The Legal World The nomination of Henry Wade Rogers as Judge of the second federal circuit, succeeding Judge Noyes, was confirmed by the Senate on Sept. 29. Judge Rogers was graduated from the University of Michigan in 1874 and was dean of the law school there from 1885 to 1890. He then became president of Northwestern University, and in 1900 went to the Yale Law School as lecturer, becoming dean in 1903. He has been a president of the Association of American Law Schools. President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University, in an address de livered to the entering class of Harvard Law School at the beginning of the academic year, said, according to a newspaper report which appears to be authentic: "Criminal law, as admin istered in our courts today, is a disgrace to the country. The great criminal trials are conducted like pitched battles — like tournaments or baseball games — to be displayed for the enjoyment of the public in the front pages of the newspapers in a way that is shocking to civilized men. The reform in criminal law of the future is in the hands of the lawyers of the future, and this is the duty for which law students should prepare themselves." The Missouri {Bar Association Procedural reform and the revision of the state constitution took up much of the attention of the Missouri Bar Association, which held its annual meet ing at Kansas City, Sept. 24-6. Hon. Ralph F. Lozier, in his address as president, urged that additional judges be appointed to help relieve the congestion of the courts, and also that procedure be simplified and made more efficient and less technical. The plan to revise the
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constitution of 1875 had its opponents, but the Association unqualifiedlydeclared for a constitutional convention and for a complete revision of the constitution, to provide for a better means of building up great cities, for more sanitary and better governed towns and villages, as well as for a better and broader educa tional system in rural communities. With only three dissenting votes the association adopted the report of the special committee on judicial admin istration and legal procedure, headed by Frederick W. Lehmann of St. Louis, recommending the passage of a statute following the Michigan plan, "An Act to Simplify Judicial Proceedings." This act empowers the Supreme Court to make rules governing procedure in all courts of record. At present the legis lature has not delegated that power to the court and it has not revised procedure for sixty years. The report of another committee, the Park committee, was also adopted, favoring a constitutional amendment making possible the merging of the Courts of Appeal with the Supreme Court, and legislation which would simplify practice and pleading and prevent reversals on purely technical error. Justice N. Charles Burke of the Mary land Court of Appeals made an address in which uniformity of legislation and ideals of professional ethics were dis cussed. Henry D. Estabrook of New York supplied the oratorical feature of the banquet, making a spirited defense of representative government. Bar Associations Minnesota. — The annual meeting of the Minnesota State Bar Association was held at Mankato, Minn., on August 19 and 20. The principal speakers
