the duty which they owe themselves and others is the work of a religious teacher merely; that if a demand were made upon a man, for example, to be honest and sincere, that would be preaching; but it is no longer so in fact, In the name of science the strongest emphasis is laid upon certain prerequisites in arriving at one's duty as a citizen, and among them integrity is fundamental. Recently a dozen prominent lawyers in New York city were interviewed by a newspaper reporter as to the conditions of success in their profession and all agreed that integrity, "bomb proof integrity," as one expressed it, is absolutely necessary. Industry, common sense, influential friends, and what is called "luck," may seem to have had an important influence in the success of many; but whatever else may be lacking, integrity is absolutely essential. If I were to attempt to direct you toward true success I would emphasize more than any other virtue in your professional life intellectual and moral integrity; and in directing your attention to your duties as a citizen I start with integrity as the first, the most important element. It is needed to-day in public life as well as in private affairs; it should determine every man's attitude toward the public as well as toward his private friend and client not alone fidelity in handling public funds, for important as that undoubtedly is, it is common and comparatively of easy fulfillment; but honesty in molding public opinion, in discussing public measures and public men, which, desirable as it is, is unfortunately not common and is most difficult to cultivate and maintain.

There has been forced upon our attention lately the dangers which beset the onward march of a democratic republic in which the rights of the individual have been emphasized and recognized to an unprecedented degree. Unlimited suffrage, with unlimited immigration, has put our faith in the people to severe tests, and has made possible the growth of extremely dangerous power in the hands of unscrupulous politicians, which has become a serious menace to our institutions, and which, unchecked, would surely ruin the republic. But this should be far from dispiriting; for great dangers call forth great patriotism and heroism. The greatest blessings are won in the face of the greatest evils. Without gigantic struggles great progress has never marked the upward course of humanity. It is toward the establishment of a pure government in order that the liberties left us by our noble ancestors shall not perish that every individual citizen with any appreciation of the dignity of his citizenship is called to struggle. The result is not doubtful. All the analogies of the various departments of human activities point to success, however discouraging intermediate and temporary failures

may be. In every department of intellectual, moral and material activity, progress is to be seen; for science has invaded every system. It has created the physical sciences and has constantly advanced them by overturning old theories and suggesting and establishing new ones. It has penetrated the sacred retreats of religion and has demanded that the pestilential atmosphere of superstition be driven out by opening doors and windows to the pure air of nature and of truth. It has revealed the hidden things of life and has constructed a history of the by-gone ages, ignoring the formerly uncertain boundary between the historical and the prehistorical past. It has dissected morals and social relations, and would even dare to look into the future and predict the result of the forces at work on our development. That which hitherto has been demanded and advised in the name of religion is not now necessarily so presented. From a purely scientific standpoint, ethical rules are now prescribed as essential to proper development not because they have a supernatural origin or a divine indorsement. but because man has discovered working upon humanity — molding it into families, tribes, states, nations ethical forces quite as real as gravitation and as persistent as physical motion. It is because science has revealed the greatness and importance of the future of the race in this world that every man's attitude in society becomes to him full of dignity and seriousness. Fundamental convictions are thus important. A danger perfectly evident is oftentimes easily avoided. There is one for example, strangely enough, clearly seen in the extraordinary conceit of some really scientific men; those who see no hopeful future for the race. The present drift in certain places towards pauperism and ignorance; the slow advance towards a better civilization, stamp it all as a failure, in the minds of many; and for the future there is no hope. They lose sight of some very evident facts. Life started in cells without organization. It has developed from practically nothing to the present civilization, which is surely better than that, say, of the cave dwellers. Life is still at work. It has had the help of no man. Its law of progression was not the handiwork of any man. Indeed, for ages it was not consciously recognized much less studied. The present bewildering mass of struggling humanity is to work out a future, and some scientists cannot see how it can be done; as though they had it all to do. Man may collect facts, suggest hypotheses, establish theories, but he cannot create a single force.

Man then must not despair. That which brought out of chaos the glories of the past and present civilizations will be able to produce and will produce in the future correspondingly greater results. Our business is to do our duty, and let that be de

termined by a hopeful, not a desponding, philosophy. What could be more unhealthy than the position of those who would even crowd all reverence out of our lives. Reverence!" cries one, it is the offspring of superstition!" How dreary and hopeless such a conviction! Go back in thought to the nations living on the shores of the Mediterranean before our era. Art, philosophy, literature, oratory and religion—all were there flourishing and reached perfection before the scientist was born into the world. Toward those ideals actually realized by the great Ancients we have ever struggled. They have seldom been equalled, never surpassed. Hope, faith, courage were not then dying under the torture of scientific scrutiny-but were they not real elements of life? They exist to-day. They have their evident design, to keep men from despair and the race from extermination.

The growth since so-called classical times has not been in philosophy, literature or art; it has been perhaps alone in altruism, as some moderns think, and in the physical sciences. But the reason for that is clear. If the modern method of some scientists had come first there would have been no art, no literature, no oratory; for there would have been no myths, no religions, no imagination, no faith, no hope, no love, no race. I mention these things in order that we can see from this hasty glance at the past that it was not intended that we should despair. We stand linked to that past and to the future. Our present is noble and serious. In the evolution of society a republic with civil equality and liberty has grown to be the most important of any of the forms which organized human life has taken. It has developed out of the aspirations, struggles and sacrifices of our ancestors. It is ideal in its thought. That it may not be too perfect for the imperfect beings who are its subjects is the hope and desire of every lover of his fellow man.

What has all this to do with a lawyer's duty as a citizen? It has this bearing: As a citizen he is first to be honest, and second, he is to be hopeful, with a profound faith in the evolution of humanity toward a higher and nobler civilization. These things are fundamental. If he has not integrity and has not faith, he will fail in his duty as a citizen. With them he will be able to know his duty; he will be qualified to judge as to measures and will know whom to follow, and, if a leader, how to lead. Without faith in the people he can not read aright the signs of the times; and since faith in the people means simply confidence in those forces which have developed mankind out of unconscious, non-intelligent protoplasm; and since faith that those forces will continue to work, developing man and society, is in kind not different from the faith that teaches us that the sun obedient to gravitation will shine on

our side of earth to-morrow; and since the forces which have developed man are righteous, the man who has no faith in the people—that is, the man who does not believe that righteous principles should govern in all work done for mankind, and who has no confidence that according to the laws of nature those principles will produce the best results-is simply ignorant and incompetent and unworthy to be followed. You will often hear from some of our poor deluded "practical" politicians, who think a trick is better than the ten commandments in politics, their bitter scorn when they hear of men insisting that their party should be true to righteous principles. As though these were only advocated by theorists who know nothing of the real but only of the ideal state. Poor mortals! They can foretell the weather from a red sunset, but they have never so much as thought that the powers of nature, often disappointing in the matter of the weather, act with terrible certainty in the realm of morals, and that no individual or party or people can long exist if the moral laws are defied. This is known to science, for history teaches it. The "practical' politician who laughs at it simply shows his pitiable, though at times exasperating ignorance.

Upon the lawyer of to-day is thrust a large measure of responsibility in this matter. The history of our country shows the importance of that profession in molding and directing public opinion, legislation and the government itself. For evident reasons, the lawyer is called upon to act for the larger client -- the public as well as for the private litigant. He becomes at once an important factor in . political life. From his intelligence and moral enlightenment he knows what is wrong, what is indisputably vicious and corrupt, and what is right and helpful. Will you denounce the wrong? Will you avoid deceit ? Will you hate hypocrisy? Or will you, for money or advancement, or power, or position, or office, or anything, publicly declare what you do not believe, or what you know to be false? If you go to a caucus will you support an unworthy candidate because you think thereby to gain some politician's favor? If you do, you will be dishonYou will never, in that way, get satisfying success, and you will be aiding those forces at work to demoralize society and disrupt the State. Will you go to a convention and help to nominate for office anyone that you would not, in a private conversation with a friend, say was free from serious objection? Will you take the stump and advance arguments which you know are not sound, and so deceive the people? If you do, it will be because of some object in view which could not be attained if fully known. To do that, is to be intellectually and morally an infidel. If you go to the legislature will you, for party reasons, oppose measures which

est.

you know and your party knows are just and beneficial, and will you advocate, in the name of reform or otherwise, legislation which you know is vicious and which has no ultimate object except temporary party advantage? The man who does this is not only a hypocrite, but a fool. He is sowing dragons' teeth which will spring up suddenly into an overwhelming host, but which cannot, by any stratagem, be turned from crushing him.

Why should any man try to aid his party by dishonesty, by hypocrisy? One's party will be helped best and strengthened permanently by the truth, not by a lie. It is only the time-servers, the intellectual dwarfs, who think that this universe is founded on deception, and that the path to life's goal must be so crooked that no one could ever follow and overtake an ambitious man to rob him of his success. It is the truth that makes men free and powerful and great. The intellectual imposter, the hypocrite, the man who knows what is right and advocates the opposite, whether he be a clergyman, editor, statesman or lawyer, is unworthy the dignity of living in this age. The extraordinary distrust exhibited by many men charged with leadership, of the reliability of nature to work out desirable results in men and in communities, has fortunately no parallel in the material affairs of life; else we should find farmers neglecting their ploughing and sowing because they cannot have the control of the marvelous metamorphoses in earth's laboratory, fearful lest without their constant manipulation the richest soil, would be barren. "What will be the result of such a step?" exclaim they, when some eminently fair and honorable course is advocated. "It is right in the abstract, but we shall estrange this one and that one, and this body of citizens and that large horde of voters, and we shall lose." Thereupon some unprincipled make-shift is advocated, calculated to deceive somebody, and just how every rank weed will shelter the timid and sickly grain next to it until maturity, and how absence of sunlight and warmth will keep the fields from drying up, and how a steady drought will keep vegetation from rotting, and how the harvest will be secured according to their denaturalized methods, will be glowingly and wisely set forth. As the gentle dew, the pure sunlight and its invigorating warmth are furnished by nature, or, if you prefer, by nature's God, to bless and make fruitful the earth, so are honor and truth and devotion to the people's highest good provided by the same Creator to vivify and magnify the human race. What do you say of the intelligence, to say nothing of the moral sense, of a man who would disregard, or of a party which would spurn, these means in the attempt to gain fame, or power, or the control of public affairs? It is true, and you will find it out,

that many, very many politicians, while they would make good farmers, and as such would have a very profound respect for nature and her laws, have absolutely no conception of the realm of morals in which the spiritual forces of nature are ceaselessly ready to operate upon the minds of men if only given a chance-and so these blind leaders attempt to invent a nature all by themselves, in which any plausible scheme, however dishonest and unnatural, may be adopted successfully. They think it must be practicable, inasmuch as they cannot see, being blind, how the honest method of nature will work. The result, in the end, is invariably absolute failure. Of course, how could it be otherwise? A wise man once said, and if you forget everything else spoken to night, do not forget Dr. Johnson's words: “Man cannot so far know the connection of causes and events, as that he may venture to do wrong in order to do right."

So

The danger of being disingenuous in public affairs is very great to a lawyer. In his private practice he is expected to protect his clients' civil rights, and too often to advance his clients' civil wrongs. long as any plausible argument, whether believed in or not, can be made, he makes it. This is the actual working of a lawyer's profession as a rule. However indefensible it is, it is very generally practiced. A lawyer wants to win his cases, and if a sophistical argument will do it, that argument is employed. When the lawyer becomes a politician, he fancies that the way to become famous is to win every time, otherwise his client will think him unskillful; or, at any rate, if he does win every time, his client will think him very clever. Just there he misses the distinction between the selfish, hardfisted, soulless client, who only applauds every personal advantage, and the public, which cannot be deceived for any length of time, and which counts the clever lawyer or politician who wins by trickery only a clever rogue. The people love justice and truth. The man who would gain their confidence and respect and the honor of their admiration must be of "bomb-proof" intellectual integrity. The lawyer who takes part in political affairs, whether to a large or small extent, whether in important or in trivial matters, owes to the State, to the public, to his party, a solemn debt of honor to be sincere, to be honest, to be truthful. If he does not discharge it—if he, for any reason, plays the demagogue he belittles himself, and the people know it; he is false to patriotism, and an injury to his party. So I submit integrity as a lawyer's first duty as a citizen.

A second duty which a lawyer owes to the State is to take an interest in public affairs. He need not become a politician; he need not run for any office; but he can be interested in what is doing politi

cally. If he be a man of integrity and of moral grit his influence will be felt. There is no excuse to a man who can advance by a little effort the welfare of his community, but who will not make the effort.

A third duty which a lawyer, as a citizen, owes his commonwealth is to hasten the abolition of feu

dalism. Feudalism has never gained recognition with us as to estates in land. We boast that all tenure in this country is allodial; that is, is not subject to a superior lord. But all that the feudal lord could claim was work or military service, or rent; he could not and did not claim his tenant's soul.

But there is a feudalism in our midst more degrading than that which, under monarchies, was almost a necessity; it is feudalism in politics. You know that formerly a tenant of land, even though a freeman, holding an estate under the lord of a manor, was known as "the lord's man," and to keep his property he had to render certain service. That is all abolished with us, but, now, our chosen representative in government is too frequently some "boss's man." His tenure of office is conditioned upon his rendering service or paying tribute, or both, to his boss; and under the "people's representative" are serfs and villains (in the modern sense) who perform such service and pay such tribute as their superior may require. These services

are often of a demoralizing sort. They are adapted

to one sole end—the establishment of the boss's

supreme power. To that everything, everything must give way. The test of fitness is displaced by that of subserviency; one's loyalty to party comes to mean one's loyalty to one's immediate superior in the system, and resistance is party treason. The first sign of an independent, intellectual life, which, allowed to develop, might grow into a genuine fitness for the position held, is looked upon as dangerous to the monarchy, and a more pliable tool soon takes the protester's place. Independence, integrity, common honesty are the rent given up under this, our modern American feudalism, and it is not too much to say that under it a man is expected to give up his soul. Do not imagine that the occasional protests of the people, as shown by one year's vote, render future activity unnecessary. So long as we have a large illiterate and ignorant vote in our cities, just so long will scheming political "leaders" ply their trade, and just so long will they have an organization, and at its head will be the king of bosses. His effrontry will grow with his power, and shortly he will take, not unkindly, Agamemnon's title, King of Men."

This brings about a revolt and he is overthrown only to be succeeded by some one else of the same breed. Down with the feudal system in politics.

Let us have for bosses, that is men who are to give us our laws, men whom we elect for that purpose. Then we can turn them out when they do ill. But a monarchial boss, who has often more power than any constitutional monarch in Europe, holds no office; and as votes did not put him into his "bed of justice," votes alone cannot turn him out. Agitation will do it. Citizens can do it. But so long as citizens for the sake of a nomination to office will submit to such debasing slavery, and for such a bribe will make no protest against any menace to our institutions, just so long will we suffer from the natural effects of intellectual and

moral serfdom. This is work to which every young lawyer is called. It is the call of the people. You can heed it if you will and if you are

brave.

The invitation to you as citizens at this time is then to integrity; to an active interest in public affairs; to political freedom. The brave man will respond quickly. The loyal man will not look back. The honest man will not accept a bribe. Who can refuse to respond without shame? The results of such an enlistment can be very surely predicted honor, self-respect and the gratitude of posterity. Because the evolution of society is in the hands of God, working through the forces which are superior to us and against which we are powerless; because this onward development is to be ac

complished by righteousness and can be delayed

only, not defeated, by cowardice, hypocrisy and selfishness; because you owe it to your country, your homes and yourselves, I urge you all to bear in your minds and hearts at this early but critical time in your careers the sacred obligations which rest upon you as citizens of our republic.

THE

MASTER AND SERVANT.

An address delivered at the Woman's Law Class of the Univer. sity of the City of New York, by CARRIE CARKINGTON, M. L. THE relations between employer and employed have been productive of most important discussions and decisions as regards the law of master and servant which have arisen in this country. There is great confusion upon the question who is a fellow servant, not only among the courts of the various States of the Union, but even among the various courts of this State. In fact, it is somewhat difficult to reconcile the decisions of our own Court of

Appeals upon that question. It has generally been held that a master is not responsible to his servant for acts done by a fellow servant in the same line of employment.

In Filbert v. D. & H. Canal Co., 121 N. Y. 207, the Court of Appeals, reversing the Superior Court of the City of New York, held that a servant who

was repairing the roadbed of a railroad was a fellow servant of a servant who was coupling cars on the road; while the same court, in another case, held that a train despatcher and a man working on a train were not fellow servants (see 53 N. Y., 549); and in Potts v. N. Y. Central, 136 N. Y. 77, the Court of Appeals held that a brakeman who was on a train of cars which was coming into a station was a fellow servant of a man who was inspecting cars in the station.

It is difficult to see why, if the man that despatches a train is not a fellow servant with a man who is working on the train, it should be held that a brakeman on a train of cars was the fellow servant of a man who was inspecting cars in the station. In view of the conflicting decisions and the different distinctions made by the courts, a law should be passed to the effect that a corporation or other employer should not avail itself or himself of the defense that the injury was caused by the negligence of a fellow servant.

There is no logical reason why such a law should not be passed. The distinction at best was an arbitrary one and was not invented or even discovered until 1837, when the case of Priestly against Fowler was decided by the Court of Exchequer in England (see 3 Meeson & Wellsbey, p. 1) upon, as Lord Abinger says, "General Principles." The reason assigned by the learned Chief Baron for the decisions of the case bring a smile to the face of a modern lawyer. He started off by saying that it was admitted that there was no precedent for the present action by a servant against the master, and, therefore, the question was to be decided upon general principles, and in doing so, the court was at liberty to look at the consequences of a decision one way or the other. He proceeded to look at the consequences of a decision, if it was in favor

of the servant.

"If the master said he be liable to the servant in

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of the cook in not properly cleaning the copper vessel used in the kitchen; of the butcher in supplying the family with meat of a quality injurious to the health; of the builder, for a defect in the foundation of the house, whereby it fell and injured both the master and the servant by the ruins."

In none of the instances cited by the learned Chief Baron would the servant have a cause of action against the master. When the question first came up in this State, in Coon v. Syracuse & Utica R. R. Co., it was decided without discussion on the authority of Priestly against Fowler; in fact, Priestly against Fowler is the authority for all the cases in this country on that subject. In this connection, it may be well to call attention to contracts limiting the liability of the employer for negligence to his employe. Surely such a contract should be held to be invalid. In fact, such a contract was held to be void as against public policy by the Supreme Court of the United States. The question has never been determined by the Court of Appeals in this State. That court said, in Purdy v. Rome, W. & O. R. R. Co., 125 N. Y., decided in 1891, that upon that question it desired to express no opinion at that time. In that case, the contract of exemption from liability was made after the contract of employment, and the court held that it was void for want of consideration, and then said: In thus deciding, we do not intimate that if defendant had given some kind of consideration it would have been valid." And in the case of Mynard v. Syracuse R. R. Co., 71 N. Y., the court said that a contract of shipment by which the defendant, a common carrier, in consideration of a reduced rate, was released from all claim for any damage or injury from whatsoever cause arising, did not include a loss arising from the carrier's negligence, and that for such loss it was liable.

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servant; to provide a reasonably safe place for him to work in, and to supply competent and skillful servants, and a sufficient number of them, for him to work with, and he should not be allowed to avail himself of the necessities of his servant in order to

escape liability for his neglect in performing the duty imposed upon him by law.

If a master can escape liability through such a contract, he will not use that degree of care required from him by the law; and through failure to use such care, the safety of the citizens of the State will be endangered.

It is for the interest of the State that the lives and limbs of its citizens should be protected; and a contract that takes away such protection is against