and men are everywhere uniting their efforts to do those things which must be done some way, but which they find they cannot do alone.

A Brief and Record Exchange

There are from 25,000 to 30,000 cases decided by the appellate courts in the United States every year. In every one of these cases a record and two briefs have to be printed. At a low estimate. these cost on an average $50 in each case, totaling from $1,250,000 to $1,500,000 each year.

These briefs are frequently of great value to any one interested pro or con in the point of law involved. They are frequently the result of the collaboration of the ablest attorneys. They are almost necessary, in connection with the record, in arriving at a true understanding of many decisions. When a lawyer finds an opinion on which he relies as being "on all fours" with a case in which he is engaged, it will often happen that, if he can get the briefs and record, his work will be done, or at least materially lessened. They are as valuable to a lawyer on one side of the case as the other.

While these briefs and records are public records as soon as filed, they cannot be withdrawn, and lawyers cannot inspect them without going to the office of the clerk of the court, except in a few large cities, where those for a single state are collected in a library. While a few extra copies are usually printed, a lawyer would ordinarily find it difficult to obtain even part of the set belonging to the case, especially a few years after the decision. Lawyers will gladly embrace an opportunity to obtain them, either to help them prepare their own briefs, or for the purpose of seeing what other lawyers have been able to find in support of the other side of the question,

if they can do so by direct means, without going to any trouble, and without placing themselves under obligations to others. Often a lawyer would ask a third party for these briefs, when he would not care to let the lawyer who prepared them know that he was availing himself of his labors.

The printing of these briefs and records is spread out among almost all the printers of the country.

What we propose is the organization of a brief and record exchange, in as large a territory as you feel able to organize, by which this printing will be brought into far fewer hands, and which will furnish facilities by which lawyers can obtain, on application, briefs and records in any case for a reasonable time.

For illustration, we will suppose that you are willing to undertake to organize a single county. The first step is to select a printer who is best equipped to do brief and record work, who is liked by the profession, and who will be willing to accede to your demands upon him if you succeed in effecting the organization. Make a contract with him by which, in consideration of your securing for him all the brief and record printing of the members of the exchange, he will agree to pay you ten per cent. on all gross receipts from brief and record printing, and print five extra copies of every order, for the use of the exchange. The agreement should also secure to the printer the right to offer the privileges of the exchange exclusively in the territory covered.

The next step is to approach the members of the profession, offering them the privileges of the exchange for a nominal fee, conditionally on their having all their work of this character done at the office of the printer with whom you have contracted.

The exchange on its part will agree to maintain a central office, where all the briefs and records are to be filed and indexed, and to furnish them to members on application, with the condition that they be returned. It will publish, as occasion requires, a cumulative index of all cases in which briefs and records can be furnished. It will also make endeavors to obtain briefs and records in other cases not furnished by the printer, or gotten out prior to its organization, and to accumulate as rapidly as possible all briefs and records obtainable. It will also keep up an active canvass for members, to the end that the co-operative benefits may be brought to their maximum strength.

If you do not succeed in making a contract with a printer, this need not discourage you. In that case it will be necessary to solicit contracts for doing the printing in the name of the exchange, and you will have no trouble, with so large an amount of printing, to sublet it in such a way as to give you an equal or a greater profit, and eventually a printer will be glad to come to your

terms.

The advantages to you under this plan are greater than they may at first seem, and they may become of the greatest importance. There will be a certain profit in the enterprise, small or large, depending on the territory in which you undertake it. The work of management will be slight, and there are practically no expenses. You will have an extremely valuable working library, more valuable in some respects than any other in existence, right in your office. And your connection with the exchange will connect you and your office with the best in your profession.

But these are not all the possible benefits. It occurs to us, if a number of lawyers in different parts of the country

undertake to carry out this plan, that ultimately it would be possible to get them all together, and by organized effort extend it to cover every state. This would make each separate local exchange of greater value, and it could offer privileges to its members which no lawyer could afford to be without. A central organization could take charge of getting out the cumulative index, and members could soon procure briefs in all the current cases and many other prior

cases.

If you think well of this plan, and undertake it, and will notify us, we will agree to put you into communication with all others throughout the country who are trying the plan.

Adjustment Bureau for Small Debtors

Despite the well-known, though remarkable, changes which have taken place in the relations between debtors and creditors in general during the last. fifty years, that which has taken place. between the larger commercial debtors and their creditors during the last twelve. years actually staggers the belief of the people, otherwise intelligent, who are unfamiliar with the circumstances.

The most significant feature of this change is the discrimination now made between honest and dishonest debtors. Help is extended to the one, while the other is finding it more and more difficult to operate.

The chief agencies for helping the unfortunate debtor of the class named are the General Bankruptcy Act and the Adjustment Bureaus organized in the principal cities to affiliate with the local associations of credit men, while other credit organizations, known as Investigation and Prosecution Bureaus, look after the fraudulent cases.

It should be noted, also, as an encour

aging circumstance, that these improvements in conditions were brought about by the influence of the creditor class, and that this class is still jealous in protecting and extending them.

The one discouraging feature of the situation to the altruist is that the principal motive back of these improved laws and improved methods has not sprung from a higher desire than that of gain. The greatest influence back of the reform has been the desire to save a business-a customer. That there is a man interested in the business, a home dependent upon it, and children whose future may be influenced by its success or failure, or by anything which may happen to the man, is the last thing thought of.

It was the class of creditors made up of the manufacturers, the wholesalers, and the jobbers that stood for the Bankruptcy Act of 1898, and that has shaped its amendments, and the same class which has made possible the work of the Adjustment Bureaus. The class of debtors which it has been designed to benefit is made up principally of the retailers, and such requirements have been made as to amount of liabilities, number of creditors, etc., that but few others have been able to comply with its provisions, where they have not been further deterred by the fees and costs allowed by the Bankruptcy Act, and the Adjustment Bureaus are not interested in any other class.

If, starting from a basis of pure commercialism, so much has been accomplished with such satisfactory results, why is it not possible to start from similar, if not higher, motives, and reach equally extensive and more happy results among a class of men left entirely out of the foregoing calculations?

We refer to the class which, for lack of a better term, we will call the Indi

vidual Debtor, as distinguished from the debtor engaged in business. It is a suitable term, for circumstances have forced him often to live an existence apart from those of his kind. He is of the material which loan sharks feed on, and out of which suicides are made. The Individual Debtor is as necessary to the retailer as the retailer is to the wholesaler. He and those dependent on him are also just as important to the community.

In the case of the big debtor of any class, or the retailer in the commercial world, when their burdens become too heavy to carry longer, they can, under certain conditions, obtain relief in the Bankruptcy Court, or the retailer can appeal to the Adjustment Bureau. If he is merely unfortunate and not dishonest, the Bureau will, as a usual thing, after investigation, arrange a compromise with his creditors. There is little or no trouble about it. The creditors recognize that this man, free from debt, to start in business again, strengthened by his past experience, is worth far more than a derelict on the business sea, and, further, if they do not accept the composition offered, some one creditor, more shrewd or more greedy than the rest, will step in and get it all.

Something of this kind ought to be easier to arrange in the case of the Individual Debtor than in any other case. As a usual thing, all of his creditors are right in the community where he lives. They include a grocery or two, a meat market, a dry goods store, a shoe store, one or more landlords and doctors, and maybe an undertaker.

The debtor, for illustration, is a man of thirty-five or forty-five years of age. He has awakened to the fact that through misfortune, poor judgment, or perhaps dissipation, he is now in debt beyond any very encouraging hope of

squaring himself. He has a wife and small children. He is industrious, and has a trade or abilities which enable him to keep pretty steadily employed. He is honest at heart, but cannot get ahead. Perhaps he has borrowed, to stand off creditors, and involved himself more than ever. He would like above all things to pay every debt he owes, but he realizes that his first debt is to his wife and children. He knows that he can never get anything ahead, for the moment he does creditors will grab it. He is considerably interested in exemption laws and the statute of limitations. If he succeeds in saving anything, the only way for him to give his family the benefit of it is to spend it on them at once, for something, maybe, which they would be better off without, or he must secrete it. To be sure, he could divide up a very small amount among his creditors at the end of each month; but it is so small that he feels sure they will neither appreciate it nor the sacrifice which made it possible. He wishes sometimes that he could get all his debts into one big debt. Then he feels sure that he could wipe it out in time, especially if the creditor was friendly, and allowed him to keep something out for sick and accident and life insurance and a small payment on a home. Recognizing as his most important debt that to his wife and children, what would he not give in effort and sacrifice for a home!

There are many Individual Debtors like this in every community. We do not realize their number or value, for they are inclined to keep out of sight, and they grow more retiring constantly as their debts increase.

What we propose is an Adjustment Bureau to be operated specially for this class. A collection agency will hound them; it will garnishee their pay at ev

ery opportunity, making it cost them three times the amount secured to apply on their debts, on account of court and officers' fees; it will send uniformed collectors to dun them at their work or at their homes, and gaudily lettered automobiles to stand in front of their houses to embarrass them before their neighbors, stirring up in their hearts hatred for their creditors and hatred for the law.

The Adjustment Bureau will, on the contrary, send the right kind of a man to investigate privately. If he finds the debtor is of the right stuff, temperate in his habits, and possessed of a sensible wife, he will talk with them frankly about the situation and explain the Bureau's plans. If the debtor desires to secure the aid of the Bureau he will give its representative a list of all his creditors and a statement of how much he can pay each month.. Armed with this the Bureau will then approach the creditors and arrange the best composition possible, payments to be made in such installments as the debtor can meet.

The Bureau will then enter into an agreement, evidenced by a certificate to be issued to the debtor and his wife, by which the debtor obligates himself to pay a certain amount monthly (such amount as he can spare over and above his reasonable necessities), which the Bureau agrees to apply as follows:

1. Sick, accident, and life insurance premiums; or

2. A savings fund, under rules no more onerous or restrictive than those of savings banks, which fund may be used as a loan fund among certificate holders; or

3. A fuel fund, out of which fuel can be bought at the most advantageous season of the year; or

4. A child's school or college fund; or

5. A funeral fund; or

6. A payment on a lot or home in lieu of rent; AND

7. Balance proportionately to creditors; or a combination of all or any of these features, it being understood that No. 7 is obligatory in every case, while the others are optional.

Under the plan there will be nothing. obligatory on the Bureau in connection with debtor's debts except to apply the payments he makes. Debtor must be left free so far as possible to continue his payments from month to month as he desires. No onerous forfeiture or penalty should be attached to his failure. to continue. The benefits to be derived by him from a continuance can be and should be made so attractive that he will willingly strive to secure them.

If debtor defaults, no one will have lost anything, excepting himself and family. His creditors will at least have secured something, and the Bureau will have received enough to protect it from loss.

Every method should be devised to keep debtor in absolute freedom and to give him a square deal. Men of this character will more often stick, if given independence, and if they know they can withdraw at any time.

A plan should also be included in the nature of an employment bureau, so that members need not long be thrown out of work.

The Bureau's main source of income will be from commissions allowed by creditors. It is possible that a nominal fee should also be charged debtor in the beginning as an earnest of good faith, and to protect the Bureau in case debtor fails to pay his first installment after the composition with his creditors has been arranged.

The insurance companies will gladly allow the Bureau the same fees they

ordinarily pay soliciting and collecting agents, and this will yield some income, without costing debtor anything either.

In connection with the custodianship of certain funds the Bureau would be confined to the same sources of income as would savings banks. In the beginning it would doubtless be best to arrange with a savings bank for handling the funds in the nature of a special deposit.

Likewise, in connection with the feature for home buying, the Bureau at first can probably do better by forming an alliance with established real estate concerns now engaged in the business of selling homes on easy payments, securing as liberal concessions as possible, and an arrangement by which the contract shall become paid up in case of debtor's death before it shall be paid in full.

We believe the foregoing is one of the most ingenious plans possible to devise for a lawyer to adopt in establishing himself in practice, in many communities. It is altruistic, and at the same time practical. An alliance between a lawyer undertaking the plan and real estate, banking, and insurance interests would be advantageous, and it would serve the lawyer as an auspicious introduction into these circles.

It will bring out the best there is in a man in the way of faculties for promotion and organization, and will draw to the office clients having other business to transact.

Provident Loan Associations

Necessity, caused by the grievous oppressions of usurious money loaners, has brought about, in nearly every large city, the organization of one of these provident loan associations. In every case they are run on business principles, and