and indiffer- 
 ence that we of the Western World can hardly under- 
 stand. Ignorant as they are, they are very easily moved 
 by men of their own race who speak their language 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 23 
 
 and have an influence among them by reason of wealth 
 or education. It is the great weakness of this people 
 that first one leader and then another may command 
 their support, and that factions may be created and 
 anarchy brought about by the conflicting ambitions of 
 the unscrupulous educated poHticians among them. 
 The educated are divided into those who are wealthy 
 and conservative, and those who are young, ambitious, 
 violent, and willing to resort to extremes. Among the 
 conservative type, one finds men of culture, honor, hon- 
 esty, and most reasonable views on every subject; but 
 such conservative members of society are generally 
 timid before the violent declarations of the educated 
 " fire-eater," whose words of enthusiasm and excite- 
 ment can easily bring to his aid all the taos and men 
 of lowly class who come within his influence. In other 
 words, the people of the islands are such that in their 
 present state, without the restraining command of a 
 beneficent foreign power, the islands would be in a 
 constant state of agitation to gratify the ambition now 
 of one leader and then of another; anarchy would be 
 certain to ensue, and society would be almost in a state 
 of dissolution. To be sure, there might be the solution 
 of the absolute despot, of strength and ability enough 
 to command the whole Archipelago, but certainly the 
 man has not shown himself yet in Filipino society. 
 
 For some eight months Aguinaldo maintained a 
 government in ten or more of the provinces. It was 
 simply that of the military dictator. Under the guise 
 of the election of local officials, subject to the con- 
 sent of the central authority, he appointed all the offi- 
 cers of all the provinces and of all the municipalities. 
 Under the guise of a representative constitutional 
 
24 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCLA.TION 
 
 assembly which should frame the constitution, he 
 appointed all but an insignificant number of the mem- 
 bers of that body, received from their hands the con- 
 stitution which has awakened such admiration in some 
 parts of America, and then consigned the instrument 
 to use for foreign and diplomatic purposes only. It 
 never was put in force, its guaranties were never 
 enjoyed by the people, and, so far as a practical foun- 
 dation for government was concerned, it was but 
 waste paper. The result of the government was op- 
 pression, arbitrary action, and disturbance greater 
 than ever occurred in the times of Spain. I do not 
 mean to do injustice to Aguinaldo. I know him. He 
 has been at my house a number of times, and I have 
 been at his. I have talked with him on such subjects 
 as he was willing to discuss. I offered to appoint him 
 on the commission to visit this country, but he de- 
 clined. Since his release, he has been living quietly 
 in Manila, and has conducted himself with dignity 
 and propriety. He is a native of the town of Cavite 
 Yiejo in the Province of Cavite, a primary school- 
 teacher under the Spanish regime, engaged in teach- 
 ing Tagalog. He was poorly educated, and speaks 
 Spanish haltingly. He displayed great bravery in the 
 revolution of 1896, at the head of volunteers in attack- 
 ing a Spanish force sent to subdue him. He was the 
 first Filipino leader who won a victory for the insur- 
 gents, and this made him a hero and surrounded his 
 name with a halo. He continued resistance to Spanish 
 authority until, in what was called the treaty of Biac- 
 na-bato, he and his immediate followers agreed to with- 
 draw from the islands for $400,000 and to expatriate 
 themselves, on the condition, as they asserted, though it 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 26 
 
 did not appear in the written memorandum, that Spain 
 would institute reforms in the government of the 
 islands. The money was paid and Aguinaldo with- 
 drew, but before he sailed for Europe, whither he was 
 going, our war with Spain began and he was induced 
 to return to the islands to take part. Dewey gave him 
 the necessary arms, and he soon set the insurrection 
 of 1898 on foot. Aguinaldo had elements of leader- 
 ship in that he summoned about him, when authority 
 grew in his hands, the able and the educated of his 
 people to aid him. He did not profess knowledge, 
 and he saved himself from the envy of his colleagues 
 and co-agitators by confessing his defects of learn- 
 ing, and leaning on better-educated men. His closest 
 adviser and friend was Apolinario Mabini, educated as 
 a lawyer, of considerable reading in political matters, a 
 fluent writer and speaker, and one whose hopeless con- 
 dition as a paralytic appealed to his people. Mabini 
 was credited with being the brains of Aguinaldo, and 
 certainly he exercised a powerful influence over his 
 course. The Katipunan Society, which was a secret 
 political organization, embracing at one time in its his- 
 tory quite a number of leading Filipinos and a great 
 majority of the lower classes, was organized for polit- 
 ical purposes to bring about independence, and there 
 seems to be no doubt that it was sometimes used as an 
 instrument of assassination by those who had control of 
 it. The founder of it was Andres Bonifacio, who, be- 
 coming jealous of Aguinaldo's power, himself revolted, 
 was tried by court-martial, was pardoned by Aguinaldo, 
 and subsequently was killed in the mountains of Ca- 
 vite, probably by Aguinaldo's order. Antonio Luna, 
 who v/as far and away the ablest military leader of the 
 
26 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 insurgents, was entrapped into a visit to Aguinaldo's 
 headquarters and a quarrel with the guard, who shot 
 him. The persons in this country who have idealized 
 Aguinaldo have indignantly repelled the charges that 
 Aguinaldo compassed these two deaths, but one must 
 say that the moral evidence is very strong against him. 
 He admitted to General Funston that he had caused 
 Luna's death, because, he said, Luna was engaged in a 
 conspiracy against him. Mabini, his closest friend, and 
 the man who was most familiar with all that he did 
 and his whole policy, charges him, in a book written 
 within a few months of Mabini's death, with having 
 caused the assassination of both Bonifacio and Luna. 
 Mabini's book is written in a judicial style, and betrays 
 no evidence of bitterness of feeling against Aguinaldo 
 which would prompt him to a false statement of the 
 facts. Aguinaldo has not seen fit publicly to deny 
 either accusation. 
 
 A perusal of the so-called " diary " of Aguinaldo, 
 which is really a diary of his physician, written while 
 he was in hiding in Luzon from the American troops, 
 reveals no statesmanlike views of government, no 
 anticipation of a betterment of the people, but only 
 the childish hope of a maintenance of the pomp of 
 the ruler and the enjoyment of the luxury which the 
 wealth of the state would afford him, and the pleasure 
 of distributing largesse from the coffers of the state 
 to his immediate friends. I do not wish to traduce 
 Aguinaldo, or to show that he is a murderer, in our 
 sense, because I do not so regard him. What he did 
 he doubtless thought to be justified by political exi- 
 gency and self-defence. But I deem it important to 
 bring out the facts in order to show the character of 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 27 
 
 government that he was establishing, that its comer- 
 stone was violence and bloodshed; and that under 
 such a government there was no hope of civil hberty. 
 
 To sum up, then, it is clear that the corruption and 
 abuses of Aguinaldo's government and the certainty 
 of anarchy that would follow, due to the peculiar 
 conditions I have just described, would have made 
 it an act of folly on the part of the American people, 
 strongly to be condemned, to abandon the islands. It is 
 worthy of note that when Aguinaldo signified his in- 
 tention of resisting the Americans, the most conserva- 
 tive of his supporters left him. Indeed, his Congress 
 at Malolos at one time unanimously passed a vote that 
 they would accept the sovereignty of America, but this 
 was defeated by Luna and the army, probably with 
 the secret aid of Aguinaldo. In other words, it was 
 the violent, the ambitious, those thirsting for military 
 glory, that defeated the purpose of the wiser and more 
 conservative leaders of opinions. 
 
 If, then, the government could not be turned over to 
 Aguinaldo and his followers, the only other course was 
 that America should accept the sovereignty over the 
 islands, and conduct a government there for the bene- 
 fit of the Filipino people. The Supreme Court of the 
 United States has held that the transfer of the sover- 
 eignty by the Treaty of Paris from Spain to the United 
 States was a legal transfer, and that the United States 
 was the lawful sovereign in the Archipelago after the 
 Treaty of Peace was signed. Its authority was re- 
 sisted, and now the question arose, what was its duty. 
 I conceive that its duty was exactly that of any gov- 
 ernment in which a very considerable part of the 
 people, subject to its control, desire to withdraw from 
 
28 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 its sovereignty, and set up a government of their own. 
 Wliat are the principles which should govern the con- 
 sideration of such a demand ? It is said that the De- 
 claration of Independence, in the phrase that all just 
 rights of government must depend upon the consent of 
 the governed, requires that we should take steps imme- 
 diately to allow those who would withdraw to govern 
 themselves as they would. I do not think that the in- 
 strument can bear such a construction. The language 
 used must always have the implied qualification or lim- 
 itation that those who are governed and whose consent 
 is necessary to their just government must be persons 
 capable of so governing themselves that the tendency 
 of their government will make for the benefit of the 
 whole people whom they seek to withdraw, and not 
 for the demoralization of the people, and disorder and 
 anarchy. It is to be observed that imder the govern- 
 ment of any people, a part of the people, in some cases 
 the majority, in other cases a minority, must govern 
 the remainder, with or without the consent of that 
 remainder. In other words, if we interpret the words 
 literally, the consent of the governed as the basis for a 
 just government is a wholly theoretical ideal, because 
 it postulates an impossible unanimity on the part of all 
 the people. For practical purposes, then, in popular 
 government the rights of the government will depend 
 on the consent of the majority, and the majority there- 
 fore becomes responsible for the government of the 
 minority. When, then, the question is presented to a 
 free government like ours, whether any considerable 
 part of the community ought to be allowed to separate 
 itself, or whether any people which by the law of na- 
 tions comes under our control ought to be permitted 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 29 
 
 to govern itself by the majority, the country, by a for- 
 mula taken from the Declaration of Independence, 
 cannot rid itself of the responsibility to the helpless 
 minority of looking into the character of the majority 
 which is to carry on the proposed new government, 
 and its capacity for securing to the minority justice 
 and protection. This responsibility becomes all the 
 greater when instead of being asked to turn over the 
 government to a majority of those to be governed, it 
 is in fact asked to turn the government over to a small 
 minority made up of a cabal of violent miUtary men 
 maintaining their power by an army and terrorism and 
 assassination. It has been suggested that we must treat 
 the Filipino people as a whole, and that whatever man- 
 ifests itself as government among them, we must re- 
 spect, whether it is that of the dictator or the majority, 
 and must assume that that government which is, has 
 the consent of the governed. But this is a fiction 
 and should not be made the basis for action. Then it 
 is said that any government, however bad, evolved 
 from the people governed, is and must be better than 
 a government of them guided and maintained by an- 
 other people. The difficulty about this statement is 
 that it is untrue. There are many cases where one 
 people is better governed by another and an alien 
 people than by itself. Look at Egypt under England, 
 or Algiers under France, for example. 
 
 Again, there are too many precedents in our own 
 history of our governing peoples without their consent 
 imder justifiable circumstances to yield to the claim 
 that the assumption of the sovereignty over the Phil- 
 ippines is an unprecedented departure from our coun- 
 try's fundamental traditions. We took Louisiana 
 
30 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 from !N^apoleon, and for a number of years we exercised 
 a government over the people of that country against 
 their will and protest by means of a commission. 
 Since 1867 we have exercised the same kind of a 
 government over the territory of Alaska. Since the 
 treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 we have exer- 
 cised complete control oyer 'New Mexico and Arizona 
 without consulting the inhabitants, although we pro- 
 mised to make them States. In the War of the Rebel- 
 lion we coerced eleven States, which had declared in 
 the most emphatic way their desire to govern them- 
 selves, and brought them back into the Union to be 
 governed by a union government. Even if their fathers 
 had consented, by coming under the Constitution, to 
 such a government, they were not themselves bound 
 by their fathers' consent, unless the principle of the 
 consent of the governed be amplified so as to make it 
 apply not only to the governed but to all their descend- 
 ants. As applied even at the time it was signed, the 
 Declaration had to have, in order to be consistently 
 read, many parentheses and qualifications. Many of 
 those who signed it were slaveholders. All came from 
 States where property qualifications were necessary 
 for those who exercised political control. The exercise 
 of political control involves a responsibility that needs 
 some education and experience to meet it, and the 
 principle of the Declaration of Independence cannot 
 apply except to those people who have such a sense 
 of responsibility. 
 
 Political science is not an exact science, and political 
 principles and maxims are not to be construed and 
 interpreted as one interprets a mathematical proposi- 
 tion. The general ground for popular self-govern- 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 31 
 
 ment is that political experience has shown that the 
 best government of a fairly intelligent people is a pop- 
 ular government, a representative government, m 
 which every one who is affected by the law, and every 
 class which is affected by the law, shall have an op- 
 portunity to be heard before the question of the law 
 shall be settled. In other words, it is certain that, in 
 the long run, no one is as Kkely to look after one's in- 
 terest as well as the person whose interest is involved ; 
 but this too is subject to the qualification that the per- 
 son whose interest is involved shall have sense enough 
 and intelligence enough to know what his interest is, 
 and shall not be in a state of wardship or pupilage. 
 
 ]N^ow it will be said that the instances where in the 
 past we have governed other people were cases of 
 temporary government over territories that were likely 
 to come into the United States, and while the applica- 
 tion of the principle might be suspended for fifty or 
 one hundred years, still the prospect of its application 
 was sufficient to reconcile the conscience of the coun- 
 try ; but that in the case in hand we went into a coun- 
 try to which we had no relation, and took possession 
 by force of arms without consulting the people. I 
 have attempted to show the dilemma in which we 
 found ourselves by fortune or fate of war. IN^ot by 
 our seeking, not by any greed of territory, but by cir- 
 cumstances over which we could exercise no control, 
 we were forced into a relation with the Filipino 
 people which imposed obligations on us we could 
 not escape. Certainly the circumstances were excep- 
 tional enough to justify and require us to depart from 
 our traditional course of non-intervention in foreign 
 affairs and to do justice. It therefore became the 
 
32 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 duty of the United States to put down resistance to 
 its authority in the establishment of a government for 
 the Philippine Islands, and to give to the people of 
 those islands as good a government as it could. Be- 
 lieving, as the United States did, in popular govern- 
 ment, and that it was the best form which govern- 
 ment could take, it was the duty of the United States 
 to prepare the people for popular government. 
 
 Well, what have we done? First, we have sup- 
 pressed the insurrection. It was a long, hard struggle, 
 for which the army as a whole deserves the highest 
 credit. As the resisting power of the insurgents grew 
 less in 1900, President McKinley conceived that the 
 war might be brought to an end if with the rigor of a 
 military campaign be mingled as an object lesson the 
 peaceful methods of organizing civil government, and 
 so he sent a civil commission, which, following in the 
 wake of the army wherever it deemed conditions favor- 
 able, organized municipal and provincial governments 
 on bases so liberal in the matter of autonomy as to 
 surprise the inhabitants of the islands. The municipal 
 code gave complete autonomy to the people; that is, 
 to those eligible to vote, who constitute hardly fifteen 
 per cent, of the total population. The organization 
 of governments began after the second election of 
 McKinley. Then, too, was formed the Federal Party, 
 a party the main plank of which was peace under the 
 sovereignty of the United States, and the second plank 
 of which expressed hope that as the people developed 
 in the course of self-government, the Archipelago 
 might be received first as a Territory and then as a 
 State. The leading members of the Federal Party had 
 been Americanistas, and always sympathized with 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 33 
 
 America in its desire to establish just and well-ordered 
 government there. They now were able to unite with 
 them in every town in the islands a great majority of 
 the respectable people, the educated, wealthy people, 
 who, overcoming their fear of assassination and in- 
 timidation by the guerrillas, came together in such 
 force as to protect themselves, and joined in making 
 up municipal and provincial governments under the 
 American sovereignty which are the foundation of 
 the present general government in the islands. The 
 provincial government was not entirely autonomous : 
 it was left to the people to elect the governor ; the 
 other provincial officers were appointed. Certain of 
 them were selected under the civil service law. In 
 the central government the commission of five Amer- 
 icans was increased by three Filipinos, and a civil 
 governor was subsequently appointed, who was a 
 member of the commission but did not have the veto 
 power. That power resided in the Secretary of War. 
 All this was done under President McKinley as com- 
 mander-in-chief, and created a quasi-military gov- 
 ernment until, by an act passed in July, 1902, the 
 government which had been formed was confirmed 
 by congressional action, and its powers considerably 
 enlarged and extended. By that act, a popular assem- 
 bly will be elected in 1906, and will form one branch 
 of the law-making power of the islands. 
 
 The next thing which was done was the suppression 
 of ladronism. In order to do this, it became necessary 
 to create a force of native constabulary in each pro- 
 vince under American officers. Numbering 6500, with 
 the assistance of 3500 Philippine scouts, the constabu- 
 lary in two years after the close of the insurrection 
 
34 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 has reduced ladronism to less of a nuisance than it 
 ever has been in the history of the islands. The con- 
 stabulary has had its defects and its abuses, but on the 
 whole it has done remarkable work in policing so many 
 islands occupied by so many millions of people. The 
 army has been called on only in three or four instances. 
 The task of suppressing the ladrones has been done 
 almost wholly by FiUpinos. 
 
 The next thing which was done was to estabUsh an 
 educational system, and a thousand American teachers 
 were imported and sent over the islands to teach the 
 children, and to exercise the beneficent influence that 
 teachers as almoners of that which is most valuable 
 from the government are able to exercise among people 
 who hold education in high esteem. I observe that my 
 friend, Mr. Colquhoun, who has visited the Phihppine 
 Islands twice, — at one time when we were organizing 
 government, and ten days at another time after the 
 government had been organized a year or more, — has 
 severely criticised our importation of American teach- 
 ers. The truth is that Mr. Colquhoun derives his ex- 
 perience from Burmah, where he was governor of a 
 district. The English do not cultivate the teaching of 
 English to the native races, and they do not place edu- 
 cation as high up in the scale of important duties of 
 the government as we do here, or as we do in the 
 Philippines. He thinks it would have been greatly 
 better to have imported a few American teachers, to 
 have them taught Spanish, and then to let them teach 
 in the schools. He thinks it would have been better to 
 have made haste slowly. With deference to his opin- 
 ion, I venture to say that, had the responsibilities of 
 government fallen on him, he would have taken a very 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 35 
 
 different view. In the first place, his criticism that the 
 American teachers did not know Spanish and were not 
 able to commmiicate with the pupils has nothing in it, 
 because 95 per cent, of the pupils of the pubUc schools 
 do not know Spanish. What advantage it would have 
 been to a teacher to know Spanish when the pupils only 
 knew Tagalog, Yisayan, Ilocano, or some other native 
 dialect, it is quite difficult to see. Secondly, he as- 
 sumes that English teachers could not teach native 
 pupils Enghsh without knowing the language of the 
 pupils. This is altogether an erroneous theory, because 
 experience shows that English teachers who do not 
 know the dialect of the pupils are rather more success- 
 ful in imparting knowledge of English to the natives 
 than those who are able to communicate with them in 
 their own tongue. More than this, Mr. Colquhoun 
 utterly ignores the tremendous influence for good 
 which was wielded in our favor by American teachers 
 spread all over the islands. Even the ladrones some- 
 times welcomed the teachers. When they unfortu- 
 nately captured a teacher going over the mountains, 
 and found what his profession was, they sent him back 
 to his district and his home in a hammock. This is 
 a well-known incident in the Province of Tayabas. 
 
 There has been considerable criticism of the educa- 
 tional system in the Philippines, and I do not say that 
 the system is perfect, but I do say we are accomplish- 
 ing very substantial results. We are teaching the 
 people Enghsh, and the people desire to learn English. 
 Certain persons who have not been in the islands, or 
 who were there so short a time as to learn but little, 
 are quite contemptuous of the attempt on the part of 
 the government to teach English. There is no justi- 
 
36 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 fication for their sneers or contempt. We are now 
 teaching only about ten per cent, of the youth of the 
 islands of school age, but we are preparing a very 
 large number of Filipino teachers in Enghsh at normal 
 schools. We send one hundred Fihpino students a year 
 to study in America. From these sources we expect 
 to fill the ranks of the Filipino teachers with EngUsh- 
 speaking Filipinos, so that in less than a decade we 
 shall be able to offer to every Filipino child who will 
 study, the means of learning English and of getting 
 an elementary education, and of studying in training 
 schools when they are adapted to learn the trades. 
 The eagerness with which English is studied by the 
 Filipino finds its cause in the badge of equahty which 
 the opportunity offered constitutes. Under the Span- 
 ish regime, the study of Spanish by the masses was not 
 favored. I fear that the contempt felt for our efforts 
 to educate the Fihpinos finds its reason in a desire to 
 get rid of the islands. I agree that such a system of 
 education as that which we are preparing is probably 
 inconsistent with a short stay of the United States in 
 the islands. We cannot teach Fihpinos English in a 
 year. We can hardly teach them Enghsh in a genera- 
 tion. We can only teach them English thoroughly 
 through the children, but we must wait until the chil- 
 dren grow up and become men before the adults shall 
 speak English. Now it is absolutely essential to the 
 preparation of the people of the Philippine Islands for 
 any kind of permanent seK-government in which there 
 shall be the safety brake of a popular intelligent public 
 opinion, that the ninety per cent, of ignorant people in 
 the islands should be given a chance to receive an 
 elementary education, and it is upon this fact that I 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 37 
 
 found the judgment that if we are in the islands and 
 expect to discharge our duty to the people of the 
 islands and prepare them for self-government, we can- 
 not hope to do so short of a generation or longer. 
 
 Next in order, we have attempted to construct pub- 
 lic improvements in the islands. Indeed, it comes first 
 in order, for the first act which was passed was the 
 appropriation of one million dollars from the treasury 
 for the construction of roads, under the control of 
 the mihtary government. This money was expended 
 as economically as possible by the military governor, 
 and I doubt not has done considerable good in the 
 country. But the effect of the torrential rains upon 
 the macadamized roads in the tropics is so destructive 
 that it requires nearly as much to keep a road in repair 
 as it does for its original construction, and the dread- 
 ful agricultural depression, due to the death of nearly 
 all the cattle from rinderpest, and the consequent 
 failure of local taxes due to this depression, have 
 caused local authorities necessarily to neglect the re- 
 pairs. The commission has expended two millions, and 
 has contracted to spend two miUions more, in the con- 
 struction of port works at Manila, and about half a 
 million at Cebu and Iloilo. Mr. Colquhoun complains 
 that the money for Cebu and Iloilo has been appropri- 
 ated, but has not yet been expended. This is true. 
 We have advertised for bids, but when I left the 
 islands we had not succeeded in inducing anybody to 
 undertake the work. Since leaving the islands, I un- 
 derstand a contractor has taken the work at Cebu. It 
 must be understood, even by an active, enterprising 
 Englishman, that in a country like the Phihppines, 
 where there are not many contractors, there is very 
 
38 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 little capital, and the former unsettled conditions do 
 not attract many contractors from abroad. It is diffi- 
 cult to secure the doing of work, even if you have the 
 money and will. MilUons are now being spent in the 
 islands on roads, and if we can secure the requisite 
 legislation, I am sure that milhons more will be spent 
 in the construction of railroads. The truth is, it is 
 much more economical to construct railroads than it is 
 to construct wagon-roads, and railroads will revolu- 
 tionize business and society in the islands. 
 
 The third thing which we have done is to establish 
 a judiciary system. It was proposed that we have 
 what is called United States court, in which foreigners 
 and Americans could be heard against the natives, and 
 that the other courts should be courts for natives only. 
 We declined to take this view, and created courts in 
 which both native and American judges sit. The su- 
 preme court of three Filipino judges and four Ameri- 
 can judges will compare favorably with any supreme 
 court of the States, and the courts of first instance, 
 numbering now fifteen, in which part of the judges 
 are native and part American, covering the entire 
 Archipelago, are doing their work well, and are bring- 
 ing to the people an understanding of what the ad- 
 ministration of justice should be. I think there is no 
 one part of the government in which we may justly 
 take more pride than in the judiciary, and while its 
 organization has been surrounded with great difficulty 
 because of the necessity of interpreting all court pro- 
 ceedings and evidence from the Spanish language into 
 the English, and from the English into the Spanish, 
 and because of the necessary ignorance of the Filipino 
 judges of American procedure, and the necessary 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 39 
 
 ignorance of the American judges of the civil sub- 
 stantive law, nevertheless the obstacles seem to have 
 been overcome, and the system works much more 
 smoothly than could reasonably have been expected. 
 We have not disturbed in the slightest the substan- 
 tive law of the islands, which is embraced in civil 
 codes, the chief of which were the civil, the mortgage, 
 and the commercial codes. We have adopted a civil 
 code of procedure to take the place of the Span- 
 ish code of procedure, which was so technical as to 
 enable an acute lawyer to keep his opponent stamp- 
 ing forever in the vestibule of justice. The criminal 
 code of procedure, adopted by general order of Gen- 
 eral Otis, follows the California code. It is simple 
 and seems to be effective. The criminal code itself of 
 Spain, eUminating poHtical offences and religious of- 
 fences, is quite well adapted to the people, and no sub- 
 stantial change has been made therein. A few crimes 
 have been added to meet the exigencies of ladronism, 
 and to prevent the press from an abuse of their privi- 
 leges. But all these provisions were within the consti- 
 tutional limitations, which by virtue of the instructions 
 of Mr. McKinley to Mr. Koot, and their confirmation 
 by the Congress of the United States, extended to the 
 people of the islands all the civil rights included in 
 the Bill of Rights, except the right to bear arms and 
 the right to trial by jury. Now I have been frequently 
 asked in letters from suspicious individuals, resident 
 in and about Boston, whether it is true that all the 
 civil rights are secured to the inhabitants of the Phihp- 
 pine Islands. Indeed, since coming to Boston, I find 
 myself met with what may be called a newspaper 
 " broadside " from an anti-imperialist champion, Mr. 
 
40 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 Moorfield Storey. I regret that I did not see what is 
 said in this until late last evening, or I should have 
 attempted a fuller answer than I am now able to give 
 it. One part of the attack is a general charge that 
 facts coming from the islands are suppressed. This is 
 wholly untrue. Under the military government there 
 was, I believe, during the war a regular censorship of 
 all cable messages. After that it was reduced to an 
 examination of cable dispatches after they had been 
 sent by newspaper correspondents. But since the civil 
 authority has been supreme, the dispatches have not 
 only not been censored, but they have not been seen. 
 That is true, certainly for two years and I think longer. 
 And now the charge of suppression is renewed with 
 reference to the so-called Gardner report as to condi- 
 tions of the conduct of the war in Tayabas, Batangas, 
 and Laguna. A board of officers was convened with a 
 recorder — Colonel Gardner was furnished counsel by 
 the civil government. The Board filed a report which 
 I have never seen because it was filed while I was on 
 my way to the islands, but I understand from Colonel 
 Gardner himself that it resulted in a finding of not 
 proven. He maintained that his report was confiden- 
 tial, that he had not intended it for publication, and 
 that rather than call military officers as witnesses to 
 conversations he had had with them, he would with- 
 draw the charges founded on such statements. I be- 
 lieve that generally his native witnesses failed him 
 from timidity or other cause, though he justified him- 
 self by a number of ex parte affidavits which he did 
 not use in court, as he could not, but merely kept to 
 show, in case of an attack on him, that he had not acted 
 without warrant. On such a finding, of course, there 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 41 
 
 was no ground for action by the War Department. 
 The charge that the Superintendent of Instruction 
 warned his teachers not to write letters home for the 
 purpose of suppressing the truth in this country is 
 ludicrously incorrect. It was not to prevent their send- 
 ing letters here — it was to prevent their return to the 
 islands. The fact was, that in numbers of cases school 
 teachers would write home holding up to ridicule the 
 Filipino people, their civilization, their moraUty, or 
 their rehgion. Their letters would be published in 
 this country. If they criticised the religion of the 
 Filipinos, as they sometimes did, the letters would be 
 rightly condemned by the co-religionists of the Fili- 
 pinos in this country as improper expressions from 
 teachers of Catholic youth, and the removal of the 
 writers would be demanded. The school question is 
 a delicate question with the Catholics at any rate, 
 and as we have many Protestant teachers, we have a 
 right to insist that they shall not destroy their useful- 
 ness by publications tending to show a partisan reli- 
 gious bias. If the letter, on the other hand, held the 
 Filipinos as a people up to ridicule, as was sometimes 
 the case, the article would be copied in the American 
 papers in Manila and translated into Spanish and the 
 Fihpino dialect, and would quickly reach the neigh- 
 borhood where the writer of the letter lived, and would 
 utterly destroy his usefulness in that neighborhood 
 by rendering him unpopular and destroying the con- 
 fidence of the natives in him. It was attempted by 
 the writers of such letters to avoid responsibility for 
 them by the statement that they were confidential and 
 were not intended for publication; but the evil had 
 been done. The admonitions of Superintendent Bryan 
 
42 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 had the motive I have explained, and had not the 
 sHghtest purpose to keep the truth from the American 
 people. Indeed, one or two teachers, notably one in 
 Abra who did not hkehis assignment by Superintendent 
 AtMnson, wrote home the most bitter attacks upon the 
 educational system to one of the Boston papers. Su- 
 perintendent Atkinson was good-natured enough to 
 allow him to remain in office for two years although 
 guilty of dehberate misrepresentation, for fear it would 
 be charged that criticism was being suppressed. He 
 did it against my advice, which was that the teacher 
 be discharged. A teacher who accepts employment 
 under a plan of education and then spends much 
 time in holding the work of his superiors up to pub- 
 lic scorn is certainly not likely to be a loyal assistant 
 in carrying out the policy of his superior. 
 
 The character of the teachers in the PhiUppines has 
 been attacked on the faith of one letter received from 
 a civil officer, whose stay in the islands was sadly short 
 and in one remote province, and whose statements only 
 purported to relate to his province. This is most un- 
 just. The teachers were selected by reference to the 
 heads of American universities, and I was agreeably 
 surprised that, with the hurry that inevitably accom- 
 panied their selection, they proved on the average to 
 be such a fine set of men and women. They have done 
 great work in the islands, and while there have been 
 fools and knaves among them, the great majority have 
 done nobly, and have deserved well of their country. 
 It is too bad that the bitterness engendered by the 
 deep feeling of anti-imperialism should have led to 
 their being thus traduced. 
 
 To return again to my text, I am asked. Are the 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 43 
 
 people of the islands not still subject to the surveil- 
 lance and annoyances which they encountered under 
 the Spanish rule ? With respect to this I should hke 
 to say first, that any inhabitant of the Philippine 
 Islands is entitled to apply to court for the preserva- 
 tion of every right mentioned in the Bill of Eights, 
 save the right of trial by jury and the right to bear 
 arms, and that if he will assert his right, it will be se- 
 cured to him. 
 
 It may be that in the Province of Cavite, where 
 ladronism is so ingrained that it has been necessary 
 at times to declare martial law and to suspend the writ 
 of habeas corpus, this is not true. Everywhere else, it 
 is the fact. Now the question is asked. Are not people 
 arrested for exhibiting seditious plays ? My answer to 
 that is that they have been. In Manila, the exhibition 
 of a play in which the American flag is stamped upon 
 and spit upon, and American soldiers are represented 
 as being killed, and the American nation as over- 
 whelmed by violence, is an invitation to force and 
 violence against the government by the ignorant pop- 
 ulace, and its suppression by arrest of the instigators 
 is no violation of the Bill of Rights. 
 
 The question is asked whether a man may advocate 
 the independence of the islands by a peaceable means 
 and be free from prosecution and persecution by the 
 government. My answer is that he may. There is a 
 party, — the Kationahst Party, — a plank in whose 
 platform is the obtainmg of independence by peaceable 
 means. I do not mean to say that where a suspected 
 insurrecto, one suspected of membership in the physi- 
 cal force party, is loud in his advocacy of independence, 
 he may not by the secret service bureau of the police 
 
44 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 be subjected to surveillance, but that is an incident 
 from which even citizenship in this country is not free. 
 It suffices that he cannot be prosecuted or convicted 
 for advocating independence by peaceable means. 
 
 But it is said that the FiHpinos do not now enjoy 
 civil rights, though declared in the statute and af- 
 forded by resort to courts, because Congress could 
 take them away by repeaUng the statute, or because 
 the Commission can suspend the writ of habeas corpus 
 under certain circumstances. Even in this country, 
 the writ of habeas corpus may be suspended in times 
 of great public disturbance, and it is thought generally 
 that the supreme legislative body is best adapted to 
 exercise the necessary discretion to do so. In two 
 years, when the popular assembly is elected, then it 
 will take the vote of two houses to suspend the writ. 
 If a man may assert all civil rights in court of his own 
 motion and maintain them, I conceive that he is en- 
 joying those rights, even though they are not secured 
 by a constitutional amendment. A statute is as bind- 
 ing as the Constitution as long as it is in force. The 
 people might repeal a constitutional declaration of 
 right, but that hardly prevents the declaration from 
 being effective or useful. 
 
 Next we have attempted, as far as we could, to 
 relieve the political situation in the islands from cer- 
 tain disturbing factors, growing out of their religious 
 history. Spain took over the islands in 1564, when she 
 sent Legaspi as military commander of a fleet of five 
 ships, and five Augustinian friars, including Urdaneta, 
 to take possession of the islands. With very little 
 friction she assumed sovereignty over the whole Arch- 
 ipelago, and it is not too much to say that the islands 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 45 
 
 were brought under Spanish control and influence not 
 by force, but by the peaceful exertions of the Span- 
 ish friars of the five orders, the Dominicans, Augus- 
 tinians, Recollets, Franciscans, and Jesuits. The 
 men of these rehgious orders labored for three centu- 
 ries to make Christians of the Filipino people. They 
 taught them the arts of agriculture, and gave them 
 other instruction. Until the nineteenth century, they 
 exercised great control over the natives by reason of 
 their sincere protection of the natives' rights. Before 
 1800, they received natives into their orders, and they 
 permitted the hierarchy to be partly filled by natives. 
 During the last century, however, there grew up a 
 feeling of jealousy between the native clergy and the 
 friars, growing out of their rivalry for rectorships in 
 parishes throughout the islands. Added to this, when 
 the Suez Canal was opened, hordes of Spaniards came 
 to the islands, offices were greatly increased, taxes 
 became heavier, and the hospitality of the Filipinos, 
 so freely offered, was abused. The yoimg and edu- 
 cated Filipino began to have conceptions of liberty 
 and a better administration of government. The 
 Spanish authorities were glad to use the friars, who 
 were reactionary in their opinion, as civil instruments 
 in the detection and prosecution of such sentiments. 
 Hence it was that the government and the friars were 
 brought together in opposition to the Filipino peo- 
 ple, and a hostility was engendered which knew no 
 limit, against those priests whose predecessors, with 
 utmost self-sacrifice and loving devotion to duty, had 
 Christianized the islands and prepared their people 
 for a higher civilization. The spirit of vengeance 
 against the friars was sufficiently shown in the revolu- 
 
46 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 tion of 1898, when forty of their number were killed by 
 the people and the insurgents, and three hundred were 
 imprisoned and subjected to all sorts of indignities 
 and suffering until released by the American troops. 
 In this state of public f eeUng, it is not surprising 
 that the ownership of 400,000 of the best acres in 
 the islands by the rehgious orders caused an agrarian 
 revolt among their tenants, and the question of the col- 
 lection of their rents, their title to the land being clear, 
 became a very serious one. They did not collect any 
 rents from 1896 to 1903. Courts were then opened, 
 and the friars had the right to resort to them for col- 
 lection, not only of the rents just accruing, but also 
 for the rents from 1898. A general attempt to collect 
 such rents must have resulted in judgments. There 
 would have followed the eviction of some 60,000 peo- 
 ple at the instance of the unpopular religious orders. 
 The situation was critical. A visit to Rome for con- 
 sultation upon this question seemed wise, and it was 
 undertaken. A general basis of agreement was reached 
 with the Vatican, and after a year of negotiation in 
 the islands, a price was fixed upon the lands and the 
 contract of purchase made last December; the money 
 for the purchase price has been borrowed, and is in 
 the banks awaiting perfecting of the titles and the 
 surveys necessary for the description of the land. As 
 an accompaniment of the purchase of the lands and a 
 result much to be desired, the number of friars in the 
 islands has been reduced from something over 1000 
 in 1898 to about 246 on the first of January, 1904, 
 and of these 246, 83 are Dominicans who have re- 
 nounced any right to go into the parishes, 50 are in- 
 firm and unable to do any work, so that only about 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 47 
 
 100 are available, and many of these are engaged in 
 educational work. The intervention of the Spanish 
 friars, therefore, ceases to become important, because 
 there are not enough of them in the 900 parishes to 
 cause any considerable disturbance. This certainly 
 removes a great cause of contention and contributes 
 to the tranquillity of the islands. 
 
 When the mission from Rome returned to the Phil- 
 ippines, and the FiUpinos were advised that the Roman 
 pontiff would not formally and by contract agree to 
 withdraw the friars as a condition of the purchase of 
 the lands, Aglipay, a former Roman Catholic priest, 
 took advantage of the disappointment felt at the 
 announcement to organize a schism in the Catholic 
 Church, and to found what he calls the " Independent 
 Filipino Catholic Church." Aglipay was a priest rather 
 favored by the Spanish hierarchy. He was made the 
 Grand Yicar of the diocese of which Yigan is the 
 head, — the diocese of I^ueva Segovia, — and exercised 
 the functions of the bishop at times. When Aguinaldo 
 went to Malolos, however, and thence to Tarlac, Agli- 
 pay appeared and acted as his chief religious adviser. 
 He was called to Manila by the archbishop, and, declin- 
 ing to go, was excommunicated. Subsequently he was 
 given a guerrilla command in Ilocos Norte, and as a 
 guerrilla leader acquired a rather unenviable reputa- 
 tion. His generalissimo, Tinio, issued an order, which 
 I have seen, directing that he be seized and captured 
 wherever found, and turned over to the military 
 authorities for punishment as a bandit. However, he 
 surrendered among others, and gave over his forces 
 to the United States, and then devoted his attention 
 to church matters. His plan of organizing a new 
 
48 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 church did not take form until after the announce- 
 ment I have mentioned. The hatred of the friars 
 gave force to his movement, and he had the sympathy 
 of many wealthy and educated Filipinos, who decUned 
 to join his church and were not willing to leave the 
 Roman communion, but whose dislike for the friars 
 and the friar control aroused their opposition to the 
 apparent course of Rome in this matter. 
 
 The adherents of Aglipay came largely from the 
 poorer classes throughout the islands. The vicious 
 and the turbulent all joined his ranks ; every dema- 
 gogue and every disappointed pohtician who saw the 
 rapid spread of the new church joined it in order to 
 get the benefit of its moving strength. In this way it 
 has occurred that Aglipayanism means one thing in 
 one place and another thing in another, and that while 
 generally it may be said that the members of the 
 church are recruited from those who would join an 
 insurrection did opportunity offer, there are many re- 
 spectable followers of Aglipay, who separated from 
 the Roman Church chiefly on the basis of opposition 
 to the friars. Aglipay has created fifteen or twenty 
 bishops, and has come into conflict with the Roman 
 Church in respect to the ownership of churches and 
 conventos, and this presents the very serious question 
 which is now pending in the islands. 
 
 Under the Concordat with Spain, Spain, by reason 
 of the control of church matters which was given her, 
 assumed the obligation of the construction of churches 
 and conventos and to pay the priests a yearly stipend. 
 As we have seen already, the parish priest, who was 
 usually a friar, had absolute and complete control over 
 the people and parish where he lived. He induced the 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 49 
 
 people to contribute material and work to the con- 
 struction of the church, to the building of the parish 
 house or convento, and the laying out of the cemetery. 
 He selected his site in the most prominent place in the 
 town — usually upon the public square. The title in 
 the site was either in the municipahty or in the central 
 government of Spain as the crown land. The close 
 union of Church and State always made it imneces- 
 sary to procure a formal patent from the State to the 
 Church, and so it is that most of the churches, includ- 
 ing, it is said, the Cathedral of Manila, stand upon 
 public property. Now in towns in which a large ma- 
 jority, and there are quite a number, of the people 
 belong to the Aglipayan church, it is quite natural 
 that they should think that the church and convento 
 and cemetery belong to the municipality and so should 
 be used for the majority of the people of the munici- 
 pality. In quite a number of cases, the priest himself 
 has ceased to remain in the Roman communion, and has 
 joined the Aghpayan ranks as a priest. In that case he 
 has simply turned over the possession of the church, 
 convento, and cemetery to the municipality, and re- 
 ceived it back as a priest of the Aglipayan church at 
 the instance of the people of the municipality. 
 
 Personally I am convinced that in most cases the 
 churches, conventos, and cemeteries belong, not to 
 the people of the municipality or to the municipality, 
 but to the Roman CathoHcs of the parish ; that they 
 were given to be used by the Roman Catholics of the 
 parish for Roman Catholic worship, for the residence 
 of the Roman Cathohc priest, and for the interment 
 of Roman Catholics ; that this was a trust which re- 
 quired, if executed, that the title should be, according 
 
50 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCLA.TION 
 
 to the canon law, in the bishop of the diocese, and 
 that therefore the Roman Cathohc Church is entitled 
 to possession through its priests for the benefit of the 
 Cathohcs of the parish. But it is dilfficult to convince 
 the people of a municipality, who have constructed 
 the church and convento, who have always worshipped 
 in it, and who have always regarded it as a munici- 
 pal property, to give it up as Roman Church property. 
 The Executive has been powerless to prevent a change 
 of possession where that change of possession was 
 peaceable and effected without violence or disturbance 
 of the peace. The only recourse for the Roman Church 
 in such cases is to the courts. Both sides have avoided 
 the courts on the ground that it would be expensive 
 to go to them, and have looked to the Executive to 
 assist them. Much feeling exists over these questions 
 of property, and we find that good, conscientious Cath- 
 olics insist that it is the business of the Executive to 
 determine in advance the question of title or rightful 
 possession, and to turn the Aglipayans out. Such a 
 course would involve the Executive in all sorts of 
 difficulties, and is contrary to our principles of judi- 
 cature, in that it would be taking from the munici- 
 palities something which they were in possession of, 
 without due process of law. It is said that because 
 municipalities are merely the arm of the central gov- 
 ernment, and because, as the Executive ought to know, 
 the municipalities have no title to the property, it is 
 his business, as the Executive and superior of the 
 municipalities, to order them out of possession. But 
 the difficulty here is that under the Treaty of Paris 
 the property of the municipahty, as well as the pro- 
 perty of the religious orders, is declared to be inviolate 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 51 
 
 by the central government. And it would, therefore, 
 savor of most arbitrary action, were the governor to 
 declare the title in advance and direct the mmiicipality 
 to give up possession. In other words, the munici- 
 pality in such action is to be treated as a quasi-citizen, 
 r^nd as having property rights over which the central 
 government has no arbitrary control. It is proposed 
 now to estabhsh a special tribunal, which shall go 
 through the provinces and consider all the questions 
 arising from the churches and conventos and ceme- 
 teries, decide the same, and place the judgments in 
 the hands of the Executive and have them executed. 
 In this way a burning question, and one which is 
 likely to involve a great deal of bitterness and perhaps 
 disturb the public peace, can be disposed of, with 
 least friction and a due regard to everybody's rights. 
 
 There still remain to be settled claims for damages 
 by the Roman Catholic Church against the govern- 
 ment for the use and occupation of churches and 
 conventos and injuries done to them by the soldiers, 
 and also the settlement of certain disputes over the 
 right to control and direct priests. Archbishop Guidi 
 has signified his intention of coming to this country 
 to settle these claims, and other matters. I hope that 
 his coming will not be far distant. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, what of the future ? It has 
 been strongly urged by a large number of citizens of 
 high standing that we ought now to promise ultimate 
 independence to the FiUpinos. I beg respectfully to 
 differ from this view. The promise which it is pro- 
 posed to give is a promise which must be conditioned 
 on the fitness of the Filipinos for self-government. 
 The promise holds up to the people of the islands for 
 
62 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 constant discussion as a present issue the question, 
 Are we now fitted for self-government ? There may- 
 be some people in Manila and the islands who know 
 and are ready to say that the people are unfitted, but, 
 on the other hand, the FiHpinos are not different from 
 other people, and the great majority of them would 
 say with emphasis. We are entirely fitted for self- 
 government. The moment, therefore, that formal 
 promise is made that the Filipinos shall have independ- 
 ence when they are fitted for it, it will be accepted by 
 them as a promise of independence in the immediate 
 future. Dealing with the FiHpinos, we must speak 
 with exact truth. The truth may be unpalatable, but 
 they will accept it. But we must not mislead them. 
 Kow, if we are right in our plan that we have begun, 
 of trying to do this people good, of extending to them 
 civil liberty, of giving them an opportunity for educa- 
 tion, and of learning the art of self-government and 
 political control by exercising a part of it, then it is 
 essential that they should assist as far as possible in 
 the government, and should help it along. The move- 
 ment, in order to be a success, must needs have the 
 support of the inteUigent and conservative, but if the 
 issue as to their fitness for self-government is thrust 
 into politics, and the construction of the promise as 
 one of the immediate future follows as it certainly will, 
 then the interest in the present government, even on 
 the part of the most conservative, must wane, and the 
 plans for a gradual education of the Filipinos in self- 
 government must fail. I agree that if all one wishes 
 to do is to set a government going, to fill its offices 
 with intelHgent FiHpinos, and then to abandon the 
 islands, one may readily fix a time for the purpose, but 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 63 
 
 that is not my idea of the duty of the United States, 
 now that we are in the islands. If it is, our plan of 
 education is wholly at fault. The moment that we 
 move out of the islands, if we leave in the few years 
 proposed, the American teachers will go, and the study 
 of English, which has received such an impetus from 
 their presence, will cease to be regarded as a benefit, 
 education will fall by the wayside, and a return will 
 rapidly be made to the condition which existed under 
 Aguinaldo. The present government of the Philippine 
 Islands spends two millions of dollars annually for 
 education, which is about one fifth of the gross in- 
 come of the central government. Do you think that a 
 government under Aguinaldo would spend that amount 
 of money ? Under such a government it would be ab- 
 solutely impossible to preserve the civil rights of the 
 individual, and we should have a government of the 
 few, tempered by assassination and varied by factional 
 strife and occasional revolutions in different islands. 
 All the property of the Roman Catholic Church would 
 doubtless be confiscated for the benefit of the State 
 Church with Aglipay at its head. That, at least, is 
 what Aglipay expects. That was what the Aguinaldo 
 government did do with the property of the rehgious 
 orders. Of course, it will be said that in the agree- 
 ment of transfer all vested interests can be protected 
 by stipulations which the United States could enforce, 
 but the necessity for constant watchfulness to protect 
 against abuses by the populace and a strong party 
 spread all over the islands would be equal to the work 
 of actual government, l^ow in such a condition of 
 things, when the presence of the United States in the 
 islands is necessary to maintain order and sustain a 
 
64 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 well-ordered government, to secure civil rights to the 
 people, and to aliens with vested interests, it seems to 
 me most miwise to introduce an issue by a promise of 
 conditional independence which will wean the people 
 away from the importance of the present government 
 and invite them to a discussion of the wisdom of an 
 absolute change. If the people are fit for self-govern- 
 ment, then I agree that the declaration ought to be 
 made, and that we ought to turn the islands over. It 
 is a difference on this point that is the real difference 
 between the signers of the petition to the conventions 
 for a promise of independence and those who oppose 
 the signers. I have heard it said by people who have 
 not thought much on the subject, that they did not see 
 any great difference between the view of the signers 
 of the petition for independence and mine. The dif- 
 ference is fundamental. They are really in favor of an 
 Aguinaldo government with a gloss of declarations in 
 favor of Hberty and constitutional freedom and the Bill 
 of Rights, which, I verily believe, will never have any 
 force whatever. I am in favor of teaching the people 
 how to govern themselves, and I cannot assume that 
 such a lesson, so difficult to learn, can be taught to a 
 people, ninety per cent, of whom are grossly ignorant 
 to-day, without any political experience whatever, in 
 five years, as some of our opponents say, or in twenty 
 years, as others suggest. I regard the learning of 
 English as one of the important steps in the education 
 of these people, important in creating a solidarity 
 among the people and in enabling the people to under- 
 stand each other, important in bringing them into touch 
 with the Anglo-Saxon world where they shall drink 
 in the principles of civil liberty. My standpoint is the 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 55 
 
 benefit of the Filipino people. To state the matter 
 succinctly, we have secured to the Filipinos, by what 
 we have done, civil liberty, and we are gradually ex- 
 tending to them pohtical control. What the opponents 
 of our policy in effect and result are contending for is 
 that we should turn the islands over to a small minor- 
 ity, who will establish a government in which civil 
 liberty will be lost and political control reside with a 
 few. The standpoint of the signers of the petition 
 and others who stand with them seems to be that of 
 decently getting rid of a nasty job. I differ with them 
 first, in thinking that the discharge of the duty which 
 is imposed upon us is a bad job, or that it is going to 
 involve any such disaster as is prophesied. It is said 
 that it will implant the spirit of tyranny and absolutism 
 in this country. As long as those who exercise au- 
 thority in the Philippine Islands are responsibile to the 
 eighty millions of people in this country, the spirit of 
 absolutism is sure to be kept well in abeyance. What 
 it will develop, on the contrary, is the spirit of altruism, 
 of a desire to help a poor people who need our help, of 
 a desire to lift them up and to do it at the expense of 
 gi-eat national effort and sacrifice. :N^ow this is said 
 to be, by those who speak for the petitioners, so al- 
 truistic as to be what they would call " sentimental " 
 or "Lunar politics." I do not agree. Those who urge 
 the delivery over of the islands in a few years evi- 
 dently think it sufficient if we frame a government, 
 set it working, and let it go. In their anxiety to get 
 rid of the islands, they put themselves unconsciously 
 in the attitude of the United States senator who, in 
 expressing his earnest desire to get rid of the Phihp- 
 pines, consigned the Filipinos to Hell. Their anxiety 
 
56 HAEVAED LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 finds its reason in the fear that the American people, 
 deriving advantage from association with the Philip- 
 pine Islands of a commercial and financial character, 
 will never be willing to give up their control over the 
 islands, however fit the Fihpinos may become for self- 
 government. It is their distrust of the American peo- 
 ple that leads such men into anxiety to get rid of the 
 Filipino people before the association shall become 
 profitable. !Now I do not think that this feeling is 
 justified, because I feel sure that after the Filipino 
 people become well educated, and we have a decent 
 government there in which the Filipino people take 
 part, and the Filipino people request independence, 
 the American people will grant it to them. Much is 
 predicated by Mr. Storey on the undoubted hostility 
 of the American merchants in the islands to the Fili- 
 pinos. He says in effect that this gives no good 
 augury of what treatment of the Fifipinos may be 
 expected in the future. I have in another place at- 
 tempted to explain the peculiar circumstances which 
 produced this hostility, and have pointed out that its 
 existence was against the pecuniary interest of the 
 merchants and might be expected to cease as soon as 
 the merchant body was increased by larger invest- 
 ment of capital and the coming of merchants of more 
 capacity and experience. But under any circumstances, 
 but comparatively few Americans can ever have pe- 
 cuniary interests in the islands, and in spite of asser- 
 tion to the contrary, I am confident that the whole 
 American people will do justice. Why should we be 
 impatient to leave the islands? If we may properly 
 stay five years or twenty years to prepare the peo- 
 ple, what objection on principle can there be to our 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 57 
 
 staying until our work is thoroughly done ? If it 
 will take forty or fifty years, or longer, thoroughly to 
 prepare the people for popular government, is it not 
 wiser and better for the Filipinos to maintain the pre- 
 sent relation for that time than to allow the people to 
 go at the end of five years and fall into the habits of 
 certain so-called republics, of revolution, anarchy, and 
 all sorts of misgovernments ? I do not dwell upon a 
 danger which will arise, if we set going a government 
 that cannot maintain order and protect vested rights ; 
 but foreign intervention in such a case is most prob- 
 able. In such event, the amount of self-government 
 allowed to the Filipinos by an intervening European 
 government is not likely to strain their capacity, how- 
 ever limited. But it is said that the influence upon our 
 government of governing the Philippines for a long 
 time will be bad. I do not think that thus far it has 
 had an evil influence. If it were a spoils government 
 there, I agree it might become a stench in the nostrils 
 of every one, but as a matter of fact the government 
 has been entirely non-partisan. Without knowing the 
 politics of all the judges, and the other appointees of 
 the islands, I think it only fair to say that there are 
 about as many Democrats in the government as there 
 are Repubhoans. A civil service law, much more 
 stringent than the National Civil Service law, is en- 
 forced with fidelity, and while there is much difficulty 
 in obtaining a suitable personnel for the whole govern- 
 ment in the islands, I think we have been fairly suc- 
 cessful in getting competent agents. While the criti- 
 cism of the anti-imperialists and their attacks upon 
 the policy of the government worked great injury in 
 misleading the Fihpinos into a continuance of the war. 
 
58 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 their criticism has perhaps unwittingly been of some 
 value in upholding the standard of the government in 
 the islands, because it has put that government on trial 
 from the beginning, and has made every member of it 
 strain himself to make it worthy of approval. 
 
 What the Fihpino people need now first of all is 
 material development in the islands, and that the peo- 
 ple of the United States can secure them if the Fili- 
 pino government is given the requisite powers. It is 
 a development that under an independent government 
 would come much more slowly (if indeed it came at 
 all) than it will under the auspices of the government 
 of the United States. Capital will feel greatly more 
 secure under a government which has the guiding hand 
 and brake of the United States than it would under 
 Aguinaldo and his followers. The cost to the people 
 of getting capital into the country will be vastly re- 
 duced. The permanence of the improvements and their 
 character will be much better for the country under 
 present conditions than where the uncertainty of a 
 changing government will treble or quadruple the risk. 
 
 But it is said that many of the best Filipinos ask for 
 a declaration of policy by the United States, and de- 
 clare that the Filipinos will never be satisfied except 
 by ultimate absolute independence. And reference is 
 made to recent speeches by some of the Filipinos 
 visiting America under the auspices of the Filipino 
 government. That delegation contains men of differ- 
 ing political views. It was selected so as to give every 
 party representatives. I venture to think that even the 
 most positive Filipinos are unable to say what their 
 countrymen will desire years hence. If the present 
 view or wish of a majority of the Filipinos were deter- 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 59 
 
 minative of our duty in the premises, it would be easy 
 to settle it by a vote, but that is assuming the very 
 point in issue, to wit: whether they are at present 
 capable of wisely settling the best form of govern- 
 ment for themselves. 
 
 Our policy in the Philippines must be " The PhiHp- 
 pines for the Fihpinos." This duty we have assumed, 
 and it is the duty which we shall doubtless discharge. 
 It is fortunate that this policy is also the best pohcy 
 from a selfish standpoint, for thus we have additional 
 assurance of its being maintained. The more we de- 
 velop the islands, the more we teach the Filipinos the 
 methods of maintaining well-ordered government, the 
 more tranquillity succeeds in the islands, the better 
 the business, the greater the products, and the more 
 profitable the association with those islands in a busi- 
 ness way. If we ultimately take the Phihppines in 
 behind the tariff wall, as I hope and pray we may, and 
 give them the benefit for their pecuhar products of the 
 markets of the United States, it will have a tendency 
 to develop that whole country, of inviting the capital 
 of the United States into the islands, and of creating 
 a trade between the islands and this country which 
 cannot but be beneficial to both. ISTow, under these 
 circumstances, is it impracticable, is it wild to suppose, 
 that the people of the islands will understand the be- 
 nefit that they derive from such association with the 
 United States, and will prefer to maintain some sort 
 of bond so that they may be withm the tariff wall and 
 enjoy the markets, rather than separate themselves 
 and become independent and lose the valtiable busi- 
 ness which our guardianship of them and our obliga- 
 tion to look after them has brought to them ? 
 
60 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 Have we not given an earnest of our real desire to 
 teach them the science of self-government by provid- 
 ing that in two years after the census shall be pub- 
 lished, a popular assembly, which shall exercise equal 
 authority with the Commission in a legislative way in 
 the islands, shall be elected by popular vote? I do 
 not look for very encouraging results from the first 
 or second session of this assembly. I have no doubt 
 that in the beginning there will be in the assembly ex- 
 treme and violent partisans of immediate independence, 
 and of autonomy and a protectorate, and of a great 
 many other impracticable schemes, some of which will 
 include attempts to obstruct the government. By pro- 
 posed legislation of various kinds, members will seek 
 to accomplish purposes that are incapable of accom- 
 plishment by legislation, but I shall not be discouraged 
 at this, for that is to be expected of a people who have 
 had no legislative experience. Ultimately they will 
 reach the safe and sane conclusion that laws which are 
 to be passed are those which their experience justifies, 
 and that discussion and analysis and calm considera- 
 tion and self-restraint are all necessary for successful 
 legislative measures. It is said that we are giving them 
 this legislature too soon. I think my friend Mr. Col- 
 quhoun thinks so. For my part I think not. The peo- 
 ple desire it. It will be an imperfect but useful me- 
 dium of communicating their wishes, and it will offer 
 the most valuable school to the intelligent part of the 
 population in the science of government. It must be 
 borne in mind that it is not only the ninety per cent, 
 of ignorant Fihpinos who need to be tutored in the art 
 of self-government, but the remaining ten per cent., 
 even including the two per cent, of the cultured and 
 
HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ORATION 61 
 
 educated, are sadly in need of political education, and 
 they may find it in the popular assembly, and may 
 learn the difference between theory and practice in 
 carrying on a just government. Does it not seem 
 rather unreasonable to insist on promising the Filipi- 
 nos independence in advance even of a trial of the 
 test of their political capacity in the control of one 
 legislative chamber ? 
 
 But now, finally, the government of the Filipinos is 
 pronounced an absolutism. That has a dreadful sound. 
 But when the charge is analyzed, it is found not to 
 mean any more than that the Filipinos do not have 
 complete independence and self-government. It is 
 true they do not. They are not capable of governing 
 themselves wisely now, and America's intervention is 
 for their good. In so far as America does intervene 
 in the government, it is not Filipino government, 
 hence it is absolutism and tyranny. Does this charac- 
 terization aid the argument any, for we revert again 
 to the question whether the self-government of a 
 people, however bad, is always better than a good gov- 
 ernment of the people by another people. You may 
 call the latter alternative absolutism, if you will. I 
 prefer it to the former. In two years the Filipinos will 
 have autonomous municipal government, partly elec- 
 tive provincial government, and control by election of 
 one of the two coordinate branches of the highest 
 legislative body of the islands. This may be absolu- 
 tism, but if it is, then the word has a different meaning 
 from the one usually given it. 
 
 But I am asked how capable of self-government 
 must the people become before we give them an op- 
 portunity to be independent, if they will. Is it to be a 
 
62 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 perfect government like Plato's Republic ? If so, it 
 will never come. The government by the people of 
 the Philippine Islands, like the government by the 
 people of other countries, will always have defects. 
 The only standard which can be laid down is that the 
 common people shall be educated by elementary edu- 
 cation to understand simple principles of government, 
 and to be capable of forming an intelligent opinion, 
 which shall control their officers while in office. People 
 among whom there is an intelligent public opinion are 
 capable of self-government. That is the goal toward 
 which we ought to move in the Philippine Islands. If 
 we foUow out the programme, which I hope we may, 
 and it wins supporters as it progresses, we may reason- 
 ably count on obtaining the gratitude of the people 
 of the Philippine Islands, which President McKinley 
 spoke of in his instructions to Secretary Root, when 
 he said: — 
 
 " A high and sacred obligation rests upon the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States to give protection for 
 property and life, civil and religious freedom, and 
 wise, firm, and unselfish guidance in the paths of peace 
 and prosperity, to all the people of the Philippine 
 Islands. I charge this Commission to labor for the 
 full performance of this obligation, which concerns 
 the honor and conscience of their country, in the firm 
 hope that through their labors all the inhabitants of 
 the Philippine Islands may come to look back with 
 gratitude to the day when God gave victory to Ameri- 
 can arms at Manila, and set their land under the sov- 
 ereignty and protection of the people of the United 
 States." 
 
ADDRESSES AT THE DINNER 
 
 IN THE 
 
 HARVARD UNION 
 
ADDRESSES AT THE DINlSnER IN THE 
 HARVARD UNION 
 
 THE PRESIDENT, CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER 
 
 When the late Governor of the PhiHppines arrived at 
 Washington, as soon as I penetrated the dense thicket 
 of laurels that embowered him, he propoimded this 
 question : " How 's the docket ? " I recognized at once 
 the demonstration of his fitness for the highest judicial 
 station. It is very true that I knew my friend had 
 been a professor and Dean of a law school, had been a 
 judge of a state court, had been Solicitor-General of 
 the United States, and Judge of the Circuit Court 
 of the United States, and Governor as aforesaid, and 
 had discharged the duties of all those positions to great 
 acceptance, but I had not realized before that he felt 
 that interest in the docket which is considered a prin- 
 cipal qualification of chief justices. 
 
 Of course I make that remark with some reserva- 
 tion. I make it, as the love letters of the young man 
 by the name of Guppy were written, without prejudice. 
 But letting the future take care of itself, we now fibad 
 Mr. Secretary Taft occupying a different position 
 from any heretofore filled by him, and I think I can 
 assure him that we all have no doubt that the duties 
 of that perhaps rather novel place will be discharged 
 with the same success as those which have preceded it. 
 
 His present position brings him into close connec- 
 tion with the Chief Magistrate, and on that account I 
 
66 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 venture to ask him to allow me in giving the health of 
 the Orator of the Day to couple with it the health of 
 the Harvard boy of 1880 — the President of the United 
 States. 
 
 SECRETARY WILLIAM H. TAFT. 
 
 Mk. Chief Justice, Mr. President, axd Gen- 
 tlemen OF the Harvard Law School Associa- 
 tion: I think that I have inflicted upon you all that 
 you ought to be called upon to bear, but given the 
 honor of responding to the toast of the President of 
 the United States, and that President the third Har- 
 vard President in the history of the United States, I 
 have pleasure in responding. 
 
 Coming from Yale, I am able to report that we feel 
 very proud of the President of the United States, for 
 he has not wanted in appreciating the excellence of 
 Yale men. We have a saying among us that he went 
 through Harvard, and in spite of that remained a 
 characteristic Yale man. 
 
 But, gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be called upon to 
 respond to the toast of such a President. He differs 
 somewhat from the two Adamses who also graduated 
 here, but he does n't differ in the fact that they were 
 educated as he was in an institution which makes it 
 impossible that he should have other than the highest 
 ideals. You may differ from him in opinion, but you 
 know that the motives that prompt him are those that 
 do honor to an educated gentleman coming from sur- 
 roundings that make it impossible that he should have 
 low motives, or that he should have other than high 
 ideals. 
 
 Now, association with him leads to action. I have 
 
SECRETARY WILLIAM H. TAFT'S ADDRESS 67 
 
 not yet been obliged as a member of the Administration 
 to accompany him in his pedestrian excursions along 
 Rock Creek. I have not been obliged to go over a 
 four-barred or a five-barred fence with him upon a 
 horse. But I have followed him with great pleasure 
 in what he has desired to accomplish in politics, and 
 he has — as he must have from any one who knows him 
 intimately — my highest and most loyal admiration. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, may I add a word, to say that 
 I feel under great obligations to the Harvard Law 
 School. I intimated this morning that I was connected 
 with a school which tried to make a model of the 
 Harvard Law School, and that for three years I studied 
 law, in tr3dng to teach it oh the Harvard method, as I 
 never had studied before. I had to keep ahead of the 
 students ; I was n't able to keep more than ten cases 
 ahead of them. But the anxiety that that produced in 
 me certainly introduced me to principles of law with 
 which I am sorry to say I should n't otherwise have 
 been at all familiar. I followed in the footsteps of 
 your Professor Gray, and my head buzzes now as I 
 recollect the trial of my gray matter as I attempted to 
 understand and then teach the Rule against Perpetui- 
 ties in his third volume — I think it is the third volume. 
 
 But, gentlemen, as I say, I have inflicted too much 
 on you already. I desire to express my sincere and 
 deep gratitude for your very kindly Harvard welcome. 
 
 The President: I feel deeply honored in being the 
 medium to express our desire to hear from the hon- 
 ored Head of the University, " Prime Minister of the 
 Realm of Education," as he has been justly called. His 
 thirty-five years of patient devotion to noble ends, per- 
 
68 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 sonally " looking for nothing again," have given him 
 at last universal admiration, commendation, and affec- 
 tion. 
 
 Gentlemen, I call on President Eliot to address you. 
 
 PRESIDENT CHARLES W. ELIOT. 
 
 Mr. Chief Justice, Goverk^or Taft, Members 
 OF THE Law School Association": For me, you gen- 
 tlemen represent the most successful of the Harvard 
 professional schools — most successful, in the first 
 place, in the relation of its receipts to its actual dis- 
 bursements and its desirable expenditures ; next, in the 
 nature of its discipline and its method of instruction; 
 and lastly, in its sure serviceableness to its students 
 and to the profession. In all these essential respects 
 the Law School is the most successful of the Univer- 
 sity's professional schools. And if there be a more 
 successful school in our country or in the world for 
 any profession, I can only say that I do not know 
 where it is. The School seems to have reached the cli- 
 max of success in professional education. 
 
 Consider how sure, how unfailing, its serviceableness 
 has been to its graduates and to the profession they 
 enter. We look back on its past with the prof oundest 
 satisfaction, but we look forward to its future with 
 expectancy, and hope, and a good courage, and we see 
 before it the possibility of a still more useful career; 
 because the responsibilities of the legal profession are 
 all the time mounting among the civilized peoples, and 
 particularly in our democracy. Tremendous new prob- 
 lems are before the democracies, problems which can 
 only be dealt with safely by courts and legislatures. 
 
PRESIDENT CHARLES W. ELIOT'S ADDRESS 69 
 
 And we all know that courts and legislatures are what 
 the legal profession make them. The future responsi- 
 bilities of the legal profession in the United States will 
 be grave indeed. 
 
 Some of these new perils I may venture to allude 
 to. One is the need of a new, sound, firm defini- 
 tion of fair and unfair competition. Just there will be 
 a crucial point of conflict during the coming years. 
 We are in the face of enormous monopolistic combi- 
 nations on each side of the industrial strife, and these 
 combinations present to the legal profession, and to the 
 courts and legislatures, — whose quality is determined 
 by the legal profession, — the gravest problems. 
 
 Then, again, there is the extraordinarily increased 
 dependence of each individual in the community on 
 supplies and resources which come to the individual 
 from afar and from strangers, — the individual being 
 fed and warmed from a great distance, and given 
 water, transportation, and buildings from afar as it 
 were, — not by neighbors, but by immense combina- 
 tions of dollars on the one hand and workmen on the 
 other. The dependence of each individual citizen on 
 others is increasing every day, and every day, there- 
 fore, there is more and more need of a new supervis- 
 ing power on the part of the state. 
 
 Let me mention one other grave problem for the 
 solution of which we look ultimately to the legal pro- 
 fession : It is the provision of an adequate pubhc force 
 for the preservation of peace and order in a great, 
 widespread democracy. That is something a demo- 
 cracy has never yet procured for itself; and the need 
 of the adequate public force increases day by day and 
 year by year. It is a need not only of the urban groups. 
 
70 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 the cities and the large towns, but of the entire area 
 of our country. Under the freedom of democracy the 
 f acihties and opportunities for crime and public dis- 
 order increase and are widely diffused; but thus far 
 with this greater temptation to crime and violence has 
 not gone any increased protective power of combined 
 society. That protecting power, sure, firm, acting 
 under law, we expect the legal profession of the future 
 to provide us with. 
 
 Therefore I say that the prospect of usefulness or 
 serviceableness for the legal profession was never so 
 bright as in the democratic world of to-day. 
 
 The President: Gentlemen, the transition is easy 
 from the bishop to the dean. Sidney Smith said that 
 the difference between Scotch deans and English deans 
 Was that "Enghsh deans had no faculties." That 
 does n't apply in any sense to my friend on the left, the 
 Dean of the Law School, whose years of teaching and 
 of administration, and whose books, have placed the 
 Law School under an indebtedness that all recognize 
 and all most cordially acknowledge. 
 
 DEAN JAMES BARR AMES. 
 
 Me. Peesxden^t, GovERisroK Taft, and Gen- 
 tlemen: When, in 1895, Professor Langdell, after 
 twenty-five years of distinguished service, resigned 
 the deanship, I thought, having been associated with 
 him from the beginning as a disciple and as a colleague, 
 that I had a realizing sense of his great genius ; but I 
 did not appreciate then as I do now, after nine years 
 of experience as his successor, how solidly the new 
 
DEAN JAMES BARR AMES'S ADDRESS 71 
 
 foundations of the Law School were laid during his 
 administration. He is emeritus, but the poUcy which 
 his originality and his far-sighted sagacity inaugu- 
 rated still dominates the conduct of the School. 
 
 For this reason I have very little to report to you 
 that is new. The School, I am glad to say, grows 
 year by year more national. This year 740 graduates 
 come to us from more than 100 colleges. This great 
 success of course is your work; your success in prac- 
 tice reacts upon the School, and some of us have 
 thought, as we saw this great influx of students, that 
 it might be just as well for us if the tide of your suc- 
 cess rose a httle more slowly. 
 
 But there is one work of which perhaps you are not 
 conscious, — your influence upon other schools. Some 
 70 men, formerly students of this School, are now 
 teaching law in other schools. In the last ten years, 
 and especially in the last three or four years, schools 
 in all parts of the country, except the South, have been 
 adopting our methods, our curriculum, and our case 
 books; they are even borrowing our professors. We 
 are in the lending business as to professors, — we 
 have lent two to the King of Siam. 
 
 But, gentlemen, there is one respect in which I feel 
 bound to admit the School has not taken the position 
 which I think it ought to take, which I think it will 
 take in the immediate future. We have not done 
 much in legal authorship. I do not forget the re- 
 markable books of Professor Langdell or Professor 
 Gray and Professor Thayer and others, but those books 
 are all too few. There is a reason for this. The sys- 
 tem introduced by Professor Langdell necessitated the 
 preparation of case books, and it is almost as difficult 
 
72 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 to prepare a case book as it is to make a treatise. 
 I am very glad to say that the work of preparing case 
 books, so far as this faculty is concerned, is very 
 nearly accomplished, and we certainly ought in the 
 next ten years to publish a number of books of the 
 highest class. If we don't, it is our fault, for we have 
 opportunities for making treatises that are granted 
 to very few. We shall write books on subjects that 
 have been discussed by the brightest minds that have 
 come to the School for the last twenty-five and thirty 
 years, and if we can't profit by the discussions which 
 we have had with you, as I said before, so much the 
 worse for us. But I believe you will get books that 
 are worth having. 
 
 We shall not forget, however, in the delights of legal 
 authorship, that our first object is to train young men 
 for the effective practice of their profession. To us 
 the real distinction of the Law School is to be found 
 in the true significance of its degree. It is our purpose 
 that the degree shall represent even more in the future 
 than in the past, that its holder is a man of capacity, 
 of sound legal training, and above all a man of generous 
 ambition and high character. 
 
 The President: It is very natural on an occasion 
 like this that the contributions of the Supreme Judi- 
 cial Court of Massachusetts to jurisprudence, and the 
 great names of Shaw, Parsons, Parker, and others, 
 should recur to the mind, and particularly does the 
 thought come home to me, as Massachusetts has given 
 three of its chief justices to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, one of whom is to-day upholding the 
 highest traditions of his predecessors. 
 
CHIEF JUSTICE MARCUS P. KNOWLTON'S ADDRESS 73 
 
 We are favored by the presence as our guest of the 
 able successor, in that illustrious line, and I ask the 
 Chief Justice of Massachusetts to respond to a senti- 
 ment to the Court of which he is the honored head — 
 Chief Justice Knowlton. 
 
 CHIEF JUSTICE MARCUS P. KNOWLTON. 
 
 Me. Chief Justice ANjy Gentlemen: That I 
 may not seem to be before you under false pretences, 
 my first words shall be a confession : This is the first 
 time that I ever stood within the precincts of the Har- 
 vard Law School. I did not have the best legal educa- 
 tion before my admission to the bar. This confession, 
 although made to my captors as officers of the law, is 
 entirely voluntary, and may be used as evidence in 
 any com-t. But I would not have you follow the ex- 
 ample of too zealous detectives, and extend the con- 
 fession beyond its true meaning, for, like the learned 
 Secretary of War, I am a graduate of Yale in the 
 department of Liberal Arts ; and as he has borne her 
 banner to distant parts of the world, so have I borne 
 it here, even under the walls of Harvard, without hu- 
 miliation or regret. 
 
 But speaking very seriously, I think that the lawyer 
 who did not include in his legal education a course in 
 the Harvard Law School, or in one of the best of its im- 
 itators, suffered a great loss. He lost an opportunity 
 of traming and cultivating his faculties at a time when 
 he was capable of rapid intellectual growth ; he lost the 
 stimulus of companionship with others of quick minds 
 who were impatient and eager to come to a mastery 
 of legal principles; he lost the instruction and guid- 
 
74 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 ance of learned professors whose experience had 
 taught them how to lead their students by the shortest 
 and safest path to the goal of their early ambition. 
 
 If I may be permitted to speak for the courts of 
 Massachusetts, I commend in the strongest terms the 
 work of the able young graduates of the Harvard 
 Law School, who sometimes argue before us impor- 
 tant questions of law during the first year after their 
 graduation. Their briefs and oral arguments often 
 exemplify the best methods of old practitioners. With 
 the better training of law students the court recog- 
 nizes a distinct advance in the preparation and pre- 
 sentation of legal arguments within the last quarter of 
 a century. 
 
 But intellectual progress does not include every- 
 thing. In this materialistic age there are tendencies 
 toward commercialism in our profession, which if not 
 checked will surely lead to its degradation. In this 
 School young men are taught that, while valuable ser- 
 vice has its proper compensation, the practice of law 
 is something nobler and higher than a mere means of 
 acquiring wealth or gaining a livehhood. They are 
 told that it is the application of rules and principles 
 which lie at the foundation of social order and indi- 
 vidual happiness, and which touch at every point the 
 highest interests of mankind. With such teaching, 
 deeply impressed on susceptible minds, we may hope 
 that the law as a profession will never cease to be held 
 in honor. 
 
 The teaching of schools like this helps to keep 
 our legislation on a lofty plane. Some legislators 
 are like physicians whose treatment deals only with 
 symptoms. They are ignorant of the philosophy of 
 
HON. RICHARD OLNEY'S ADDRESS 75 
 
 the law and the relations of statutes to one another. 
 Without educated lawyers of high moral standards, 
 the legislative department of the government would 
 be hopelessly inefficient and dreadfully dangerous. 
 
 The influence of this school upon the characters 
 not less than the intellects of its graduates has been 
 a mighty force, working through others, in giving to 
 the laws of Massachusetts their general excellence. I 
 doubt not that it is felt in like manner in other States, 
 as it certainly is in the Congress of the United States. 
 
 You do well to celebrate this anniversary of this 
 important department of Harvard University. If the 
 future of the School may be predicted from the suc- 
 cess of its past, it surely will be bright with the illu^ 
 mination of honorable achievement. 
 
 The President: To the presiding officer there never 
 can be an embarrassment of riches, he never can be 
 tempted to exclaim: "How happy could I be with 
 either, were t'other fair charmer away." After all, 
 presidential timber and judicial timber are very much 
 alike when lying around loose. 
 
 By the discharge of his duties as Attorney-General 
 and Secretary of State, the name of Richard Olney be- 
 came, as it remains, a household word throughout the 
 United States, and then throughout the world. I know 
 that we shall all be dehghted to hear from our brother 
 Olney on this occasion. 
 
 HON. RICHARD OLNEY. 
 
 Whoever follows the honored President of this 
 University necessarily follows at a long distance. I 
 propose, however, to try to follow his lead so far as to 
 
76 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCLATION 
 
 touch upon certain prominent features of the times in 
 which we live, features which are of peculiar interest 
 to lawyers as a class, as is everything which pertains 
 to the principles of government and the fundamental 
 laws of the land. If it were true, as is sometimes said, 
 that the law as a calling has lost its former character- 
 istics, and that the modern lawyer has become sim- 
 ply an uncommonly well-equipped man of business, 
 there would be little or no pertinency in what I desire 
 to say. But, in spite of some evidence to the contrary, 
 I believe, and prefer to believe, that the lawyers of 
 the day have not abdicated what is their normal func- 
 tion under every government having a right to be 
 called either free or enlightened, — that they are still 
 the ruling class in our own country in the sense that, 
 in matters of law and of government, they determine 
 the predominant tone and temper of the community. 
 In that view, what I ask you to note is that the old 
 order is changing, changing swiftly and vitally, and 
 that whether the change be for good or for evil, is 
 to be temporary or lasting, are matters to which the 
 American bar cannot address itself too seriously. A 
 revolution, indeed, is in progress, none the less real 
 that it may not be generally recognized; only the 
 more important that it relates to ideas and to ideals 
 rather than to things visible and material; only the 
 more insinuating and sure in its advance that it fol- 
 lows legal forms and marches silently and peacefully 
 without beat of drum or drawing of sword. Speaking 
 of the scientific movement of the age, the late John 
 Fiske declared that " the men of the present day . . . 
 are separated from the men whose education ended 
 in 1830 by an immeasurably wider gulf than has ever 
 
HON. RICHARD OLNEY'S ADDRESS 77 
 
 before divided one progressive generation of men from 
 their predecessors." The declaration, as it touches the 
 American people, is hardly less applicable to law and 
 government than to physical science, and the lawyers 
 and statesmen of seventy-five years ago would have 
 been as startled by current American theories of 
 government as would the scientists of that date by 
 the modem developments of electrical energy, by the 
 phenomena of radium, the X rays, or the mysteries of 
 bacteriology. That the new order is better than the 
 old — better in point of logic, of morals, or of practical 
 results — is possible and debatable. I leave that ques- 
 tion wholly on one side, and only aim to point out that 
 a new school of thought has arisen, and that the Ameri- 
 can lawyer of to-day finds himself grappling with 
 ideas for which he will search in vain any writings 
 or utterances of the great American jurists of two 
 generations ago. The welcome presence here of my 
 friend, the eloquent orator of the day, suggests some 
 of the most striking of the new doctrines. He has 
 filled with eclat certainly the second, if not the first, 
 most important post in the national Department of 
 Justice. He has been a judge of the Circuit Court 
 of the United States inferior in merit and repute to 
 none of the eminent holders of the Hke office. He may 
 in the time to come — and prophetic voices to that 
 effect are by no means uncommon — become a mem- 
 ber of the greatest court the world has seen, or even 
 chief magistrate of the American republic. I venture 
 to say, however, that when his career is run and is 
 summed up by the historian of the future, the solici- 
 tor-general, the judge, the Secretary of "War, the 
 holder of whatever other office he may fill, will rank 
 
78 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 second to the governor of the Philippine Islands. 
 Having absolute mastery over the lives and fortunes 
 of 7,500,000 people, he has won general admiration 
 and applause by the justice and sMlf ulness of his rule, 
 and by the tact, patience, and humanity of his dealings 
 with an alien and subject race. Yet upon the Ameri- 
 can lawyer, steeped in the doctrines and traditions of 
 the past, the inquiry at once forces itself, what place 
 has despotism — even the most benevolent and most in- 
 telligent — in our American political system, and where 
 by searching shall we find it out ? We may pursue 
 the inquiry after the manner of the Sunday news- 
 papers and their puzzle pictures. Given the Constitu- 
 tion, — the national chart within whose four corners 
 the lawyer must look for a warrant for every govern- 
 mental act, — puzzle to find therein the despot. If 
 and when he is found, that my genial friend from 
 Ohio will easily take rank as among the best speci- 
 mens of the class need not be questioned. But the 
 despot in our governmental scheme is by no means the 
 only thing present conditions invite us to look for. 
 There are others. The orator of the day, for example, 
 with a laudable frankness which ignored any claim of 
 benefit to the people of the United States from its 
 present oriental experiment, defended it a few days 
 since on humanitarian grounds. According to him, we 
 are rich enough and can afford it, and therefore it is 
 our duty to sacrifice American lives and American 
 treasure indefinitely and without stint for the educa- 
 tion and elevation of Filipinos according to American 
 standards. But out of any such proposition at once 
 issues another legal puzzle for the modern American 
 lawyer, — to find in the national Constitution the prin- 
 
HON. RICHARD OLNEY'S ADDRESS 79 
 
 ciple of altruism ; to find in a frame of government 
 declared on its face by the people adopting it to be 
 designed to " secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
 selves and our posterity " any authority for purely 
 philanthropic enterprises — any right in that govern- 
 ment to turn itself into a missionary to the benighted 
 tribes of islands in the South Seas seven thousand 
 miles from our shores — or any power to tax the toil- 
 ing masses of this country for the benefit of motley 
 groups of the brown people of the tropics, between 
 whom and the tax-payers there is absolutely no com- 
 munity either of interest or of sympathy. Again, in- 
 ternational law being part of American law, and the 
 equality of nations inter sese without regard to size or 
 strength being the very basis of all international 
 law, still another search is needed to find in American 
 law any right in a strong nation to appropriate the 
 sovereignty or territory of a weak nation, either in the 
 name of " collective civilization," or in any other name 
 or on any pretext whatsoever. And, if the search be 
 successful and the doctrine vindicated that there are 
 su]3erior peoples in whose interest inferior peoples 
 may rightfully be subjected to a process which would 
 be expropriation if it did not lack the element of com- 
 pensation to the victims, question — is not a rule which 
 is good for nations good also for individuals, and why 
 may not the lives and property of weaker and inferior 
 citizens in any community be rightfully expropriated 
 for the benefit of the stronger and superior ? Again, 
 the first principle as well as essential merit of a writ- 
 ten constitution of government being that even the 
 most desirable end must be pursued and attained only 
 in conformity with the fundamental law, must not 
 
80 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCLA.TION 
 
 our national code be most carefully interrogated for 
 some symptom of the doctrine that the end sanctifies 
 the means, and that to " get there " by short cuts or 
 paths unprovided or forbidden is anything else than 
 sheer lawlessness and usurpation? Again, is the great 
 end of government what the founders of the Republic 
 conceived it to be, namely, the maintenance of social 
 order and the affording of equal opportunity, or have 
 times and men so changed that paternalism super- 
 sedes individualism, and that we are to look with favor 
 on an ever widening field of public activity and an 
 ever narrowing field of private enterprise? Again, as 
 consequences of the Civil War and of the commerce 
 power and the Fourteenth Amendment as judicially 
 interpreted, has the State become so weak and so 
 limited in function, and the general government so 
 strong and so pervasive, that the latter now counts as 
 the chief factor in the life of the American citizen, 
 that the State comes second in his interests and 
 affections, and that the sphere of local self-govern- 
 ment is seriously curtailed ? 
 
 That new conceptions of law and of government 
 like those just indicated, with others akin to them, are 
 rife among us to-day ; that they are accompanied 
 and accentuated by a political theory that the " saints " 
 should enjoy the earth, and that the conglomeration of 
 races, miscalled the Anglo-Saxon, is the "saints," 
 is not to be denied. They cannot be ignored because 
 in seeming violent contradiction to what Americans 
 have professed to love and have loudly boasted of in 
 the past. They cannot be whistled down the wind as 
 pure speculations, since they are the basis of novel 
 measures and policies of the most momentous char- 
 
HON. RICHARD OLNEY'S ADDRESS 81 
 
 acter. Neither do they lack defence and justification 
 by good men and by able men. If sound, they should 
 be inculcated as such upon the laity, should be acted 
 upon as such in the courts and the halls of legislation, 
 and should be taught as such in the Harvard Law 
 School and all other law schools of the country. It 
 is imperative, therefore, that the lawyers of the day 
 should give them earnest consideration. It is for them 
 to say whether there is a break with all our past which 
 ought to be and is to be perpetuated; whether Ameri- 
 can principles as embodied in American Constitutions 
 and State papers, once deemed models of wisdom and 
 inspirations to humanity the world over, are now to 
 be relegated to the limbo of antiquated superstitions; 
 whether the flag shall symbolize the ideas and the 
 ideals of the great Americans who are identified with 
 all that is most glorious in our past history, or shall 
 stand for the theories of the new guides and teachers 
 of the present hour. That a function so weighty in 
 point of responsibility and so honorable by reason of 
 that very responsibihty will be satisfactorily discharged 
 by the lawyers of the country is not to be doubted. 
 To Harvard men in particular, I may well close by 
 commending the wisdom of Lowell, who, being asked 
 how long the American Republic would last, answered 
 that it would last as long as the principles of its found- 
 ers were valued and acted upon. 
 
 The President: It is not quite fifty-one years since 
 the official landing of Perry's expedition, and only two 
 or three months over fifty years since the first treaty 
 with the Empire of the Morning Sun. In that fifty 
 years the young fellows of that day have seen strange 
 
82 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 sights, and none more impressive than the progress of 
 that remarkable people in manufactm-es, in trade, in 
 military and naval fitness, and in just laws. We have 
 with us in Baron Kentaro Kaneko a brother of our 
 own, a distinguished representative of Japan, a mem- 
 ber of its House of Peers, and one of the framers of 
 its present constitution. We hope he will give us the 
 pleasure of hearing from him. 
 
 BARON KENTARO KANEKO. 
 
 Mr. Chief Justice a^to Gentlemen : There 
 was an old saying in Japan, " ISTever preach before 
 Buddha, but make your own confession." I might 
 apply that precept very appropriately to-day, because 
 I have so many of my legal Buddhas before me. 
 Ex-Dean Langdell and Dean Ames, on my right, and 
 Professor Gray, on the left, are my legal Buddhas ; 
 therefore I will not make any speech before them, 
 else I might violate our Buddhist precept, but I might 
 make my own confession, and include it among the 
 many tributes to Harvard Law School. 
 
 When I returned to Japan, after graduating from 
 Harvard Law School in 1878, 1 entered the service of 
 our Government. At that time, and for many years 
 afterward, our country might be said to be in the era 
 of imitation. We were then obliged to imitate the 
 criminal code and civil code and commercial code, the 
 organization of courts, and departmental regulations 
 and ordinances; everywhere and in everything, we 
 must copy and imitate the laws and customs of the 
 Western Powers. Why? Because at that time we were 
 negotiating for the abolition of the extraterritoriality 
 
BARON KENTARO KANEKO'S ADDRESS • 83 
 
 treaty, and the European Powers refused to consent 
 unless we imitated them in our legal, political, and 
 social institutions. We had to yield to this, and imi- 
 tate them. We had to imitate everything — Napo- 
 leonic Code, German Code, and Belgian Code. All 
 the governmental regulations, down to those of the 
 collections of taxes, were copied after European 
 models. Japan was simply in the era of imitation. 
 
 It was in the midst of this era of imitation that I 
 entered the service of the Government, and I worked 
 side by side with my colleagues who had graduated 
 from French and German universities. 
 
 As you all know, the compilations of French and 
 German books are very handy. If our chief asked us 
 to look up the organization of the judicial system, the 
 French and German scholars translated from these 
 handy books ; and, in a few hours, they had every- 
 thing in a nutshell. When a similar duty was assigned 
 to me, I was at a loss. I had learned at Harvard Law 
 School about equity, evidence, criminal law, and real 
 property; but all this was of no use to me then. I 
 went to my " Coke on Littleton " and my " Washburn 
 on Real Property," but I could not make any use of 
 them. I felt so disappointed that I wished I had not 
 gone to America, but to France or Germany instead, 
 and had come home with this knowledge of everything 
 in a nutshell, with a book on every subject, — in fact, 
 with a small encyclopaedia upon all subjects, in which 
 you have, after a few hours' reading, everything in 
 perfect shape. I must confess that neither the common 
 law of England, nor Anglo-American laws, assisted 
 me in the least. 
 
 But I was not left long in this condition of disap- 
 
84 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCLA.TION 
 
 pointment ; extraterritoriaKty was soon abolished, and 
 with that ended the era of imitation. No longer French 
 or German books were needed when the era of adap- 
 tation had dawned over 'New Japan I Our first Parlia- 
 ment was then opened, and our diplomatic negotia- 
 tions were conducted on a footing of equality. Then 
 there came up subjects to be handled according to 
 American methods. Then I discovered for the first 
 time the real strength and power of the education of 
 Harvard Law School. 
 
 When some diflicult question between the different 
 departments of Government, or some diflicult question 
 between Japanese subjects and foreigners, came before 
 the Cabinet, with its great pile of papers and docu- 
 ments, the mere sight of which was appalling, — then 
 the legal training at Harvard Law School came to my 
 rescue, and brought me not rescue merely, but power. 
 I examined the question by reading paper after paper, 
 just as Ex-Dean Langdell taught me to handle the 
 case-system, and when I had gone through them all, 
 I knew just where the gist of the case lay, I knew the 
 weakness and the strength of each party, because I 
 had been trained at Harvard Law School to handle 
 just such cases as these. I was never afraid to encoun- 
 ter any question of Government affairs, however im- 
 portant or difiicult, and when I had finished reading 
 the case, it was so clear in my mind that I could in- 
 stantly write out my opinion just as I used to write the 
 head-notes of a case at the Law School. 
 
 Then I was glad that I did not go to France or Ger- 
 many, but came to America, to have my legal training 
 at Cambridge. 
 
 Thus you see that in our era of imitation, the Har- 
 
BARON KENTARO KANEKO'S ADDRESS 85 
 
 yard Law School education was of no use, but when 
 we came to the era of adaptation, that is, of discrimi- 
 nating between good and bad in foreign institutions, 
 and adapting the best to our own institutions, then the 
 training of Harvard Law School was the most useful 
 that one could have. 
 
 This is my own confession; and not mine only. 
 Baron Komura, our Foreign Minister, and Mr. Kurino, 
 our late Minister at St. Petersburg— both your fellow 
 alumni of Harvard Law School — would say the same, 
 if they were here to-day. These two men, just before 
 the outbreak of the present war with Kussia, had 
 to deal with the most diflScult and dehcate questions, 
 but so skilful was their action that not a mistake was 
 made by them in any point of international law, or any 
 violation, however shght, of its customs and etiquette ; 
 and our Government Keport of the correspondence 
 between our representative at St. Petersburg and our 
 Foreign Minister in Tokio, beginning July 28, 1903, 
 and extending to February 6, 1904, is really a Kving 
 monument of the case-system of Harvard Law School, 
 applied to our international affairs. 
 
 Dean Ames said, a few minutes ago, that we have, 
 as yet, very little in the way of authoritative books 
 coming from the School, because the Faculty have 
 been busy preparing the case-books, but that Report 
 of our Government, I might say, is an authoritative 
 book, which can be claimed as the outcome of Har- 
 vard Law School. 
 
 I might say much more in regard to what Harvard 
 Law School training has done for me in my politi- 
 cal career, but I will not take up too much of your 
 time. 
 
86 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 But, gentlemen, you have offered me to-day a rare 
 opportunity to thank the President of Harvard Uni- 
 versity and the Faculty of Harvard Law School, and 
 to testify that Japan has attained its present position 
 largely through the influence of Harvard University. 
 The education of Harvard Law School makes not only 
 good judges and lawyers, but also financiers and busi- 
 ness men, diplomats and statesmen. The thorough 
 training obtained here will be beneficial and useful for 
 the Japanese student, whatever profession or whatever 
 career he may choose, in time to come, just as to-day, 
 in our present struggle against Russia, Japan has 
 shown to the whole world the true value and strength 
 of Harvard Law School education. 
 
 The President: The harbor lines of the State of 
 Maine, apart from recent acquisitions, compare favor- 
 ably with those of the rest of the country put together, 
 and you all know that its inhabitants are addicted to 
 the sea. It was most appropriate that at the time the 
 thunder of our guns opened the eyes of the nations to 
 the existence of our sea power, a son of Maine should 
 be at the head of the department of the navy, winning 
 in its administration more renown even than he had 
 achieved as a representative in Congress or Governor 
 of the good old Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
 
 I ought to add confidentially, and in a whisper, that 
 as Chief Justice Marshall was celebrated at Richmond 
 for his great skill in playing quoits, our friend Gov- 
 ernor Long has a reputation at Buckfield as being 
 the best maker of custard pie from Kittery Point to 
 Quoddy Head. I call on Governor Long to gratify us 
 with some remarks. 
 
HON. JOHN D. LONG'S ADDRESS 87 
 
 HON. JOHN D. LONG. 
 
 It is characteristically disinterested in the Chief 
 Justice to pay a compliment to the State of Maine as 
 the mother of distinguished men, because — although 
 he did not mean to refer to that fact — he is one of its 
 foremost sons. I do not know what he means by his 
 reference to custard pie, but if I had one at this 
 moment, I would throw it at his head, although it is 
 well covered already — with glory. 
 
 I question whether I am entitled to sit at this table 
 of the heavyweights. I have had little legal education 
 or career to speak of. It is true I sat on the benches 
 of the Harvard Law School, sitting there with Pro- 
 fessor Jerry Smith, who sits at my side here. I desig- 
 nate what Smith, because the name is not unfamiliar. 
 I remember that at that time he wore a black Kossuth 
 hat, which perhaps he wears to this day. I remember 
 no other distinction which he at that time had attained, 
 much as he has since attained. I presume he got 
 something at the school, though very likely it was born 
 in him, for the lawyer, like the poet, — and like any 
 other fellow in his line, — is really bom and not made. 
 
 As has been suggested, times change, and the Law 
 School as well as all the rest of us change with them. 
 In those days there were three professors, — Joel 
 Parker, whose lectures were as inspiring as a Puritan 
 sermon on the metaphysics of the freedom of the will ; 
 Emory Washburn, who poured out the chapters of his 
 great big book on Real Property in a torrent over his 
 lips like a brook over rocks ; and Theophilus Parsons, 
 the junior of that great name, who wrote legal trea- 
 tises almost as fast as his great contemporary, Mrs. 
 
88 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 E. D. E. N. Southworth, issued her mild novels. Still, it 
 was an good — for the price. But how different from 
 the instruction to-day ! The fault, if any, was doubt- 
 less in the recipients, not in the givers. I fear — since 
 confession is the order of the day — that the Parlia- 
 ment, as we used to call that great debating society 
 which met Friday evenings in Dane Hall, was more 
 attractive than the moot court. At any rate, the only 
 distinction which I attained was in the former body 
 in getting over a perfectly sound but obstructive ruling 
 of the chair by appeahng from it, — an appeal which 
 the ingenuous and promising majority of that body 
 overwhelmingly sustained, and thus showed their fit- 
 ness for the future statesmanship which has made this 
 country the biggest on the face of God's round globe, 
 and its glory the brightest on the pages of the history 
 of this world or of any other in the illimitable universe. 
 You see, gentlemen, I have just returned from a 
 N'ational Convention. But, brother Ohiey, just wait 
 until you hear from the one next week at St. Louis. 
 
 However, after that I spent a year in the office of 
 the leader of the Suffolk Bar, and was deemed by 
 everybody very fortunate in that opportunity. I sat 
 in the ante-room with the office boy, who gave me 
 lessons in evidence by the smut on his face and hands, 
 from which I drew the irresistible inference that he 
 was in a conspiracy with the coal hod for the conceal- 
 ment of his lunch. My training there consisted of one 
 question of law asked me by that great lawyer dur- 
 ing the year, which I was too frightened to answer 
 correctly, had that been possible, as it probably was 
 not under any circumstances; also of copying one legal 
 document, my success in which was in copying its 
 
 
HON. JOHN D. LONG'S ADDRESS 89 
 
 illegibility so faithfully that I never was asked to 
 copy another; and of observing the frequency and 
 depth of draught with which the junior member of 
 the firm resorted to the big pitcher of ice water. 
 
 Thus splendidly equipped, I entered on the practice 
 of the law in my native State of Maine, from which 
 the Chief Justice and myself escaped at the earliest 
 possible moment, and then started upon the practice 
 of law in the mother State of Massachusetts, on which 
 I have imposed myself ever since. 
 
 I might dwell upon this intensely interesting per- 
 sonal narrative, but I shall not do so. I have done it 
 only because it leads me to remark that, hke most 
 other old saws, the saying that " The law is a jealous 
 mistress " is a blooming fallacy. She is the jolliest, 
 the best natured, the most indulgent old girl in the 
 world. She will give you the latch-key and let you 
 stay out as late as you please. She has any number 
 of apron strings of any length, and lets you hold on 
 to her by any of them that you please, provided you 
 play fair. For she will cut you off in early bloom if 
 you are not honest and square. But given that, she 
 will let you become a pretty good jury lawyer if you 
 know — or, what is more frequent, appear to know — 
 the routine axioms of the court-room. Or she will let 
 you become the most profoundly learned of lawyers 
 and never have a client. Or you may combine, as the 
 best lawyers do, ample resources of legal knowledge, 
 conduct of business, wisdom in advice, power of con- 
 vincing statement. You may devote a whole lifetime 
 to the examination of titles, to the administration of 
 trusts, — where some honest coins always stick to the 
 bottom of the pot, — to the discharge of the judicial 
 
 V 
 
90 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCLA.TION 
 
 fimction, or to the direction of corporate interests, 
 and though you have never tried a case in court, or 
 sassed the fellow on the other side, she will reward 
 you with a sugar plum. The fact is, that she honors 
 the narrow range if made the most of, but she has a 
 kindly heart after all for the wanderers, for whom I 
 may speak, who have strayed over the whole pasture. 
 
 For she recognizes, as has been intimated here, that 
 she holds the keys that open upon the avenues of pub- 
 lic life, of political service, of constructive legislation, 
 and of social work. She knows that she stands for the 
 foundations of government and society. She recog- 
 nizes. Sir, that your predecessor, John Marshall, to 
 whom you have referred, was historically the greatest 
 American judge because he not only had serveal in 
 Congress, but had been a part of the political machin- 
 ery of that formative time, and had brought from those 
 sources to the judicial settlement of our constitutional 
 foundations consummate qualifications for the work. 
 He inspired the letter of the Federal Constitution with 
 the developing and liberal spirit which gave it life that 
 it did not have before, and which gave to the United 
 States union, force, and especially adaptability to the 
 needs of the coming time and of its future develop- 
 ment. 
 
 It is this outreach, this comprehending of future as 
 well as present relations, this training, not of the book, 
 but of affairs, which she requires, as you. President 
 Eliot, have suggested, in the men who make the law, 
 the men who interpret the law, and the men who exe- 
 cute the law. They are all better for her schooling. 
 
 The law, — why it is the very foundation. The pro- 
 phets are linked with it, but the law is first : it is the 
 
HON. JOHN D. LONG'S ADDRESS 91 
 
 source, the spring; and the prophets are its exponents, 
 its voices crying in the wilderness of every time of 
 need. It is the rock of ages, of safety and salvation; 
 the house that is not built thereon will not stand, but 
 will fall in the first storm that beats upon it. Are there 
 riot and violence ? — the law ! Is there in Colorado in- 
 vasion of the rights of employer on the one hand and 
 employee on the other? — the law for both ahke! Is 
 there disfranchisement of the voter? — the law! Are 
 there wild theories threatening society? — the law! 
 Is there — if I may return to the subject of the morn- 
 ing — is there a question to-day of our duty to the 
 millions of dusky islanders of the Orient, with their 
 variety of classes from the cultivated scholar and pub- 
 licist down through the traders and mechanics and the 
 boys and girls whose bright faces you may see to-day 
 at the World's Fair at St. Louis, and who have been 
 taught the English language by American teachers 
 in native schools like our own, — down through them 
 to the half savage at the same Fair, who, naked except 
 for his breech-cloth, points with pride to the tattooing 
 on his breast which shows that he has cut off a human 
 head in a fight, and who, though perhaps his is not at 
 present exactly the hand to hold the reins of govern- 
 ment, feels as much pride in that bloody distinction 
 as one of our heroes who emulates the heroism of his 
 ancestors on the battlefield, — all these classes, eager, 
 subtle, sensitive, suspicious, ready in their native poHte- 
 ness, and I suspect with a natural finesse, to answer 
 your inquiry about the future of their country in any 
 way that they think will suit your preference in quoting 
 them, but all on the watch, all remembering the Span- 
 iard's oppression, all as yet unable fully to compre- 
 
92 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 hend that you do not have something of the same 
 ulterior purpose, — all these classes absolutely requir- 
 ing that time shall do its work, and that perhaps the 
 present generation shall pass away, and that another, 
 educated from early youth on American lines, shall 
 through confidence and experience secure a safe 
 standing-ground for observation and for final judg- 
 ment, — all these now a smouldering fire to which 
 outbreak and revolution are incident by the very 
 nature of their racial makeup and tradition ; — is this 
 all a burning question ? The answer is, the law ! — 
 the law first ! — the law as it is to us, — the law with 
 its constitutional foundations, equal rights, security of 
 life, Hberty, and the pursuit of happiness, participation 
 in public affairs, education in the common school, 
 training in labor, a title in land, a home, gradual and 
 developing preparation for self-government, — in short, 
 our American system of law and all its outgrowth, 
 all of which must have time, and must have the patient 
 and the helpful cooperation of all our people, for its 
 estabhshment. 
 
 That, and that alone, is the present duty which we 
 cannot escape, which is upon us whether we would 
 have it or not. That is the duty, and it is vital. It is 
 vital to the attainment even of the goal which we all, 
 every one of us, — whatever our differences of opinion 
 in other respects, — desire for these our brothers in 
 brown. And it is infinitely more vital than any vague 
 and unsettling platitudes about their nominal political 
 status in an indefinite future which neither they nor 
 we can now forecast. Now is the accepted time. 'Not 
 only sufficient to the day is the work thereof, but the 
 day should be devoted exclusively to this present work 
 
HON. JOHN D. LONG'S ADDRESS 93 
 
 and we should not be diverted from it, — the work of 
 extending to them this system of law in the sense in 
 which I have used the word. And I think I may add 
 of extending it not only abroad, but of extending it 
 at home, where we need it quite as much, and perhaps 
 more. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, for the devotion of the Harvard Law 
 School to the education of the bright and powerful 
 youth who have gone out from it on this quest of 
 laying and strengthening everywhere the foundations 
 of law, and who, standing for the law, will be, as has 
 been suggested, the best bulwark of the republic, I 
 return here with delight to lay my tribute upon the 
 altar of the School. And also to join in this cordial 
 welcome to the orator of the day who, having dis- 
 tinguished himself in the high judicial service of his 
 comitry, has more recently in the Philippines illustri- 
 ously, wisely, conscientiously, and with statesmanlike 
 comprehension, carried out the prayerful and solemn 
 injunctions, some of which he read this morning, of 
 President McKinley, and has also there set up the 
 standard and given the personal example of what it 
 is in the best sense of the word to be an American 
 lawyer, statesman, and citizen. 
 
 The President: It is not a far cry from Massachu- 
 setts to New Jersey, and the judicial tribunals of both 
 States may alike be relied on for even-handed and 
 certain justice. 
 
 I refer to the eminent judiciary of New Jersey be- 
 cause we have with us a graduate of the School of 1881, 
 Mr. Justice Swayze, a member of the Supreme Court 
 of that State, whom I now beg leave to present to you. 
 
94 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 JUSTICE FRANCIS J. SWAYZE. 
 
 Me. Chief Justice a^d Brethren of the Har- 
 vard Law School Association : During the early 
 part of the afternoon, it almost seemed to me, as I 
 looked along the row here, that this was a Yale cele- 
 bration. It is certainly very gratifying to find the 
 Chief Justice of the United States as the honored 
 President of the Harvard Law School Association. 
 It is very gratifying to a graduate of Harvard, and 
 an early member of this Association, to hear the trib- 
 ute paid by the Secretary of War this morning — in 
 what seemed to me the most admirable part of that 
 admirable speech — to the merits of the Harvard Law 
 School, and this afternoon the Chief Justice of the 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts has joined the Chief 
 Justice of the United States and the Secretary of 
 War in freely acknowledging the preeminence of the 
 Harvard Law School in terms which our modesty 
 would forbid us to use of ourselves. 
 
 I think I might almost say : ■ — 
 
 " Thebes did their green, unknowing youth engage. 
 Each chooses Athens in his riper age." 
 
 I am sure you cannot — those of you upon the floor, 
 perhaps some of us upon the platform can — under- 
 stand the embarrassment which a judge must neces- 
 sarily feel. He is called upon at every turn to give a 
 reason for his opinion upon compulsion, and Falstaff 
 told us long ago how very difficult and embarrassing 
 that is. But it is far more embarrassing for the junior 
 justice to express his opinion upon a subject about 
 which he probably knows nothing, in the presence of 
 
JUSTICE FRANCIS J. SWAYZE'S ADDRESS 95 
 
 men from whom he has been accustomed to take his 
 law. 
 
 I am reminded of a friend of mine who was ap- 
 pointed to the Federal bench in 'New Jersey some 
 years ago ; he confessed frankly that he knew nothing 
 about the subject of patents with which he was likely 
 to be forced to deal, and he told me he picked out for 
 his first case one which seemed to involve a patent 
 harness, as he was familiar with horses. He took the 
 papers home, and was surprised to find that they re- 
 lated to the harness for a Jacquard loom. 
 
 On an occasion like this, the temptation is certainly 
 very strong to deal with those burning political ques- 
 tions of the day which lie just outside of the realm 
 of the law, but are connected with it by so many ties. 
 But I recollect that in Massachusetts, Chief Justice 
 Holmes has ruled that " temptation is not invitation," 
 and although perhaps we have not carried the doc- 
 trine in I^ew Jersey to the same extent, I recognize 
 here the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Mas- 
 sachusetts, and I shall therefore in what I have to 
 say speak only of the subject to which your invitation 
 naturally directs my attention. On all other subjects 
 I think it is fair for me to say that you probably know 
 more than I do ; I think I know more about the con- 
 stitution of the courts of the State of New Jersey than 
 perhaps any of you, and it may interest you to know 
 something of the constitution of the courts of that 
 State, for I hope that it will fall to the lot of some of 
 you some time to have occasion to assist our courts in 
 deahng with those questions of corporation law, in- 
 volving millions of dollars, which are now beginning 
 to come before us. And the subject ought to be inter- 
 
96 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 esting to you also for another reason, for you will see, 
 as I describe the organization of our courts, that we 
 have been able in that State to make a good use of 
 what seems to be upon its face a bad system. 
 
 Our court of last resort is composed of the chan- 
 cellor, the chief justice, the eight associate justices of 
 the supreme court, and six judges specially appointed, 
 none of whom need be lawyers, all of whom a few 
 years ago were laymen, two of whom are laymen to- 
 day. It has been wittily said of that court that it is " a 
 little too large for a jury and not quite big enough 
 for a right good town meeting." It has also been 
 said, not so truthfully, I think by some disappointed 
 litigant, that your appeal in New Jersey lies from 
 the court that has just heard the case to the same 
 court with six additional judges who know no law. 
 
 One of the curiosities of the court is that the chan- 
 cellor sits only on the hearing of writs of error, and 
 the appellate jurisdiction in equity is with the chief 
 justice and the associate justices of the Supreme 
 Court; so that while I cannot grant a writ of injunc- 
 tion, I am entirely competent, ex officio at any rate, to 
 say whether the chancellor had a right to grant the 
 writ or not. 
 
 You ought to be interested, I think, in some of the 
 unpubhshed rules of the tribunal, and I violate no 
 confidence when I read them to you. They are rules 
 codified a few years ago by Judge Adams, one of 
 our wittiest and ablest judges. They are intended for 
 the government of the judges in conference princi- 
 pally, and are as follows : — 
 
 1. Kot more than three judges shall speak at the 
 same time. 
 
JUSTICE FRANCIS J. SWAYZE'S ADDRESS 97 
 
 2. Stop; look; listen. 
 
 3. Agree with your brethren, and if possible with 
 yourself. 
 
 4. Declare no dissent in public that you have not 
 first declared in conference — don't acquiesce at first 
 and kick afterwards. 
 
 5. Kever write a short opinion. The art is to ex- 
 press yourself so as to make it difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, to prove that you are wrong, and at the same 
 time leave yourself free to decide the next case in 
 any way you please. These results cannot be secured 
 by brevity. 
 
 6. It is usual, though not obligatory, to make the 
 head-note shorter than the opinion. 
 
 7. When sure that you understand a case better 
 than counsel, ask him for information. 
 
 8. If a judge is caught listening to coimsel, he need 
 not apologize. 
 
 9. When counsel interrupt you, be courteous. 
 
 10. Distrust first impressions; if your mind does not 
 receive first impressions, ignore this rule. 
 
 11. When in doubt whether you sat in a case below, 
 vote to affirm on the opinion. 
 
 12. When you know nothing about the case, state 
 your reasons at length. 
 
 We have another curious feature in 'New Jersey. 
 Our judges are appointed for terms of seven years at 
 a time by the governor. On its face, I think a system 
 like that does not promise good results. As a matter 
 of practice, public sentiment and the opinion of the 
 bar require that judges should be reappointed, and it 
 is the almost invariable practice in that State to reap- 
 point our judges, — a practice to which I suppose the 
 
98 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 offices of chief justice and chancellor might be made 
 exceptions in the case of a political change. So that 
 we have had Chief Justice Beasley appointed for five 
 consecutive terms, and die in office; we have had 
 Chief Justice Depue appointed for five consecutive 
 terms, three of them by governors not of his own 
 political party, and finally appointed chief justice, and 
 retiring at the end of thirty-five years' service only 
 by his own voluntary act; we have had Justice Yan 
 Sickle six times appointed to the office of Justice of 
 the Supreme Court, twice by governors not of his 
 poHtical party, and we have had more than one in- 
 stance of judges appointed not merely by governors of 
 an opposite political party, but by governors who for 
 personal reasons would have preferred not to make the 
 appointment. 
 
 That is the system which the good sense of the 
 people of New Jersey has been able to develop out of 
 unpromising conditions. 
 
 You in Massachusetts honor the names of Parsons 
 and Shaw and Gray and others ; we in Kew Jersey 
 honor the names of Green and Beasley and Depue — 
 and to the latter I pay the tribute due not only to a 
 learned and accurate lawyer, but to a kind personal 
 friend. We have developed a system of jurisprudence 
 of our own, based largely upon the English decisions. 
 "With that jurisprudence we are satisfied, and the 
 people trust us to an extent perhaps greater than in 
 other States, to an extent greater sometimes than we 
 desire, for they put upon us work of administration 
 which properly belongs to others. That is done in 
 New Jersey, as it is done elsewhere, because every 
 one knows that when he goes before a judicial tri- 
 
 •<* 
 
WILLIAM RAND, JR.'S ADDRESS 99 
 
 bunal, he goes before men who by their training and 
 the habit of their minds are bound to hear both sides 
 before they pronounce a decision, and to decide ac- 
 cording to the right of the cause under the rules of 
 law. And as these great questions come up, no matter 
 what our different views may be as to the fmictions 
 of government, no matter how we may differ as 
 to the proper line which divides the powers of the 
 national government from those of the state govern- 
 ment, as long as judicial tribunals hear both sides and 
 decide honestly, these questions will be properly dealt 
 with. 
 
 I have no doubt that it will be done in IsTew Jersey 
 and done in Massachusetts and done in the Federal 
 courts, and done in the future as well as it has been 
 done in the past. 
 
 The President : You have in your presiding officer, 
 gentlemen, one of the oldest surviving citizens of the 
 City by the Lakes, and I am now about to call upon 
 one of the youngest; for although he is now acquir- 
 ing distinction in the City of New York, I think that 
 a large share of his success is traceable to the fact that 
 he originally came from the City of Chicago. 
 
 I call upon Mr. Rand. 
 
 WILLIAM RAND, JR., ESQ. 
 
 Mk. Chief Justice, Mr. President, aito Breth- 
 ren OE THE Harvard Law School : I esteem it a 
 great privilege to be here to-day to join in doing 
 honor to the distinguished legal and military magis- 
 trate who is our guest. I assure you, you can have no 
 
 t.ifC. 
 
100 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 idea, after passing some years in an atmosphere of 
 strike, collision, explosion, and assassination, tempered 
 by Jerome, how grateful are these academic shades. 
 Yet there is something ominous in these Law School 
 celebrations in finding how quickly you move up 
 toward the band, and how these great classes that 
 have latterly been graduated crowd you along toward 
 the middle of the procession. 
 
 It seemed to me, as I journeyed hither, a question 
 of some difficulty to know just where I was expected 
 to come in on the speechmaking. Of course I knew 
 I was as competent as any man at this table to tell the 
 Secretary of War how many mistakes he had made in 
 the Philippines, but I felt sure there was a disputa- 
 tious member of the Board of Overseers who would 
 gladly undertake that office, if he found it consistent 
 with the courtesy due to a guest. Again, while sitting 
 here, I felt it incumbent upon me, as well as upon the 
 other speakers, to give some valuable suggestions to 
 the learned judges present. But I am so constantly 
 engaged in telling judges what they ought to do that 
 I determined to forego my chance to-day, and to 
 address what little I had to say not to my seniors, but 
 to my juniors, and to impose on you at this late hour 
 only the very smallest fragment of personal reminis- 
 cence. 
 
 I judge from what the ex-Secretary of the 'Nayj 
 has said, that my legal education in youth was better 
 than his, and my expectations were correspondingly 
 more ambitious. But it occurs to me, in retrospect of 
 the years since graduation, whose activities have made 
 them seem few, though they are really now growing to 
 be many, how largely we are all creatures of circum- 
 
WILLIAM RAND, JR.'S ADDRESS 101 
 
 stance, and how little we are able to shape our ends. 
 I recall that when I had won my first case in the 
 Superior Court of the Pow Wow Club, I cast longing 
 eyes upon that bench which you, Mr. Chief Justice, 
 so well adorn. At another time, having passed a 
 successful examination in the law of partnership, I 
 thought that the chair now held by the Dean of the 
 School would be about my size. More frequently — 
 for even then it was a commercial age — I dreamed 
 of occupying palatial offices, pushing buttons that 
 summoned liveried lackeys, and in leisure moments 
 telling the directors of great corporations how they 
 might safely get rich and escape the meshes of the 
 law. But in all my imaginings, I never dreamed of 
 being a public prosecutor. Yet it is only as a public 
 prosecutor, and with a very short term of service at 
 that, that I have any suggestions born of experience 
 to make to my professional juniors. 
 
 I wish to make a plea, a brief one, for a much 
 neglected and despised branch of the law, that is, the 
 criminal law. I make it from the point of view of a 
 celebrated lawyer of ^N'ew York, who, when I went 
 down there as a candidate for bread and butter and 
 any other good things that might come in my way, 
 gave me the cheerful suggestion that no lawyer was 
 of any use anyway until he was forty years old, and 
 that he had better put in his time up to that age in 
 getting experience. As an experience, I think you 
 will find that the practice of criminal law has great 
 value. In the first place, there is opportunity for real 
 debate far greater than in the civil courts. In a crimi- 
 nal trial there is a real bone to be contended for, and 
 all questions are hewed close to the line. It is, one 
 
102 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 may eay, the surgery of the law. A man will make a 
 harder fight for his liberty than for his money. And 
 a series of such fights cannot fail, I think, to give a 
 lawyer an equipment which tends to make him more 
 formidable to an adversary, whether his future career 
 is to be in litigation or in negotiation. 
 
 Moreover, on the strictly legal side, as must be well 
 known to those of you here who are judges, most 
 questions of constitutional law arise in criminal prac- 
 tice. It is, I suppose, — at all events I know it was in 
 my day, — the ambition of every law student to impress 
 his views of constitutional law upon the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. To be sure, the " Harvard 
 Law Review " is a good medium for that purpose, but 
 I take it that it is not so good as to appear there in 
 person. That may happen to any lawyer in criminal 
 practice at a very early stage. I regret to say that I 
 have enjoyed no such good fortune, but associates in 
 my ofiice much younger than I have had that honor; 
 and in two instances, to my certain knowledge, have 
 by their learning and eloquence persuaded that august 
 tribunal not to abandon the rule of stare decisis, and 
 to affirm the dismissal of a writ of habeas corpus 
 where there was no Federal question involved. 
 
 Besides, and contrary to popular belief, the life of 
 the criminal lawyer need not be one of absolute pov- 
 erty. I suggest the criminal rich as a field of labor 
 that should not be altogether without profit, particu- 
 larly since their numbers have been so largely in- 
 creased by recent decision. 
 
 But, gentlemen, aside from every question of per- 
 sonal advantage, the thought came to me during the 
 address of the President of the University, which, like 
 
BLEWETT LEE'S ADDRESS 103 
 
 everything he says, was full of suggestion, that the 
 saying that " Every man owes something to the pro- 
 fession in which he is bred " is especially applicable 
 to those who have enjoyed the advantages of the 
 Harvard Law School, and that we shall do well to 
 remember that the law is not only a science but a call- 
 ing, — a calling where responsibihty is yoked to op- 
 portunity, and that if we faithfully apply the lessons 
 we have learned in these halls, and profit by the exam- 
 ples of the great lawyers who have preceded us here, 
 we shall be quite as solicitous for the one as for the 
 other. And it is in view of these responsibilities which 
 we are so often tempted to forget, that I venture to 
 remind you that not of least concern to the commu- 
 nities which we serve is the protection of personal 
 liberty and the faithful and fearless administration of 
 public justice. 
 
 TTie President: In bringing these exercises to a 
 conclusion, I shall regard it as a favor if Professor 
 Blewett Lee, of the Law School of Northwestern 
 University, and a leading lawyer of the West, will 
 speak for a few moments at least. 
 
 BLEWETT LEE, ESQ. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen: It is a great 
 pleasure to me to be present with you on this occa- 
 sion, and especially after hearing the words which 
 have come from the distinguished jurist of New Jer- 
 sey, who said in the course of his remarks that the 
 people of Massachusetts respected Shaw and Parsons 
 and Gray " and others." On the programme of this 
 
104 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 occasion it stands written that speeches will be de- 
 livered by President Eliot and Dean Ames, Hon. 
 Richard Olney, Hon. John D. Long, and so on, men- 
 tioning the names of all the previous speakers, and 
 then it adds, " and others." I have the honor in this 
 case of being the " others." 
 
 It is a happiness to me to pnt my feet upon the soil 
 of Massachusetts, that hardy nursery of American sea- 
 men, whence all Secretaries of the Kavy come. It has 
 been a happiness to me also to hear Secretary Taft, 
 our " Scipio Philippinus," returning with victorious 
 eagles. I want to say to him that I have heard a 
 great many Democrats say that whenever he is nom- 
 inated, they don't care what it is for, they are going 
 to vote for him anyhow. My friend from 'New York 
 has spoken a few words on behalf of a neglected 
 branch of the profession. I want to speak to you a 
 word for a still more neglected branch of legal learn- 
 ing, and one that so far as I know has not a dollar in 
 it for anybody in this country. 
 
 When I was a student here. Dean Langdell and 
 President Eliot used to say, successively in the order 
 named, " The law is a science, the materials of which 
 are found in printed books." ]N"ow I want to push that 
 proposition one step further : " The law is a science, 
 therefore its conclusions have universal validity." 
 The investigations of a scientific man are of value for 
 the whole world, and his discoveries are valid every- 
 where; therefore the researches of a scientific lawyer 
 have a value for the whole world, and his conclusions 
 are valid everywhere. There is a mine of learning in 
 the theory and the history of our own law which is 
 to be found in foreign sources. I claim that here is 
 
BLEWETT LEE'S ADDRESS 105 
 
 the most fruitful field of legal knowledge unexplored 
 to-day. Either law is not a science, or we are cutting 
 ourselves off as a profession from the intellectual life 
 of the rest of the world. The problems of law are 
 problems of human conduct, and human nature is the 
 same throughout the civilized world. We are grateful 
 for the work which Dean Ames, Professor Williston, 
 Professor Beale, Dean Wigmore, and others have 
 done; they have led the way, they have pointed out 
 and brought to us in some measure the results of for- 
 eign learning. But what we want, in the words of 
 a platform orator, is " a more and better policy " in 
 this direction. That which has been the exceptional 
 practice must become the rule before the advance of 
 legal learning keeps pace with that of the other sci- 
 ences. 
 
 He who does not explore the best foreign author- 
 ities upon the subject which he is treating, to that 
 extent, at least, is not a scientific man, for this is what 
 all other scientific men do. I think our law is the 
 richer to-day because Mr. Justice Holmes has occa- 
 sionally brought to the solution of his problems a 
 wider learning than the law reports alone could give 
 him. And when we think of the use which Mansfield 
 and Story and Kent made of foreign sources, the fear 
 is not that their example will be followed, but that it 
 will be lost. 
 
 Our foreign brethren can teach us a great deal, at 
 least, in matters of principle, and there are lawyers 
 all over this country who are suff ermg from a lack of 
 principle. 
 
 At this stage of the day I am reminded of the 
 somewhat apocryphal story told by a Confederate sol- 
 
106 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 dier, that on one occasion during the Civil War, he 
 took advantage of the long range of his rifle and had 
 succeeded in killing sixty Federal soldiers in quick 
 succession. "At this point," he said, " General Robert 
 E. Lee came up and laid his hand on my shoulder, 
 and said, ^ Stop; this is not war, this is murder.' " So 
 I will stop right here. 
 
CONSTITUTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
CONSTITUTION OF THE HARVARD LAW 
 SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 ARTICLE I 
 
 The name of this Association shall be the " Habvaed Law 
 School Association." 
 
 ARTICLE II 
 
 The objects of this Association shall be to advance the cause 
 of legal education, to promote the interests and increase the 
 usefulness of the Harvard Law School, and to promote mutual 
 acquaintance and good-fellowship among all members of the 
 Association. 
 
 ARTICLE m 
 
 Section 1. All graduates, former members of the Harvard 
 Law School, and all present members of the Harvard Law 
 School who have been such for at least one academic year, 
 exclusive of Commencement Week, may become members of 
 this Association. 
 
 Section 2. Every member shall pay an annual due of one 
 dollar ; but any member may become a life member by the pay- 
 ment of ten dollars in one payment, after which he shall be 
 reheved from the payment of all dues. 
 
 Section 3. Honorary members may be elected by this Asso- 
 ciation on nomination by the Council. 
 
 ARTICLE IV 
 
 The officers of the Association shall be a President, not less 
 than ten or more than forty Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, a 
 Treasurer, and a Council of fifteen members. 
 
 The President, Secretary, and Treasurer shall be ex-officio 
 members of the Council. 
 
110 HARVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 ARTICLE V 
 
 Section 1. The President, Vice-Presidents, Secretary, and 
 Treasurer shall be elected for the term of one year. 
 
 Section 2. The members of the Council not members ex, 
 officio shall be elected in classes as follows : at the first meeting 
 of the Association three members of the Council shall be elected 
 for the term of four years, three members for the term of three 
 years, three members for the term of two years, and three 
 members for the term of one year ; and thereafter, at the annual 
 meeting of the Association in each year, three members shall be 
 elected for the full term of four years to fill the places of those 
 whose term of office shall then have expired. 
 
 Section 3. Vacancies occurring in any of the four classes 
 of the CouncU before the expiration of their respective terms of 
 office shall be filled at the annual meeting next following the 
 occurrence of such vacancies. 
 
 Section 4. All officers of the Association shall hold their 
 respective offices duriag the regular term thereof, and until 
 their successors shall be elected and qualified. 
 
 ARTICLE VI 
 
 The annual meeting of the Association shall be held at Cam- 
 bridge, Massachusetts, on the Tuesday preceding the annual 
 Commencement of Harvard College; provided, however, that 
 the Council shall have the power to appoint in any year a dif- 
 ferent time and place for the annual meeting, if deemed expe- 
 dient. 
 
 ARTICLE VII 
 
 The President or the Council shall have the power to call a 
 special meeting of the Association at any time ; provided that at 
 least two weeks' previous notice in writing be given to all mem- 
 bers of the Association. 
 
 ARTICLE Vin 
 
 Section 1. The executive power of the Association shall be 
 vested in the Council, subject to the control and direction of the 
 Association. 
 
 Section 2. The Council shall have the power to elect from 
 its own members an Executive Committee of not less than three 
 
CONSTITUTION 111 
 
 members, to whom may be delegated such powers as the Coun- 
 cil shall deem expedient. 
 
 Section 3. The Council shall elect every year from its own 
 members a " Committee on the Harvard Law School," and may 
 elect such other committees from its own members or the Asso- 
 ciation at large as it shall from time to time deem expedient in 
 carrying out the objects of the Association. 
 
 Section 4. The Council shall have the power to appoint from 
 time to time one or more Corresponding Secretaries in the dif- 
 ferent cities or towns of the United States and the Dominion of 
 Canada. It shall be t^e duty and office of such Corresponding 
 Secretaries to promote in their respective localities the objects 
 and interests of the Association. 
 
 Section 5. The Council shall have the power to fix the num- 
 ber of members of the Association necessary to constitute a 
 quorum for the transaction of any and all business save that 
 of amending the Constitution, and to fix also the number of 
 their own members necessary to constitute a quorum of the 
 
 Council. 
 
 ARTICLE IX 
 
 The Secretary, Treasurer, the CouncU, and the Committee on 
 the Harvard Law School shall make and submit to the Associ- 
 ation, at its annual meeting in each year, reports in writing of 
 their respective doings for the preceding year. 
 
 ARTICLE X 
 
 This Constitution may be amended by a majority vote of all 
 the members of the Association present at the annual meeting, 
 or at any special meeting called for that purpose. 
 
OFFICERS 
 
 1904-1905 
 
 Hon. MELVILLE WESTON FULLER, 1855 
 
 Hon. James C. Cabteb, LL. B., 1853 
 Hon. John Ajsdbew Peters, 1844 
 Alfred Russell, Esq., LL. B., 1852 . 
 Hon. Richard Olney, LL. B., 1858 . 
 Hon. Henry Billings Brown, 1859 . 
 Albert Stickney, Esq., LL. B., 1862 
 
 Hon. George Gray, 1863 
 
 Hon. Charles Matteson, 1863 . . . 
 Hon. Simeon Eben Baldwin, 1863 . 
 Hon. George Brooks Young, LL. B., 1863 . 
 Hon. Robert Todd Lincoln, 1865 .... 
 Hon. Oliver Wendell Holmes, LL, B., 1866 . 
 John Sanders Duncan, Esq., LL. B., 1867 . 
 Hon. Samuel Fessenden, LL. B., 1870 . . . 
 Augustus Everett Wellson, Esq., 1870 . . 
 
 Hon, Jacob Klein, LL. B., 1871 
 
 Francis Rawle, Esq., LL. B., 1871 .... 
 
 Hon. Henry Clay Simms, 1872 
 
 Hon. Hugh McDonald Henry, LL. B., 1873 . 
 Hon. Charles Joseph Bonaparte, LL. B., 1874 
 Joseph B. Warner, Esq., LL. B., 1874. . . 
 Hon. Edward Oliver Wolcott, LL. B., 1875 . 
 Prof. William Albert Keener, LL. B., 1877 . 
 Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Esq., LL. B., 1877 . 
 Hon. Francis C. Lowell, 1879 
 
 Dist. of Columbia. 
 
 New York. 
 
 Maine. 
 
 Michigan. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Dist. of Columbia. 
 
 New York. 
 
 Delaware. 
 
 Rhode Island. 
 
 Connecticut. 
 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Illinois. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Indiana. 
 
 Connecticut. 
 
 Kentucky. 
 
 Missouri. 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 West Virginia. 
 
 Nova Scotia. 
 
 Maryland. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Colorado. 
 
 New York. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
114 HAEVARD LAW SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 Robert L. Raymond, LL. B., 1898, 62 Devonshire St., Boston, Mass. 
 
 Edmund K. Arnold, LL. B., 1898, Devonshire Building, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Cottntil. 
 
 Term Expires 1905. 
 
 WiNTHROP HowLAND Wade, LL. B., 1884 . . Boston, Mass. 
 William Goodrich Thompson, LL. B., 1891 . Cambridge, Mass. 
 Robert S. Gorham, 1888 Newton, Mass. 
 
 Term Expires 1906. 
 
 Edward Quinton Keasbey, LL. B., 1871 . . Newark, N. J. 
 
 Frank W. Hackett, 1866 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Charles S. Rackemann, 1881 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Term Expires 1907. 
 
 Henry Ware Putnam, LL. B., 1871 . . . Boston, Mass. 
 
 Joseph B. Warner, LL. B., 1873 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Louis D. Brandeis, LL. B., 1877 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Term Expires 1908. 
 
 Austen G. Fox, LL. B., 1871 New York. 
 
 William Rand, Jr., Esq., 1891 ..... New York. 
 Charles B. Barnes, Jr., Esq., 1893 .... Boston, Mass. 
 
 CarreepanHttig: S>ecretartes. 
 
 Alabama . . . . R. E. Steiner, LL. B., 1884, 25 Commerce Street, 
 Montgomery. 
 
 Arkansas .... John Gatling, 1876, Forrest City. 
 
 Colorado .... Charles Macalester Campbell, 1873, Equitable Build- 
 ing, Denver. 
 
 Connecticut . . . Edgar Morris Warner, LL. B., 1872, 33 South Main 
 Street, Putnam. 
 
 Washington, D. C . John Sidney Webb, 1885, 406 Fifth Street, N. W. 
 
 Georgia .... A. R. Lawton, Jr., 1880, 114 Bryan Street, Savannah. 
 
 Illinois William C. Boyden, LL. B., 1889, 107 Dearborn 
 
 Street, Chicago. 
 
OFFICERS 
 
 115 
 
 Indiana 
 Iowa . . 
 
 Kansas . . 
 Kentucky . 
 
 Louisiana . 
 
 Maine . . 
 
 Minnesota 
 
 Mississippi 
 Missouri . 
 Missouri . 
 
 Nebraska . . . 
 
 New Hampshire 
 
 New Jersey , . 
 
 North Carolina 
 
 Ohio 
 
 Oregon .... 
 Pennsylvania . 
 
 Tennessee . . . 
 Texas .... 
 Utah .... 
 
 Vermont . . . 
 Washington . . 
 West Virginia . 
 
 Wisconsin . . . 
 New Brunswick 
 
 Nova Scotia . . 
 
 George E. Hume, 1893, Indianapolis. 
 
 Thomas Franklin Stevenson, 1879, 1503 Sixth Ave., 
 Des Moines. 
 
 J. H. Finlay, LL. B., 1871, Dodge City. 
 
 Edward John McDermott, LL. B., 1876, Louisville 
 Trust Co. Building, Louisville. 
 
 Henry Chiapella, 1869, 29 Royal Street, New Or- 
 leans. 
 
 George Kerly Boutelle, LL.B., 1882, 111 Main 
 Street, Waterville. 
 
 H. B. Wenzell, LL. B., 1882, New York Life Insur- 
 ance Building, St. Paul. 
 
 W. R. Harper, 1883, Capitol Street, Jackson. 
 
 W. E. Fisse, 1880, Rialto Building, St. Louis. 
 
 Edward Clarence Wright, LL. B., 1889, Keith & 
 Perry Building, Kansas City. 
 
 Edward Rogers French, LL. B., 1870, 801 New York 
 Life Insurance Building, Omaha. 
 
 Bertram Ellis, LL. B., 1887, 50 Marlborough Street, 
 Keene. 
 
 Chauncey G. Parker, 1888, Prudential Building, 
 Newark. 
 
 William Hyslop Sumner Burgwyn, LL. B., 1869, 
 Weld on. 
 
 John Ledyard Lincoln, LL. B., 1884, First National 
 Bank Building, Cincinnati. 
 
 G. G. Gammans, LL. B., 1877, Portland. 
 
 Arthur Clark Denniston, 1885, Pennsylvania Equi- 
 table Building, Philadelphia. 
 
 J. M. Head, LL. B., 1876, Cole Building, Nashville. 
 
 C. K. Breneman, LL. B., 1869, San Antonio. 
 
 Albert Danner Elliot, 1883, 56 W. Second South 
 Street, Salt Lake City. 
 
 F. E. Alfred, LL. B., 1876, Newport. 
 
 Henry Bradford Loomis, 1879, Seattle. 
 
 Levin Smith, 1884, 304J Juliana Street, Parkers- 
 burg. 
 
 Otto R. Hansen, 1888, Sentinel Building, Milwaukee. 
 
 George Carter Coster, 1876, 120 Prince William 
 Street, St. John. 
 
 William B. A. Ritchie, 1882, 108 Granville Street, 
 Halifax. 
 
Electrotyped and printed By H. O. Htntghton b' Co. 
 Cambridge, Matt., U. S. A. 
 
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