the important litigation brought before them, and which is increasing daily." The Judiciary Committee advises the adoption by the Association of the foregoing resolution. GEORGE BRYAN, Chairman, DON P. HALSEY, July 31, 1907. On motion, the report was adopted. The President: The next business in order will be the reading by the Secretary of the Standing and Special Committees for the next year, as they have been appointed by the new President, Mr. Wyndham R. Meredith. The Secretary then read the list of Standing and Special Committees. (See list at end of Minutes.) The President: Gentlemen, pursuant to the time-honored and excellent maxim of good-living, that we should save the best for the last, it has always been the custom of this body to reserve for the closing exercises of our meeting the annual address which is to be delivered to the Association. It has been the good fortune of this Association in times past to have the honor and pleasure of listening to such addresses delivered to us by some of the most distinguished men in this country. This year we have been no less fortunate in the selection of the gentleman who will address us. In the wild fastnesses of Wall Street, or, as I might more properly say, the fast wildnesses of that place, one of the most distinguished lawyers of this country carries on the practice of his profession, in the course of which, by his character, his distinguished abilities, and his efforts, he has done as much as any one man in our profession to maintain its high standards of efficiency and of lofty ethics. In the City of New York, and I may say in most cities of these United States, for any member of the Bar to say that he does not know or know of the Honorable John R. Dos Passos, of New York, is to argue himself unknown. It is with great pleasure that I now present to this body the Hon. John R. Dos Passos, of New York, who will now address you. Mr. Dos Passos then read the annual address. (See Appendix.) The President: On behalf of the Association I wish to thank the gentleman for his entertaining and instructive and highly interesting speech. Judge R. T. W. Duke, of Charlottesville: Mr. President, I wish to present the following resolution: "Resolved, That a committee of five members of this Asso ciation be appointed by the President to consider and report to the next meeting the advisability of memoralizing the General Assembly of Virginia to adopt the English Practice Act with such modifications as may be deemed best, and the sum of not more than $25.00 is hereby appropriated for the purchase of such books as may be needed by the committee." It is impossible for that committee to do its duty properly unless they go to some expense. I have had occasion to look into the question of the English Practice Act in the last year quite frequently. I do not know how many members of the Association here remember an exceedingly sharp debate between my dear and beloved father and myself, in which we took opposite sides. It is not too late now to say that I have become thoroughly converted to his views, and I believe the adoption of this act will be one of the greatest benefits our people could have. Judge Duke's resolution was then adopted. Colonel E. E. Stickley: Mr. President, by some oversight, an application which was presented to the committee last evening was lost or misplaced; it has just come in and the committee passed on it and elected W. H. Venable, of Norfolk, and they desire to embrace his name in the report of this morning as an elected member of the Association. On motion, the report of the committee was received and adopted. Secretary Minor: Gentlemen, I desire to call your attention to a matter which most of you are interested in, the banquet, which will be served promptly at half-past eight o'clock this evening. We will not wait for the crowd to assemble. I have given directions to begin serving that banquet at half-past eight. We will meet in the lobby at twenty minutes past eight and go in a body into the banquet hall. I have made arrangements for chairs to be provided on the outside for the ladies who care to hear the responses to the toasts later in the evening. I think the whole meeting should be over to-night by twelve o'clock, though it depends entirely on the length of the responses. Admission to the banquet will be only by ticket, and do not forget to bring your tickets with you. Those who have not already obtained them can secure them by appearing before the Secre tary. I wish to announce that the photograph of the Association will be taken immediately upon adjournment on the water front of the hotel. Mr. John Garland Pollard: The Executive Commissioner from Ohio has extended an invitation to this body to visit the Ohio State Building. There will be a very brief meeting of the Executive Committee immediately on the adjournment of this session. The Committee on Admissions will also meet on the platform immediately after the adjournment. On motion, the Association then adjourned, subject to the call of the Executive Committee. JOHN B. MINOR, Annual Reports 1907 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY To the Virginia State Bar Association: During the past year I have had the proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting printed and bound in a book of 316 pages, entitled "Reports of the Virginia State Bar Association, Volume XIX., 1906.” The edition comprised one thousand volumes, which were distributed amongst the active and the honorary members of the Association, and were also sent to each of the State Libraries and public law libraries in the United States, to each of the Bar Associations of the several States, and to the leading law journals of this country. In this way the work of our Association and the names of its members have been extensively advertised, as usual. The American Bar Association and the Associations of a majority of the States have not yet adopted Codes of Ethics, but the need of such a code is urgently felt by many of them, and the question is under active consideration by committees of many of these Associations. The Code of Ethics, adopted in 1889 by our Association, seems to be regarded as a model, and the demand for it has been very large. The Code had never been printed apart from the Annual Reports, and every applicant for a copy of the Code was required to pay $2.00 for a copy of our Annual Reports in order to get it. I therefore had our Code of Ethics printed in pamphlet form, and have already distributed a large number to other Associations and their committees. We had 474 active members upon our roll after our last annual meeting, and since then we have lost five by death, one by resignation, and one by transfer to the honorary list, by reason of his appointment as judge of the second circuit; making a total of seven. We thus have at the beginning of this, our Nineteenth Annual Meet ing, 467 active members. Our total membership, including 63 honorary members, is now 530, while a number of applicants are seeking admission. Since our last meeting I have received the reports of the Bar Associations of most of the States and of the American Bar Association, which are all kept in the secretary's office. I would recom mend that the Executive Committee be given authority to make suitable arrangements with the State Law Library at Richmond to take custody of all of our exchanges. By such an arrangement the reports would be made much more accessible to the profession at large, and the Association would be saved the cost of additional bookcases, in which to store them as they accumulate. There has been great demand for copies of the address delivered by Justice David J. Brewer before our last annual meeting, but, even with this unusual demand, there still remain undistributed about 1,500 copies of the 5,000 ordered by the Association to be printed. This leads me to suggest the advisability of leaving to the discretion of the Executive Committee what papers shall be printed, and the size of the edition. As secretary, I desire to call the attention of the members of the Association to a fact that has been impressed upon me in my capacity as treasurer. Every member who fails to keep up his dues seems to lose interest in the Association in proportion to the amount of his delinquency; and the Association thus suffers not only loss of revenue, but the greater loss of the active interest of its members. Let me urge every member present at this meeting, and all of those who will read this report when printed, to bear this fact in mind, and to give to the officers of our Association their hearty support in the effort to maintain the high position of influence it has heretofore held, not only in this Commonwealth, but among other similar Associations throughout the United States. Respectfully submitted, JOHN B. MINOR, |