UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 SCHOOL OF LAW 
 LIBRARY
 
 The Melati<0)nship of the 
 
 Lawyer to the People 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 BEFORE THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL 
 
 CONVENTION OF THE 
 
 Washington 
 
 State Bar Association 
 
 SEATTLE 
 
 AUGUST 7-8, 1913 
 
 BY 
 
 RT. REV. FREDERICK W. KEATOR 
 
 TACOMA, WASH. 
 
 THE WASHINGTON STANDARD l|JX'lTb». OLYMP1A. WASHINGTON
 
 r 
 

 
 THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE LAWYER TO THE PEOPLE. 
 LEADERSHIP THE DUTY OF THE TIMES. 
 
 RT. REV. FREDERIC W. KEATOR, BISHOP OF OLYMPIA. 
 
 In a recent number of one of our leading magazines there was a 
 notable and interesting article from the pen of a distinguished mem- 
 ber of the medical profession, entitled "Lawyer and Physician — a Con- 
 trast." The opening sentences of the article were these: "Every 
 lawyer when young should be apprenticed to some good physician and 
 should return to him regularly through life. Then we might hope that 
 from the neighboring profession of healing there might enter into him 
 a spirit never to be wholly quenehed by all the deadening influences 
 of his work." 
 
 It would be presumptious to assume that in asking me to address 
 this Association of Lawyers, your committee, mindful of "the present 
 distress" had the notion that, the legal profession being already past 
 the help of doctors, it might be timely to claim the "benefit of clergy"; 
 but I think I may fairly assume that being cognizant of the fact that 
 I was trained for the Bar, was admitted to practice law, for a time 
 engaged in that practice, and then through force of circumstances, un- 
 necessary to state here, was persuaded to abandon the practice and 
 take up preaching, your committee felt that it might be worth while 
 to indulge in an innovation and give a little place on your program 
 to one who having still, in some measure, your point of view, might 
 also be able to look upon life and the various movements which are 
 going on from a somewhat different angle. 
 
 It is my fervent desire and will be my earnest aim to justify the 
 decision of your committee. If I shall fail to do so, it will be com- 
 petent for any one of you, at any time, to require me to show cause 
 why I should be allowed to proceed further. 
 
 In the invitation which came to me all unexpectedly, the subject 
 suggested was "The Relation of the Lawyer to the Public." Advised at 
 the same time, however, that this was only a suggestion, it seems better 
 to limit what I shall have to say to what we may regard as a particular 
 phase of it, and this even at some risk of only heightening the contrast 
 between preaching and practice. As bearing, then, upon the general 
 subject of the relation of the lawyer to the people, I purpose to speak 
 particularly of "Leadership — the Real Need of the Times." 
 
 If it shall appear that my special aim is to bring home this need to 
 you lawyers, it is only because through your courtesy I am speaking 
 to you today, and not because I think it applies more especially to you 
 than to the members of the other learned profession, or than to all 
 good men and true in every walk and calling in life. The fact is, we 
 are all bound together in relationships and responsibilities which no 
 differences or specializations can obliterate or destroy. The duty owed
 
 Relationship of Lawyer to People 
 
 to society at large is a duty common to all members of society. We 
 only differ in the ways and means through which that duty is fulfilled 
 and discharged. 
 
 It is one of the complace of history, I take it, that every age is 
 apt to regard itself as a critical time — an age of transition. We have 
 all of us lived long enough to have heard this claim for our own time 
 made over and over again, and looking far back beyond our own times 
 to those we used to read about when we were studying the old classics, 
 1 doubt not many will recall the old familiar words, "Tempora mutan- 
 tur et mutamur in illis" The fact is, this description of the times was 
 true in the long ago, has been true ever since; is true now and will 
 continue to be true with an ever growing and expanding meaning just 
 because our knowledge of the truth is always growing and expanding. 
 But however we may compare or contrast the time in which we are 
 living with other times, every thinking man is bound to acknowledge 
 that the changes now going on around us are different in quality if not 
 in quantity from those which any other times, at least within our ex- 
 perience, have witnessed. There is a widespread unrest. There is a 
 constantly growing demand for change. There is an over-abundance 
 of criticism everywhere involving pretty much everybody and every- 
 thing. In short, it would seem as though society generally were under- 
 taking the task of looking itself over, making careful examination of 
 the very foundations, taking stock of the materials which have entered 
 into its upbuilding; questioning all its old practice, customs, methods 
 and motives, and all this as though it were getting ready to undertake 
 a reconstruction. 
 
 Try as we may to quiet our fears with the reflection that this sort 
 of thing has always been going on, or at least has happened over and 
 over again, we cannot altogether get away from the fact that while this 
 is so, it is so now with a difference. 
 
 Two of our leading professions, yours and mine, if I may venture 
 to class them together, are being forced to trial. So far as the Min- 
 istry is concerned the indictment charges that it is very much out of 
 touch with the life of the present day, and while I, as a humble repre- 
 sentative of it, am not willing to plead guilty, I am bound to realize 
 that there is a lot of evidence to be overcome. And as for the charge 
 against the lawyers — well, perhaps it has been expressed rather suc- 
 cintly, not to say wittily, in the saying, "Society always was preju- 
 diced against the lawyers, and now finds its prejudice justified." 
 
 The ground of this prejudice, if I mistake not, is generally found in 
 the ultra-conservatism which is supposed to characterize the legal pro- 
 fession. Lawyers, as a class, it is said, are so tied down by precedents, 
 and bound tight by technicalities, that they cannot get themselves free 
 and advance with the times. This is the real secret of that "deadening 
 influence" spoken of by the learned author of the "Contrast Between 
 Lawyers and Physicians," from which I quoted in beginning, whose
 
 Rt. Rev. Frederick W. Keator 
 
 sure cure he would find in sending every young lawyer to a good phy- 
 sician, to the end that in his presence and through the power of his 
 example, he might learn to look forward, by forgetting to look back- 
 ward. For in his opinion lawyers and physicians really face in oppo- 
 site directions, and while the one profession is constantly advancing, 
 nay more is leading the advance, the other is so constantly holding 
 back that "the inertia becomes almost our despair." Indeed, so marked 
 has the contrast become that he can only express it by saying that, "Of 
 two Rip Van Winkles awakening today, the physician would find his 
 old methods as rust-eaten and useless as his instruments; the lawyer 
 after a few hours with new statutes would feel at home in any of our 
 courts." 
 
 Personally, I have no doubt but that there is another side to all 
 this, as many of you lawyers could tell out of your own experience with 
 this same medical profession — experience gained not only in their of- 
 fices or surgeries, but in many a courtroom where you have seen them 
 and known them as expert witnesses; and I recall, too, that something 
 like the millenium will come only when according to Dr. Oliver Wen- 
 dell Holmes, "Doctors shall give what they would take," as well as 
 "Lawyers take what they would give." 
 
 But to come back to the subject of conservatism, especially in its 
 bearing upon the changes which the times are demanding — out of which 
 springs and grows the prejudice against lawyers — it is certainly worth 
 while to insist that if it has a bad side, it has also a good side, and to 
 insist further that the real need of the times is so to correct and im- 
 prove the one as not to maim or destroy the other. The whole history 
 of society, it has been truly said, has been the history of (he struggle 
 for law, the establishment of those relationships in which men, both 
 individually and collectively, might live their lives and carry on their 
 work, protecting and insuring their best interests, both private and 
 public. For as one has well stated it, "the law is simply that part of 
 the established thought of men which has been accorded general ac- 
 ceptance, backed and sanctioned by the authority of a regularly con- 
 stituted government." It is therefore obvious that the conservative 
 habit is natural to the law and to whomsoever and whatsoever has to 
 do with the law. It is based upon experience which is always in the 
 past, and in the very nature of things the lawyer cannot rush after 
 and take up with every new discovery of natural science which is the 
 basis of the boasted leadership and progressiveness of the men of the 
 medical profession. 
 
 Even the learned author of the "Contrast," to which reference has 
 been made, appreciates this marked difference between the two pro- 
 fessions in this regard, for he admits that "the conservatism of the 
 lawyer comes in part from the contagion of the law. For the law 
 represents the stability, the habit of our social life, as against creative, 
 reformatory energy. We must not deny the value of this trait. His
 
 Relationship of Lawyer to People 
 
 is the virtue — and the vice — that lies in habit. Here, as with each of 
 us personally, habit is indispensable even though It calls forth no en- 
 thusiasm. Though it does not drive us forward and too often binds, yet 
 we should not advance without it, for the gain once made would slip 
 away." It is not the conservatism of the law or the lawyer, per se, 
 which is at fault. If wrong comes from it, it can only be because the 
 conservative habit is pushed too far, or is used for wrong ends. 
 
 In spite of all the prejudice against the profession, the people of 
 this nation at least should not forget, indeed they should never be 
 allowed to forget, the debt which the American people owe to American 
 lawyers. It was they who founded this nation, and in large part it is 
 they who have governed and guided it. For the first hundred years of 
 our national history, so great was the predominance of lawyers in the 
 control of political affairs that it has been aptly called "unprecedented," 
 since "no other great people either in classic, medieval or modern 
 times has ever allowed such a professional monopoly of governmental 
 functions." 
 
 The explanation of it seems clear enough. It was because this 
 nation was founded upon law, and from the first was destined to be a 
 government by law. Because its political status was imbedded in a 
 written constitution, every question of policy sooner or later became a 
 question of law. It has been said that up to the time of the Civil War 
 "the very platform of political parties centered on questions of legal 
 interpretation" and lawyers became of very necessity the guiding states- 
 men. Furthermore, "the importance of lawyers as legislators and ex- 
 ecutives in the actual work of American government has been an in- 
 direct consequence of the peculiar function of the Supreme Court in 
 the American political system." As one reads the earlier history of 
 this nation and recalls the great names, so closely identified with the 
 establishing of great principles and with the shaping of great policies, 
 he cannot help exclaiming, "there were giants in those days!" 
 
 But, on the other hand, when we review the entire history of this 
 nation down to our own times, may we not, nay, must we not dis- 
 tinguish different periods or stages in that history? Classing as one 
 period the time down to the Civil War, we may call it the political 
 period. During that period the nation was, as it were, finding itself, 
 and the characteristic of it was government by law, which really meant 
 by lawyers, since they were foremost in shaping and guiding its poli- 
 cies. It was well that it should have been so, for no other system or 
 method could have been better suited to this country of ours, as we 
 know it and love it, in its young and formative years. And because 
 the foundations were fixed so deep and strong, and the beginning of its 
 walls so well and truly laid, we may indulge the hope that future gen- 
 erations shall long continue to share the blessings and the benefits of 
 it all. 
 
 Aftpr thp Civil War we entered upon a new period which may be
 
 Rt. Rev. Frederick W. Keator 
 
 called the economic period. Instead of questions of government, ques- 
 tions of business came to the front. The vast domain of the country 
 began to be opened up for settlement, and us vast natural resource* 
 began to be opened up for exploitation and development. All these 
 lines of development, ever extending and widening, soon began to be 
 so crossed and interlaced, that in fact a new nation was created and 
 came into being. With all the changes which followed in the train 
 none were more marked or more significant than those which affected 
 the individual. The individual was no longer equal to the task of deal- 
 ing with the mighty forces at play, the vast opportunities constantly 
 opening up, and so there came to pass the combination of individuals 
 into the corporation, created by law and endowed with all the powers 
 and privileges of an individual, and in addition with some which the 
 individual did not possess, e. g.. a certain perpetuity of existence and 
 power. 
 
 Through all these changes the constant effort was to make the old 
 law fit the new facts and conditions, an effort which while oftentimes 
 clever enough apparently was not altogether satisfactory, at least to 
 the people as a whole who sometimes felt, and I think we must in al! 
 fairness say justly felt, that somehow the advantage was all in favor 
 of the few and against the many. 
 
 But even this combination of individuals into corporations was not 
 sufficient to meet the growing needs of "big business," and so we began 
 to witness the further combination of corporations — and the trust was 
 the new creation. This in its turn was under the form of law, but just 
 as this combination was greater and mightier, so the problem of making 
 the law square with the new facts and conditions were more complex 
 and vastly more difficult even if they developed in those who came to 
 be known as the "corporation lawyers," the wit and the skill to tread 
 the mazes of all the complexity, and find the way out of all the dif- 
 ficulties. 
 
 All this is familiar enough to be commonplace, but I ask you to 
 bear patiently with me a little longer on this point, as I endeavor to 
 discover the effect of all this on the legal profession, as seen by the 
 people at least, if not realized by the profession itself. 
 
 Would it be putting it too strongly, if I make bold to say that this 
 effect may be expressed shortly in this wise — that the law has ceased 
 to be a profession — and has become a business? Perhaps my own ex- 
 perience is utterly insufficient, not tc say irrelevant and immaterial, as 
 evidence on this point, yet I cannot but recall the strange disillusion- 
 ment which came over me when after a careful and painstaking course 
 of study in the law, pursued with abundant diligence and increasing 
 admiration, I entered upon the practice of what I confidently believed 
 would be my life profession, only to find that it was not a profession 
 at all, but only a business, and a pretty poor one at that. And my per- 
 plexity was not lessened, when one who had had sufficient experience
 
 Relationship of Lawyer to People 
 
 to have taken him quite beyond the drudgery which pertains to the 
 mere novice, said to me in tones which expressed his very soul: "Yes, 
 the law is a beautiful theory — but it's a poor practice." 
 
 Whether any of you have had a like experience, I know not; and 
 whether our individual experience would prove it or not, of this I 
 am persuaded, that the people generally have taken judicial notice of 
 the fact, that lawyers no longer practice law in the general interests 
 of society, as guardians of the public peace, protectors of the rights 
 and liberties of the people, and guides for the general good. Rather 
 they see them as promoters of strife, defenders of special privileges, 
 and counselors for private interests. Whether we like it or not, I 
 venture to say that if the question were put up to the people generally, 
 "Who is the most distrusted man in society today?" the great major- 
 ity of the answers would be "the corporation lawyer," and this just 
 because they regard him as in league with interests which they, rightly 
 or wrongly, regard as opposed to their interests, and as wholly given 
 over to selfish aims and methods, no matter what his private character 
 may be. 
 
 In an address before the American Bar Association some two or 
 three years since, Woodrow Wilson, now president of the United States, 
 said of the effect of the modern business system on the legal profes- 
 sion: "A new type of lawyer has been created, for he nas been sucked 
 into the maelstrom of the new business system. He no longer prac- 
 tices law, nor handles the general interests of society. He is now a 
 specialist. So society has lost something very serious to lose in an 
 age when society depends more than ever on the lawyers, and on the 
 courts, for harmony and co-ordination of its parts. In being drawn 
 into business, instead of standing outside of it, in becoming identified 
 with particular interests, instead of advising all interests, the lawyer 
 is looked at askance, and is no longer regarded as a mediator of 
 progress. Society always was prejudiced against them and is now find- 
 ing its prejudice justified." And there you are! 
 
 It is not my purpose to indulge in a discussion of modern business, 
 its methods and its results. I would not consider myself competent to 
 do so, even had I the inclination. What I desire to discuss next is the 
 new era upon whose threshold we are already standing, which may be 
 called the "social era." 
 
 There is no use in trying to disguise the fact, and still more is it 
 useless to raise the cries of "Stand pat," "Let well enough alone," "We 
 don't need any more law, but simply to enforce what we already have." 
 A new and mighty movement has already begun, and we have only to 
 listen to hear its rustlings. We see it in its beginnings; no man knows 
 how long it shall continue or how far it shall go. Its unquestioned 
 aim is the reconstruction of society. 
 
 Concerning its present temper, one has summed it all up in these 
 •vnrfin, "There are certain things we must do. Our life as a nation
 
 Rt. Rev. Frederick W. Keator 
 
 must be rectified in certain all-important particulars. If there be no 
 law for the change it must be found or made. We will not be argued 
 into impotency by lawyers. We are not interested in the structure of 
 our government so much as in the exigencies of our life. Life does 
 not center now upon questions of governmental structure, but upon 
 economic questions, upon questions of the very structure and operation 
 of society, of which government is only the instrument." 
 
 If we want to know whether this summary is true to the facts, all 
 we have to do is to notice and to read the many strong books which are 
 being issued nowadays, and which many people are reading and pon- 
 dering over. It is no longer merely a matter of the muck-raking maga- 
 zine, or the yellow journal. The concluding phrase of this summing 
 up which speaks of government as the instrument of society, is one 
 which should appeal to us as full of hope and encouragement. For one, 
 I am optimistic enough to believe that this new movement is one which 
 is based upon the love of law, and is prompted by a real desire to 
 bring about its reforms in an orderly, peaceful and righteous manner. 
 The majesty of the law has not lost its hold upon the reverence and 
 regard of the people. All they are asking so far is that the law shall 
 be so formulated and administered that it may continue to hold their 
 respect. They do not ask that anything shall be torn down which has 
 been built up at such cost, but that enough of it shall be so changed 
 and altered that the law may be able to reach the individual and re- 
 habilitate him, by restoring him to his inalienable right — the right to 
 live his life up to the best of which he is capable. And what is this 
 but the establishment of justice in its best and truest meaning? 
 
 And this brings me in conclusion to what I hold to be the great 
 opportunity of the legal profession, and of lawyers individually, in 
 the present crisis, which is to reclaim and regain their old leadership. 
 Gradually, but none the less certainly, the interest of the people in 
 those things which concern the deepest interests of their social welfare 
 is being aroused, and more and greater are the demands which are 
 made for the developing or the safeguarding of those interests. In all 
 these, many and great are the problems which are being forced to the 
 front. Never was there greater need for safe and yet sympathetic 
 guides, such as well learned and well trained lawyers might be; lawyers 
 who are statesmen, not in the old political sense, as interested chiefly 
 in the structure of government, but statesmen in the new social sense; 
 men who are able to think in terms of society, and to mediate between 
 the manifold and various interests; men who are devoted to the cause 
 of justice, and take seriously their calling as officers of justice; men 
 capable of accommodating right to right, but who are also capable of 
 making and keeping the law clear regarding the responsibilities which 
 inevitably go along with every right and every privilege. 
 
 Some guides the people must have or they are simply going to 
 stumble blindly on trying first one experiment and then another. Re-
 
 Relationship of Lawyer to People 
 
 forms to be safe and permanent must be legal reforms. Nothing is ever 
 settled until it is settled right — and right in this nation means in ac- 
 cordance with law, which in its turn is based upon and has grown 
 out of the experience of the past, and also conserves all that is best 
 and most sacred in our history. 
 
 Perhaps it is just here there lies the trouble with much of our 
 present reform legislation which few, I take it, regard as satisfactory. 
 It is not enough to write a new law on the statute book. If it is really 
 to accomplish anything permanent it must be based upon something 
 more durable than a sudden passion or a passing whim or fad. For 
 the law is always only a means to an end, and not the end itself. Like 
 the government, it is only an instrument for tne well-being of society, 
 which will only be really and permanently effective when wisely and 
 conscientiously used. 
 
 There is, then, a real demand, as well as a pressing need, for the 
 return of lawyers to the former prestige of leadership, with the added 
 knowledge and experience which their association with the methods 
 and policies of business in recent years has afforded them. The very 
 fact that they have gained this knowledge and experience by direct 
 association with business, will make them the more capable of correct- 
 ing the wrongs and abuses which have gradually grown up with and 
 out of modern business conditions. In that event the very thing which 
 has brought them into discredit with the people, will be the means of 
 restoring them to a position of honor and confidence among the people. 
 Gentlemen of the Bar Association! If in demonstrating the fact 
 that leadership is the supreme duty of the hour, I have emphasized 
 that duty as belonging chiefly to you, it is not, as I said in beginning, 
 it is not because I think it belongs only to you. All who share in the 
 privileges of society must share also the duties and responsibilities 
 which go with these privileges. The duty of leadership in the time 
 in which we are living seems to rest chiefly and most naturally upon 
 you, for the questions and problems of the time are so intimately 
 bound up with the right establishment and right administration of 
 the law. But a like duty rests upon men of learning, men of culture, 
 men of special training in all the professions and callings of life. It 
 is the old principle of noblesse oblige come to life again. Every ad- 
 vantage gained by training, every ability gained by learning, must be 
 used not for selfish good, but for the good of all. 
 
 These are times which call for intelligent interest, unselfish sym- 
 pathy and withal resolute courage — the courage born of optimism — 
 not of the silly sort which refuses to believe a thing even when it's 
 there, but the kind which bravely faces the facts and then sets itself 
 to deal with the facts. 
 
 We all know there are forces even now at work which are avowedly 
 subversive of all law — even to the extent of pulling down the old flag 
 all radiant with the glory of victory after many a hard-fought battle,
 
 Rt. Rev. Frederick W. Keator 
 
 of peace after strife, and of brotherhood after alienation and estrange- 
 ment — running up in its stead the red banner of anarchy and hatred. 
 Even these forces must be recognized and dealt with, not with vio- 
 lence, but by pointing out and leading in a better way. 
 
 Still further we need to face the fact of a general unrest, and with 
 patient and intelligent interest endeavor to discover the causes, to the 
 end that the causes may be removed. 
 
 If the new era which is already upon us is demanding a reconstruc- 
 tion, it is possible to hear and heed the demand in such wise that it 
 shall be indeed a real reconstruction and not a revolution. But if such 
 it is to be, it will be because good temper, intelligent interest, sober 
 counsel, and earnest co-operation of all true and trained men shall 
 unite to furnish the strong leadership which the solution of our prob- 
 lem and the advancement of our manifest destiny require. 
 
 A poem of James Russell Lowell, called "The Present Crisis," bears 
 the date 1844. Many of the lines are still suited to the present crisis 
 which is upon us in this year of grace, 1913. Let me sum up the 
 message which this address is meant to bring to you in the concluding 
 verses: 
 
 "New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
 They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; 
 Lo, before us gleams her campfires! We ourselves must Pilgrims be, 
 Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate win- 
 ter sea, 
 Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key."
 
 G a yt< 
 
 fay lord = 
 
 .PAMPHLET BINDER , 
 
 ^Z Syrocute, N. Y. 
 ' Stockton, Calif. I 
 
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