have printed in pamphlet form the address of Judge Stafford, in view of the fact that his address was upon a subject which seems to be so vital at the present moment here in America. In order to bring that before the Assembly, I move, Mr. President, that the transcript of the stenographer's notes of Judge Stafford's address be printed in pamphlet form and distributed to the members of the Association at the expense of the Association. Motion seconded and carried. SMITH W. BENNETT, of Columbus:-I now move that we recess to meet again at Dayton at a time to be fixed by the Executive Committee, during the holiday period. Motion seconded and carried. THE PRESIDENT:-It is so ordered. ADDRESS OF MR. E. N. BROWN, PRESIDENT OF THE OHIO STATE BAR ASSOCIATION AT CEDAR POINT, JULY 8, 1919. May I be permitted, at the very outset of my remarks, to formally express my profound appreciation of the honor which this Association conferred upon me a year ago in selecting me as its President. To be deemed worthy to become a successor to that long line of distinguished lawyers, commencing with a Ranney and ending with a Shauck, is a privilege which can, of necessity, be granted but to few men and I should be deeply lacking in sensibility if I did not recognize the distinction shown me. Your President, upon assuming his office, had high aspirations as to what might be accomplished by the Association during the year and it is with pleasure that he can now say that part, at least, of such aspirations, have been successfully realized. The scandal of the duplication, through private enterprise, of reports of decisions of the Court of Appeals, has been stopped, or at least will cease as soon as the old copy now in the hands of the publishers is exhausted, and there will be, in the future, but one set of reports of decisions of this Court, published under the authority of the State Reporter and known as "Ohio Appellate Reports." This is the happy ending of four years work on the part of the Association and its successful culmination should be gratifying not only to the Association, but to the entire bar of the State. Through the efforts of your legislative committee a "non-par value stock corporation" law was enacted by the present legislature, thereby placing this State in line with the eastern States. This committee also succeeded in having an amendment to Sec. 10697 of the General Code enacted so that an executor or administrator in order to make distribution, may sell securities. Your most efficient Treasurer, who ever since his election, has been untiring in his efforts to advance the interests of our Association, has, in his spare moments, compiled a substantially complete list of the acts passed by the legislature which have become laws and, as I learn, this list will be distributed to the members at this meeting. Several other acts, either original or amendatory, of great interest and advantage to our profession and the people generally, have been introduced and, after passage by one or other of the houses of the Legislature, have, either through negligence or adverse influence, been pigeon-holed in committee. These facts, and the personal experience of your President with the Legislature, and parenthetically, may I say, I have spent much more time than I could afford in trying to get these bills enacted into laws, have demonstrated to your President the advisability and almost the necessity, of the Association having a qualified representative in attendance in Columbus during the times when the State is afflicted by the sessions of the legislature. Our brethren of the medical profession are constantly represented by their Board of Medical Examiners, with a permanent secretary in the State House; the banking, building and loan, and labor interests, as well as others, all have their representatives on the ground and are in constant touch with the law making power and yet the bar, called upon constantly by clients to advise and counsel them, are confronted almost daily by illy conceived, carelessly prepared and hastily enacted laws affecting all citizens of the State, some of which are, to say the least, almost nonunderstandable. A pertinent illustration of such legislation will be found in the Mechanics Lien Law of Ohio, which, forced through the legislature a few years ago by the lumber and material men's interests, is so befogged by unnecessary verbiage, so full of contradictions and inconsistencies, that even the ablest of lawyers, familiar though he may be with building and lien laws, is scarcely able to construe it or to prepare a contract which will protect his client, whether he be owner, contractor, or material man, against litigation or loss. Our eleven volumes of Statutes are full of such carelessly drawn laws; some of them are entirely obsolete; of laws that might have been, and probably were desirable and effective in the ancient days of stage-coach and canal-boat, but |