"Mr. Chairman:
"When I came to this city I was sent for by the President of this Association and informed that Mr. Caton, on account of sickness in his family, could not be present on this occasion; and he asked the privilege of substituting my name for that of Mr. Caton. At first I objected. But you who are acquainted with the persuasive eloquence of the President of this Association can readily come to the conclusion that I finally consented. In the words of one of Lord Byron's heroes, 'Much I strove and much repented, And saying, I will ne'er consent—consented.'
"The particular point to which I desire to direct your attention is the pioneer lawyer. I think I know something about his characteristics. In the first place he was a good fighter. His surroundings gave him inspiration in that direction. His environments were of the militant order. He was not only a good fighter, but he was a loyal fighter, and I must say from experience that he was a persistent fighter, for, after the judicial umpire had counted him out, and called the next bout, he wanted to fight on still. In the next place, he was a good reasoner, and I want to emphasize this point. He was so of necessity. He had no Reports. He had to rely on his remembrance of general principles; and he learned to reason from those general principles to his conclusions; and his success at the Bar depended upon the clearness of his statements and the cogency and force of his logic. The question with him was, what is the law? And he ascertained what the law was by reasoning from the general principles which he remembered, to the conclusion which he desired. If an attorney now-a-days is asked what is the law, I am afraid that it is too often the case, to use the eloquent language of the Supreme Court of this State, he seeks to find a case 'On all-fours.' He doesn't make any inquiry. He doesn't exercise his reasoning powers at all; he goes into the library and hunts after a case 'on all-fours' with the facts of the case he has presented to him. The learned and honored Judge C. H. Hanford, who has just so excellently addressed you, has stated that the law is not an exact science. I do not know but what I differ from the speaker in this regard. Every profession has connected with it two things: a science, and an art. The science consists of the principles upon which that art rests. Now I, as a lawyer, am prepared to maintain that the science of the law is just as accurate, just as complete, and just as reliable as any other science. As has been said, law in its practical operations is the application of principles to a certain condition of facts. There comes in the art. Where different judges differ, it isn't in the science of the law, it is in the art connected with that science.
"Now I am wandering a little. However, I was trying to show that pioneer lawyers were forced to do their own reasoning, to rely upon their own intellectual powers. Such, I understand, was the school in which Lincoln graduated; and such, I am happy to say, was the school in which the Honorable United States District Judge of this State (Judge Hanford) graduated. (Applause.) And he has shown today, in the fine address which he has read, that he had good training in that school, and that he early learned to do his own thinking and to arrive at sound conclusions. I know all about him. I knew him before he was a lawyer. I knew him while he was studying his profession. I knew also that there were very few books that he could command at that time. I think it is a good thing. I would say that a lawyer, a young man, should never be permitted to see a Report until he has practiced at the Bar for at least six or seven years. Then he would learn to do his own thinking and reason from the principles laid down in the fundamental works upon the science of the law. I have spent too much time upon that point, however.
"The pioneer lawyer as I knew him had a strong sense of humor about him. He had a strong sense of the ludicrous about him. Circumstances contributed a great deal to the development of that sense in him. In early days there was no such thing as conventional usages. Every fellow had his own fashion and followed his own will. I remember a little incident connected with what I have just stated. When James McNaught, whom you all know, and who subsequently became attorney for one of the largest railroad corporations in the country, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, first came to this Territory, he was inclined to be a little 'dudish' in his dress. The first place he landed was at Port Townsend. He had a stove-pipe hat on his head—he was near sighted, and with his spectacles across his nose—went out to view the town, and, as is customary with people whose sight is thus affected, he always looked upward; and he was looking upward in Port Townsend as though he expected to gather a glimpse of the golden wings of a flock of angels hanging over that spiritual town. Well, everybody noticed it. He was the observed of all observers. The next time the paper at Port Townsend came out it was with the heading, 'Ecce Homo,' 'behold the Man,' and it gave a ludicrous description of that young attorney and his resplendent ability, notwithstanding his dude hat. Everybody read it. It was a fine introduction.
"When he came to Seattle the boys ran out to him taking him to be the advance-agent of some show, and said to him, 'Mr. when is your show going to be along?' 'What is it?' 'Has it got animals in it or not?' After that Mr. McNaught relapsed back into the barbarous habits that existed on the Sound at the time. There was more freedom between the Court and the Bar at that time than there is at the present time, more sociability. Now the Court comes in at a certain time from his back-room connected with the Court House, where he has disappeared and shut himself up until the bailiff announces his coming, whereupon—I am speaking now of Seattle—everybody arises and gently bows, and the Judge takes his seat and is prepared with his judicial thunder."
For twenty years I have served as President of the King County Bar Association. From January, 1897, to January, 1901, I served as Judge of the Superior Court of the State for King County. Although an octogenarian, I am still in the harness as an Attorney and Counsellor at Law.
I have now completed a general survey of my not uneventful life. I have written and collated it in my eighty-first year.
In conclusion a brief retrospect limited to our Country and Nation, may be allowable. Looking backward from a standpoint of review covering eighty years and more, and comparing the condition of the world with what it was on the second day of May, 1827—the day of my birth—with what it is now—I am greatly impressed with the fact that in intellectual and moral growth, in the advance of civilization, in material progress and human amelioration, as well as in increase of population and in the volume of business and in glorified inventive triumphs—as well as in religious beliefs, as shown in the substitution of love for fear as the true basis of obedience to God and His laws—the world has moved and is still moving forward to a higher and nobler plane of civilization.
Steam, whose latent energies were then but little known, under the exploitations of science and inventive genius, became, and continues to be the chief motive power of the world. Electricity alone now disputes its dominion. While the light of ages comes streaming down the pathway of history, it illumes the present and enlarges the scope of human knowledge, yet it gives no prophetic insight, hence, which will be the final victor is unseen. The potential energy and force which practically annihilates time and space by its fiery messages sent through the air or ocean westward, in advance of mechanical time and becomes the common and instant transmitter of intelligence—is fast developing into a motive force the full extent of whose tremendous power is as yet unknown.