120 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



the members of the bar of this court, are assembled to pay tribute 

 to his memory, and all of us here assembled, as well as other mem- 

 bers of the bar of this court from all sections of the country, those 

 who have taken part in the great contests before it on the one side 

 or the other, those whose interests or the interests of whose clients 

 have been affected by its judgments, with one accord declare and 

 bear testimony that he discharged the great duties of his position 

 with becoming dignity, uniform courtesy, with signal ability and 

 unquestioned fidelity and integrity; discharged these duties in such 

 manner as to reflect great credit not only upon himself but upon 

 the court and the Nation at large. Speaking for myself and, in some 

 measure, for the bar of the State of West Virginia, I am here to 

 unite with the other members in paying this just tribute to the mem- 

 ory of the late Chief Justice; and, having said this, there seems to 

 be nothing more to say. I know of no way to pay greater honor to 

 the memory of any man. 



" Chief Justice Fuller met the responsibilities arising out of the 

 great questions presented to this court in his day, and this is all 

 that can be said of his predecessors in this great office. Marshall 

 exercised a great influence in deciding the questions that arose dur- 

 ing the constructive period of our Government. The} r were far- 

 reaching questions, and the influence of his decisions is felt in the 

 administration of the Government to this day. Chief Justice Taney, 

 his successor, was confronted with the burning questions that arose 

 in the great controversies preceding and during our terrible Civil 

 War. Chase and Waite dealt with the important questions which 

 arose out of the war — the reconstruction period, requiring the read- 

 justment of many things which had been considered settled; the 

 readjustment of the relations between the two sections which had been 

 at war with each other, and the interpretation of the amendments 

 to the Constitution which grew out of the war. And Chief Justice 

 Fuller has been obliged to grapple with the great questions arising 

 out of the stupendous industrial development which has taken place 

 in the last quarter of a century — questions of interstate commerce 

 and transportation, questions of great trusts and combinations of 

 capital, questions of the mutual rights of capital and labor, questions 

 relating to the regulation of railroads, besides the perplexing ques- 

 tions arising out of the development of this Nation into a world 

 power since the Spanish War, involving our relations to our colonies 

 acquired by reason of that war. No one can say that these questions 

 are of any less importance than those which arose in any former 

 period of the Government. He and his associates on this bench have 

 met and disposed of many of these questions as they have arisen in 

 such manner as to command the respect of the whole country and 



