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of the morrow, but let me say that in spite of them all there will be a "milking time" even for that dire day, by which we shall be saved, and the morrow will come with all evidence of the storm removed with the bright sun high in the Heavens, the assurance of prosperity and of growth. We will always have a milking time. (Applause.)

THE TOASTMASTER: At this juncture I want to give the ladies some information. It is information that at this particular time, or about this time, you ought to have, and that is, how to detect a man that has a political bee buzzing around in his bonnet. In the first place, he wants people to think he is a farmer, that is an old political dodge,-talks about being a farmer. Along about this time he begins to compliment the ladies, he thinks that woman's suffrage is just at hand, and that is what they mean when they begin complimenting you. Now just what particular office Judge Lawrence is after here I do not know, but he wants something, and he is looking for your votes.

The lawyers, ladies and gentlemen, have long been in the habit of getting together and talking about their clients, and telling a great many funny stories about them, and the ridiculous things that they have done; and have had a great deal of sport at their clients' expense. And we have thought on this occasion we would just throw down the bars and offer a free lance to a client to tell us exactly what he thinks of us. And we are now going to place at the bat and give an inning to Mr. W. H. Taylor, of Peoria, one of our clients. (Applause.)

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen: I want to sandwich in just one remark that I had not intended to make on this question of the clouds always raising some time between four and seven o'clock in the evening, and the sun. shining and giving an opportunity for the youngest boy in the family to pail the family cow. Now if Judge Lawrence's experience has been that there is an opportune time, a time when nobody would get snow over their boot tops, or get wet to the skin with the rain, he must have used a milking machine and an automobile to look after the family cow. (Laughter.)

It is something of a novelty for a man to actually jeopardize himself and appear before a crowd of lawyers, because in looking up some references I find that Gower says:

"Whom that love hath under cure

As he is blind himself;

Right so he maketh his client blind also."

It is no more brutal to come from one of the ancient lawyers than I expected, because while I am not very old, I have experienced a great deal with the present generation of lawyers, and I notice they inherit their brutality from the ancient source. Another thing, your toastmaster has placed me in the middle of the program, he has made my bed where I cannot get away from it, and I suppose he has placed lawyers ahead of me to hit me as I come, and he has got a few behind me to kick me as I go. But in looking up the definition of lawyers I find that some of the ancient fellows have given some very peculiar definitions, and I found I had to exhaust about every proposition in order to ascertain what was the true definition of law and lawyers. I even find that Blackstone says that "Law is the process of clipping the claws from the mastiff in order to prevent him running after the deer." I presume it is Blackstone's diplomatic way of saying to you lawyers to catch the client and skin him, clip his claws, and turn him loose.

Webster defines the lawyer as a man of distinction and a man of intelligence. And I suppose if Webster had had a little more nerve he would have said, a man of unlimited gall, who would take all of the fee that it was possible for him to exact from the client. I was hardly satisfied with that proposition, and it was my good fortune to promptly refer to the old school book and I find zoology says that "The lawyer is the popular name for the long legged avocet, or the American wading bird." Now I always knew that the American lawyer was a bird. (Laughter.) I always knew he was long legged. In fact, I see most of them are so long legged and so short waisted they can hardly wear a vest. At the same time I did not know what the word "avocet" was, but I do know the wildness of the attorney's

work fully justifies the mystery of his name. And I also know that the mystery of his name and his work fully justifies the immensity of the fee that we poor clients have to pay.

My brief is going to be very brief, I want to say that. I had a high opinion of botany, because, in referring to my references I find botany says that the lawyer is the thorn upon the rose bush and upon the bramble. And I have nearly exhausted all of the authorities that it was possible for me to look over, and I regret very much, ladies, that I cannot find very much that speaks very highly of the lawyer. It is not, in view of our past experiences, to question the botany's definition, because with all we know of lawyers, what is better than to know that they class them as the thorn at the side of the beautiful and the fragrant rose; they are the thorn at the side of the client, and they are the thorn at the side of everybody else.

Some of these same authorities define the client as a citizen who places himself in the hands of a man of influence and of distinction. There you come again, a man of influence and distinction, who looks after his interests. And that same authority has not got the nerve to say, at one hundred per advice. He goes ahead with the proposition that the lawyer is the high minded, the only intelligent fellow there is in the world, and I want to say to you right now that in the same notes I find that Bishop Taylor, a man of my own name, fully as suspicious of you fellows a good many years ago as some of his own name are today, admonishes the young lawyer that he must, under all circumstances, tell his client the truth. I suppose there are grounds for that statement because of the Bishop's prior experience, as I assume you gentlemen, including some of the Peoria attorneys here this evening, tell the truth under all circum

stances.

The Roman definition of the proposition is that the client has to pay a portion of all this high minded, this high tempered fellow's expenses. If the daughter gets married the client has to pay a portion of the marriage fee; if he is taken prisoner the client has to pay a portion of the ransom, and I suppose with

the same proposition that if a few of you fellows go off on a little jag for three or four days you will call on us poor clients to pay a portion of the hack hire and a number of the etceteras. But this proposition comes up, what could you do without the lawyer, anyhow? You have got legislative work to do. I will leave it to those who are not lawyers, and to the lawyers' wives in this audience, how would it be possible for any laws to be enacted if it were not that we had somebody who could properly frame good and meritorious bills. We have got to have the lawyers for just that kind of work. We could not enforce all the laws of dissolution if we did not have the lawyers, because you will find this long legged wading bird will wait on the corner and he will find some henpecked husband who is looking for relief, and he steers him up to the divorce court and tells inim how and charges him a hundred per. Clips his claws, turns him loose and then runs around till he can find some other fellow from whom he can separate a house and lot.

We have, of course, other instances; a number of instances where the old gentleman has died and left a will and he has not left Charlie quite as much as he left John. He consults an attorney on the proposition. It is not a question with Charlie as to getting more money, it is the question of the fact that the old gentleman did not do right, that is what it is. They talk this proposition over. He finally decides he will advise the client that he will undertake to make out that the governor was an imbecile and that the folks that are living now are full of avarice and deceit, but he will do it providing the client will sign over about ninety per cent. of what he has already got and about ninety-seven and a half per cent. of what he will get out of the estate that comes forward. Now ladies, I leave it to you whether or not that is a fine thorn to lay at the side of an American Beauty rose.

But even the worm and the rattlesnake are brought into this world for some good, and I believe that the lawyer was brought. into this world for some good, and we can accord to the class of lawyers as citizens the very highest position. There is no class

who have passed through the privations, who have passed through the delays, who have passed through the uncertainties that the lawyer has. The business man enters into his business life as a young man and success is his almost from the start. But the young lawyer has got to go through a certain line of collegiate work, after that he has got to take up the long, dreary study of the law, and when he does pass his examinations he finds that he is only now beginning to realize what is the serious. part of his life's work. There is no class of people who will stand a similar test, and I want to say to you in all seriousness, gentlemen, that your experiences, your teachings, your examples, have done more and will continue to do more to build up young manhood, to point out to young manhood what is necessary to maintain the dignity of civil liberty and honest citizenship, and no class is more entitled to it than the bar of the United States. (Applause.)

I want to say to the young lawyers, that I have not had experience in law, but I have had experience in business. Do not get discouraged, you have got a hard fight, but I want to say, there are many, many positions open ahead of you. Do not get the idea that all of the good jobs have been taken, it is a wrong position to take, because the business world today is looking for good, bright, intelligent, sober minds to take up the responsibilities along the avenues of business connected with legal work, tenfold more, in comparison with the opportunities of twenty-five years ago. But, on the other hand, if you start out and meet with discouragements and give up, you are going to drop back, you are going to shovel dirt, for the rest of your life when a little bit of effort on your part would have lifted you to the upper mesa and would have placed you straight on the road to success. Simply adopt for your motto, above all grim determination, absolute honesty with all of your clients, the strictest virtue in every respect, and I will pledge you as young attorneys that you will live to see that you will have a goodly share of this world's success.

In closing, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Creve

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