to lead the Legislature out of the labyrinth into which it has inadvertently strayed.

Some years ago a law was enacted limiting the appellate jurisdiction of the supreme court to cases involving a money value of more than three hundred dollars. It did not meet with general approval and was repealed. It is conceded on all hands that the time of the supreme court should not be occupied with petty controversies, but it is doubtful if any limitation of its jurisdiction based on a money value will prove satisfactory. It not infrequently happens that the amount in controversy bears a very small ratio to the importance of the principle involved, or to the importance of matters depending on the outcome of the controversy. I suggest for your consideratioin a provision excluding from the supreme court all civil cases which originated in a magistrate's court. They are usually insignificant from a financial point of view, and inconsequential in every way. Furthermore, they are twice reviewable before they can. reach the supreme court, whereas the far more important controversies originating in the common pleas court are reviewable only one before reaching the supreme court. It seems anomalous to review petty cases three times and important ones but twice.

Speaking of anomalies suggests another matter which seems worthy of consideration. It is the fact that we have an even instead of an odd number of judges in our supreme court. The advantage urged in favor of an even number is understood to be that the court can thus work in two sections, each consisting of three judges. If in any case the three judges to whom it is submitted agree to affirm the judgment below, that ends the case. If one or more of them vote to reverse the judgment, the case goes to the full court for consideration. Then, if the full court stands equally divided on the question, the judgment below remains undisturbed. On its face the plan appears attractive and feasible. Ordinarily it may perhaps operate without dissatisfaction or serious ill consequences. But, in constructing a judicial system, the extraordinary should be taken into account. Even as respects ordinary cases the wis

dom of the plan is at least open to doubt. The courts are established and maintained by the people and for each one of the people who has a cause to present which is within their jurisdiction. The man who elects to present his case has a right to have it adjudicated by the whole and not by a fraction of the court. Even if half the court, acting by itself, agrees with the court below, a discussion by the full court might develop sound and compelling reasons for an opposite conclusion. The party appealing to the court has a right to that discussion, and to that opposite conclusion if it can be fairly reached. Not only so, the public who are to be guided and governed by the decisions have a right to the best judgment of the whole, or at least of a majority of the court. I confess my ignorance of any very sound reason for affirming a judgment by less than a majority of the court. The reason assigned is the presumption that the lower court was right. This presumption obtains all along the line. Why then be at the expense of three judges in the circuit court? Why not save fifty-four thousand dollars per annum by having two judges in the circuit court, and when they disagree let the judgment of the common pleas stand affirmed? It may be suggested that this would not work in equity cases which are triable in circuit court on the facts. It is enough to say that no such a change is advocated or even desired, and, if it were, there are obvious ways of meeting the difficulty suggested.

Still more may be said against an even number of judges in a court of last resort. If the whole court so constituted considers a case and divides evenly upon it, we get no decision of that court, but only an open declaration of the court's inability to decide the question submitted. But it is said that an even division of the court affirms the judgment below. This, in a proper sense, is not true. It only leaves the judgment below undisturbed, not because the supreme court declares or even believes it to be right, but because the court is unable to say whether it is right or wrong. Even a wrong decision is preferable to uncertainty. But let us go a step farther. Suppose some question of great general interest reaches the

supreme court, and suppose the court shall be evenly divided respecting it, and the judgment below, whether right or wrong, is thereby affirmed. The same question comes up from another circuit wherein an opposite judgment was rendered. The supreme court again stands equally divided and the judgment below is affirmed. We then have the supreme court affirming two opposite judgments on the same question, with no power to right itself by overruling the former decision. The court, with no means of avoiding it, is thus placed in a situation which, to say the least, is unenviable. It is a situation in which the court is not unlikely to find itself in the near future, respecting litigation now pending which is of great interest and importrance to municipalities throughout the state. The legislature recently enacted a statute authorizing common pleas courts to detach, in their discretion, a certain class of real estate from municipal corporations. A large number of actions under the statute were commenced in different portions of the state, and many more are in contemplation. The statute was assailed as unconstitutional by reason of its delegating to the courts a legislative power. One common pleas court sustained the statute. Another, in a different circuit, held it void. The decision sustaining the statute was affirmed in circuit court after much doubt on the part of the judges. The case went to the supreme court which stood evenly divided on the question. thus affirming the judgments below. The court refused a rehearing, which sufficiently indicates that the respective judges are firm in their convictions. If, in the case pending in the other circuit, the judgment of the common pleas court shall be affirmed by the circuit court, and if the case shall proceed to the supreme court, we may reasonably expect that court to again divide evenly, and thereby find itself in the anomalous situation already suggested, of being unable to decide either way, or of deciding both ways, on an important question of public interest. I am not criticizing the court or any member of it for the decision in this or any other matter. I am criticizing the system which makes such a situation possible and sometimes inevitable.

It is only fair to state that what I have said does not apply to the decision of cases originating in the supreme court. In such cases the chief-justice has two votes in the event of an even division, not because he is wiser or more learned than the others, but to prevent the court from being balked by an even division in that class of actions. It is difficult to understood why this rule should obtain in one class of cases and not in others.

But I must not further weary your patience. In this address I have attempted nothing original. I am conscious of having said nothing new. As stated in the outset, it seemed a proper occasion for "taking stock." The results of even a cursory review of the past are gratifying. The Association, by its earnest, intelligent and conservative course, has won the respect and confidence of the people and of all departments of our state government. Each year will bring its quota of important matters for our consideration. The scope of our influence and the effectiveness of our work will continually increase, if our future, like our past, be marked by conservative, unselfish, intelligent devotion to the public welfare. As the general health depends largely upon the medical profession and the religious welfare upon the ministry, so the material and moral welfare of the commonwealth depends, in a large measure, upon the bench and bar. If we realize this fact and properly act in relation to it, this Association will more and more become what it ought to be, one of the great instrumentalities in the uplift of society. Every lawyer, no matter how conspicuous or humble his place in his profession, should be a minister of justice and civic righteousness in his community. And these delightful annual gatherings of the bench and bar, at which each gives to the others the best that is in himself, can not fail to stimulate us all to higher and purer professional life, and hence to greater influence and usefulness in the communities wherein we live and labor.

THE CORPORATION PROBLEM AND THE LAWYER'S

PART IN ITS SOLUTION

ADDRESS BY HON. PETER S. GROSSCUP, OF CHICAGO,

United States Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals, for the Seventh Circuit. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is over twenty years now since I left Ohio. But as your Chairman has said, I still feel that I am an Ohio man. I do not believe that anybody gets quite away either from that honor, or that obligation. If he seeks for a place, particularly if it be a political place, the first thing that is cited against him, the first thing he is suspected of is, that he is an Ohio man.

But I never think of Ohio except as my home. I guess men establish no home in after life that compares in beauty or sanctity, or lastingness of memory, with the home that clusters around his youth. I have traveled this world over, but I have heard no bells, not even the chimes of Westminster, that rang out so sweetly as the three little church bells in my country town; and the old court house bell in that county seat that used to ring out over the farms and over the valleys. It seemed to me, in my youthful idealism, that it called men to justice. I have heard no sound anywhere in all this world, on land or sea, since those days, that had the dignity, that had the solemnity, that stirred the heart as that old bell stirred my heart, and still stirs memories that linger around my heart. (Applause.)

So I come to you as an Ohio man, after all. I come to you with no prepared address. I think I know the value of oral argument too well to prepare an address for lawyers. I know the value of oral argument to the speaker as well as to the hearer; how it concentrates his thought; how it eliminates much that he otherwise would say on paper; how it adapts us to what you may call the atmosphere or environment of the occasion. And so I have determined to come to this audience of lawyers