President Eliot on December 19, 1912, gave an address before the Massachusetts Bar Association on "The Causes of Dissatisfaction With the Courts." The current Alumni Bulletin has reprinted the address in full. Below the CRIMSON prints an interesting excerpt from it on one of the several points which were made by President Eliot.

The Attitude of Counsel and Judge.

"The common contentious attitude of counsel in a lawsuit, and the common attitude of the judge as the umpire in a game, have done much to discredit the administration of justice in the United States. Counsel do not seem to the American public to be officers of a court seeking for truth and justice, but players of an unethical, intellectual game. The judge seems to regard himself--often perforce as a mere umpire between contending parties, and not as an agent of the commonwealth to settle controversies on their merits. The American public has lost some of its old faith in the judge as a protecting agent for carrying out the substantial requirements of law and justice. Some considerable portion of the public from time to time gets much interested, through the newspapers, in this game of council umpired, by the judge. They admire and applaud the ingenuity and spirit with which counsel take technical points for their clients, and the public press often sympathizes with and encourages this misdirected admiration. Of course, the best men in the practice of the law do not insist on technical points in favor of their clients, but rather waive them, and the best judges try to control counsel and direct the course of justice so far as state statutes permit. Unwise legislation is largely responsible for the particular evil now under consideration; and in recent years there has been much legislation intended to reduce the power of the judge over the procedure in his court. Lawyers dissatisfied with the control exercised over themselves by individual judges have originated some of this pernicious legislation.

Judges Lack Effective Control.

"Much of the injurious prolongation of testimony, cross-examination and argument in American courts is due to the fact that the judges have been deprived of effective control over counsel. It is an important function of a good judge to abbreviate testimony by excluding the irrelevant and to limit cross-examination and argument. To this end judges should be independent and well paid, appointed to serve during good behavior and efficiency, and entitled to a pension, after reasonably long service, or on disability. The judge should always be the principal person in the court-room. He is in England; often he is not in this country. The American practice of electing judges for short terms has seriously impaired in many states the quality of judges and their position in the community. The very voters that elect the judges easily acquire the habit of distrusting them.

Results of Loss of Control.

"This serious change in the position and function of the judge has been accompanied by a change in the habits of eminent legal practitioners which also tends to the lowering of courts and judicial procedure in the public estimation. It has been noticeable of late years that leading lawyers are not much in court-rooms. They work in private chambers for rich men and rich corporations, drawing legal papers for promoters, industrial adventurers and bankers. In this service higher fees can be charged than in service before the courts. It is commonly the junior members of large legal firms who argue cases in court. The passing of the judge, the disappearance of the great court-room advocates, the popular distrust of courts, and the disposition of rich business men and corporations to avoid litigation and "beat the law" so far as they safely can, and even farther have constituted a vicious circle of evil tendencies in both theory and practice, the effects of which on public opinion in the United States have been plain, widespread and deeply to be deplored.

Evils of Elected Judges.

"The election of judges for short terms accounts for many of these evils Several states, notably the state of Michigan, have had for a time good elective judiciaries; but the electors do not consistently maintain the highest standards of selection, and not infrequently fail to re-election the most admirable judges. Indeed, such a tenure of judicial office disregards some of the most obvious of human qualities. A judge who desires re-election cannot help considering what effect his conduct in the court-room and his published decisions will have on his re-election. As an elected judge grows older and therefore less able to resume practice, he inevitably becomes more timorous and less independent, particularly as he cannot look forward to any pension when he fails to be re-elected. It is perfectly plain that in the long run an elective judiciary cannot command the popular respect which an appointive judiciary commands; and the fact that the great majority of American judges are elective accounts in good measure for the dissatisfaction of the public with American judicial procedure."