3o8 JOSEPH W. FOLK 



affairs, regardless of private interests. The wave of com- 

 mercialism has affected the legal profession along with other 

 callings ; and would it now be safe to permit the upper thousand 

 American lawyers to dictate the policies of state? Some of the 

 most brilliant minds in the profession are in the employ of 

 interests antagonistic to the welfare of the people. Legiti- 

 mate combinations of capital are perhaps a necessary incident 

 of advanced civilization, and to these I do not refer, but to the 

 pirates of the business seas that prey on the people, under the 

 guise of corporate charters, in defiance of laws. Lawful cor- 

 porations are beneficial to a community, but associations con- 

 ceived in corruption and bom in bribery are inimical to the 

 public good. Legitimate combinations are entitled to fair 

 treatment the same as individuals — to equal and exact justice, 

 no more, no less — but if a corporation can not operate without 

 bribery or surreptitious violations of law, it were better for the 

 people that it be wiped out of existence. In the early days 

 the lawyer sold his learning alone and retained his individuality ; 

 and be it said to the credit of the profession, that is the rule 

 now. But many eminent attorneys of highest attainments 

 dispose of not only their talents, but their freedom of thought 

 and action. Instead of these being the bulwarks of liberty 

 and the enforcers of laws, they are chiefly engaged in devising 

 means and schemes for evading the laws; they are the advisers 

 of the Captain Kidds of commerce in avoiding the consequences 

 of laws intended to suppress them. It is no part of a lawyer's 

 business to advise his client how to commit crime nor to be- 

 come a partner in iniquity. The lawyer who does so ceases to 

 act as such and becomes a co-conspirator. There is no sanctity 

 in such relation, and it lacks every essential professional ele- 

 ment. If this were not the exception rather than the rule, it 

 would account for the fact that lawyers seem to have lost their 

 proud position of old as mentors of the public conscience. 

 Business is a good thing, honors are better still, but patriotism 

 excels them all, and without patriotism one is unworthy to be a 

 member of the legal profession. He is a minister of the law 

 that emanates from city, state, and nation, and can no more 

 practice law in the true spirit without patriotism, than can a 



