Communications
MORALITY AND THE LAW New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—^Your editorial of March 30, indicating an indifference to the efforts of the legal profession to raise the standards of admission to the bar;...
...The breakdown of either means but one thing—war...
...But, thanks to the work of men like Mendel, Virchow, Koch, Ehrlich, Pasteur, the type is all but extinct...
...Byrnes believe for a moment that if the Sixtyfifth Congress had been made up of men like Franklin, Rush, Jefferson, Marshall, Hamilton, Roosevelt, Farrand, Hadley and Butler, the Constitution of the United States could have been stultified by such an undemocratic and unworkable affront to minority opinion and resentment as the Eighteenth Amendment...
...ALICE WARREN...
...Shriver points to the prevalence of perjury and believes that the performance of so small a commission as the administration of a notarial oath requires men...
...Sanborn points to the failure of character and believes that in every department of the administration of justice, every detail requires men—real men...
...Now, all that we of the American Bar ask is that we shall have the encouragement and help of periodicals of the character of The Commonweal and men of the calibre of its distinguished editor in our all-too-obstructed efforts to elevate the practice of a profession that is surpassed only by the ministry and medicine in public importance...
...Theoretically, ours is a government of laws—not men...
...It has been restated on every page of every history and on nearly every stone and scroll that has ever been unearthed...
...TO the Editor:—^As your valued periodical has either editorially or as a news item covered nearly every phase of a public question, it occurred to me that perhaps it would prove of interest to revive the question of a contributory old-age pension for deserving men and women, especially fathers and mothers whose sacrifices are worthy of recognition in a substantial manner without their becoming a burden to the community, or dependent on charity...
...Why, the glory of our priesthood is its character...
...while commercial activities of an extensive character could arrange to provide for an amount equal to that contributed by employees, who could participate in its use at an advanced age, or because of infirmities and protracted illness, which would lessen the burden of the state and local charity...
...A SUGGESTION Washington, D. C. TO the Editor:—May I make a little suggestion...
...The third session took up business ethics, the non-union Mitten Plan and labor unionism...
...The idea isn't new...
...To date, the best method of determining professional fitness is by probation and examination, and this applies to all professions, without distinction...
...The sum could be provided in any manner agreed upon by our legislative body, or by an increased poll tax, or poll tax for women...
...THE HARRISBURG CONFERENCE Washington, D. C. TO the Editor:—^Your conunent on the Harrisburg regional Conference on Industrial Problems was hardly accurate...
...The second session divided time between a plan of non-union profit-sharing and the relation of the industrial revolution to family life...
...Take it from one who is secretary of the organization and who at the same time is a convinced believer in the bishops' program and the section on industrial relations in the pastoral letter, and who has been present at every meeting of the Conference on Industrial Problems, that you are wrong in making this statement...
...Now, either the law is a learned profession or ft is not...
...We ask for public support in applying to the law the same tests of character and learning that are applied to the other learned professions...
...learned men...
...No thoughtful lawyer will find it easy to agree with you or to disagree with the secretary of the Counsel of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association...
...The first session gave over most of its time to a consideration of how common labor can best be benefited...
...If it is not, then your editorial will do...
...trained men...
...Now that Mr...
...and the contribution of Mr...
...I sat through all the sessions...
...Charles J. Byrnes, in the same issue, referring to state rights and the Eighteenth Amendment, are all interrelated and pertinent to the larger subject of good government...
...REV...
...JOHN M. GIBBONS...
...Nor are you accurate when you say that opposition to the accepted teachings, let us say, of the bishops' program and the pastoral letter is "never heard from at these conferences...
...One almost wishes that her words might be put in pamphlet form, and handed to the passerby...
...Life is a struggle with the forces of nature in the pursuit of happiness—temporal and eternal...
...Sanborn was not by any means the only member of the bar who was shocked to find The Commonweal subscribing editorially to the defunct "Lincoln argument" in favor of low standards of admission to the practice of law...
...The fourth session was a symposium on labor problems...
...The science of justice is the science of government...
...This could only have been written by a person who has not attended a single meeting of the Catholic Conference on Industrial Problems...
...WILLIAM H. BASTION...
...Time has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the best methods of applying such tests are, as stated, by probation and examination—in schools, academies, and colleges conducted only on the highest plane in support of the highest ideals...
...John B. Sanborn, reflecting on the editorial...
...Marshall's letter in the Atlantic Monthly has brought to the fore the point of the civic loyalty of Catholics, we might do well to read over again Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (Difficulties of Anglicans, volume two) wherein the question is handled by a master...
...Except for those already enjoying the privilege of a pension or award from a private enterprise, city, state, or nation, provision could be made by each state to provide from its surplus for the care of the aged, where the law compelling children to contribute a specified sum for support of parents is not in effect, under a commission that would investigate circumstances, to establish the residence in the state for a specified period of the beneficiaries...
...Does Mr...
...but the administration of laws depends upon men—not government...
...EDWIN RYAN...
...THE BATTLE IN GOTHAM Washington, D. C. TO the Editor:—Indeed it is not my intention to "instruct Catholic Americans," as your Los Altos correspondent suggests...
...Broadly, the science of law is the science of justice...
...Indeed it could have been written only by a person who has never read the prepared speeches in the printed proceedings of the conference...
...Why, most of the old medicine men were mere charlatans —ignorant exponents of a claptrap, comparable almost with witchcraft...
...Is the editor of The Commonweal to be numbered among those who would argue for "the old-fashioned family doctor" as against the modem medical scientist, on the ground of either character or learning...
...OLD-AGE PENSIONS Somerville, Mass...
...Conceding that The Commonweal is quite correct in its general implication that character is to be found among those in every walk of life, it remains a fact that it must be found...
...Well, if he does, he is woefully uninformed about the methods that were employed in "putting it over" and the lack of professional character and learning of those who succumbed to the pressure of those methods...
...WILLIAM FRANKLIN SANDS...
...This would, in my opinion, exemplify charity in its truest sense and prove beyond question that the heart of the American people, despite the criticism of other nations, is in keeping with the teachings of Divine Providence, on which fundamentally rests the Constitution of the United States...
...It applies, for example, and especially, to the ministry, to medicine, to engineering, to the army and to the navy—then why not to the law...
...The fifth session was given over to addresses on the relation of the government and the Constitution to industrial rights and duties, the place of the Catholic Church in industrial life, and an account of methods to harmonize the interests of capital and labor...
...The time for the legal charlatan to join the medical charlatan is at hand, and those of us who are familiar with the conditions that prevail in the courts and elsewhere in the law, and who deplore those conditions, are of one mind—to the effect that the remedy must begin with the upbuilding of the character and learning of the individual members of the legal profession...
...trained men, learned men—men competent to lead in the unceasing struggle for justice—in the peaceful war to end war...
...The Prevalence of Perjury, by Mr...
...Mark O. Shriver, in your issue of April 6; the communication of Mr...
...Indeed, litigation itself is often referred to as a form of peaceful warfare, though I suspect that it is not always as peaceful as the analogy would imply...
...If it is, then we need men—real men...
...R. A. MCGOWAN...
...This commission would be part of an already recognized institution of the state, similar in character to a board of public welfare...
...Even Loyola put character and learning before mere ability, though he required all three as a prerequisite to membership in "The Company" from the very beginning...
...THANKS TO MISS ANGLIN New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—The readers of The Commonweal owe a special debt of gratitude to Miss Anglin for her intelligent remarks concerning the stage, and the many controversies regarding it—for what she said, quoting from the Germans, "had hands and feet...
...The sphere of the battle is immaterial—the requirdnent is men...
...I am calling attention, rather, to a group of people who, with the Heflins, etc., make life a little hard for American Catholics: whose sour pugnacity and whose use of religion as a vehicle for political advancement create Heflins and make their existence natural and reasonable...
...Most of the attention was not given to labor unions...
Vol. 6 • May 1927 • No. 1
