lifetime than the aforesaid Lord of Purgatory in all eternity. We then went on and compared womanhood with the aforesaid terrible example, but the kind sisters present would not forgive and forget.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have received a Marconi from the toastmaster and translated by my friend Brown, to please leave five minutes. I am going to do it. I had intended to speak on the nobility of the lawyer and the legal profession. But good things will keep, and the lawyers will remain good. So now, as a parting sentiment, after bidding you personally God speed when you depart for your homes until we meet again, may the richest of blessings fall upon you.

I am reminded that some that were with us last year and in years gone by are not with us now. Others, good fellows and conscientious members, have been kept at home. I want you to all rise while we give a toast to our absent members.

The audience rose and drank the toast.

The Toastmaster: Will you all remain standing and join with me in a concluding toast by giving three cheers for the best President the Commercial Law League has had for one year.

Three cheers were given for retiring President Vose, after which the toastmaster declared the banquet adjourned.

President Vose: Ladies and Gentlemen: You have listened to the sound of the gavel for the last time as it falls from my hand. I do not know that I ever laid down a task more

willingly than I do tonight. The position with which you honored me a year ago was really an onerous one. Only those men who have served in the position really know its exactions. I worked hard for you-for the League. I may be pardoned if I say that I feel the League is on a little higher ground by reason not only of my

work but of the efficient work of the standing committees of the year, and the other officers and Executive Committeemen associated with me in my administration. I am indeed grateful to every one of you who has been in attendance upon this convention and has helped to make it such a beautiful affair in all of its departments of activity. I want to mention four men in addition to those I mentioned last night. The unusual attendance upon our business sessions and the good order that there obtained, is due in quite large measure to our four sergeants-at-arms, Mr. McGilton of Omaha, Mr. Friend of New York City, Mr. Pettes of Pittsburg, and today Mr. Broughton, who stood post at the door from 2:30 until pretty nearly 7 o'clock.

You have selected a man to succeed me who is in every way qualified for the position. This past year he has worked as chairman of an important committee. He has given exact attention to every matter that has been referred to him, and reported thereon diligently, intelligently and satisfactorily.

It is a great privilege, Mr. Krauthoff, to now surrender this gavel to you as a token of the authority vested in you by this League, which may no longer be considered simply as a social organization but as a constructive force making for the general uplift in our loved profession. I tender this gavel to you with love and affection. You are my friend, as I feel that all of you here are. I thank you. (Much applause.)

President Krauthoff: Mr. Vose, Ladies and Gentlemen: It was my privilege to say something this afternoon on behalf of my own self. I want now to say something behalf of on the League to Mr. Vose. It is with a peculiar pleasure that I accept the

gavel at his hand. It was my privilege one year ago to second his nomination. He came to the office of president with none of the advantages that some of the previous presidents have had in the way of extensive experience in the workings of the League. He came with a mind free from limitations of the past, living only in the achievements and hopes of the future. He attended to his task diligently. He gathered for us our laws, our operative resolutions, and brought them before us. To use his own expression, he cleaned house. During the year the Bulletin each month brought from him a message of cheer and hope. He was active, as I said, in all that he did, and above all he had within him the feeling that certain things were inherently right, and whenever he came to the point where to him it seemed right to do a particular thing he did that particular thing, and whether we may always agree with another person as to his precise notion of right is immaterial, because after all none of us have the right to sit in judgment upon what another person may think to be right, because each of us has a line of communication which reveals to his individual conscience what he may know to be right. But, however we may differ as to our own notions of what a man may do or may not do, we all agree in the fundamental proposition that when a man sees the right and follows his sense of the right he exemplifies and manifests in that phase of life the highest evidence of manhood. It is the greatest pleasure to know that Mr. Vose's name is added to the list of those illustrious presidents who have preceded him, and that through a wise provision in our constitution we have him on our Executive Committee for two years more. We would be ungrateful if upon this occasion we did not make acknowledgment of the help and the aid that his gracious wife has been to the administration. You know it has become a part of the history of this League, and it is very much to our credit, that when we come to consider our presidents we take into consideration who are their wives, or to state it more accurately, who is their wife. Mrs. Vose, from what Mr. Vose has told me, is not a passive factor in his existence, but is his dominating influence in the life of the Vose household. It has been my good pleasure to be with them for several days at a time and to know them in that respect intimately, and we say to Mrs. Vose that though she came this year to a convention for the first time, she bore herself with all the dignity that the position of wife of the president calls for.

Last two lines of each verse please sing tenderly.

Mr. Hart: Mr. President, the Executive Committee was hurriedly called together this afternoon at the request of a number of members and presents the following amendment to the Constitution.

It is proposed to amend Article 2 of the Constitution, under the title of Membership, so as to add to the first section thereof the following words:

"Any member ceasing to be a lawyer in active practice (except that the election or appointment to office of judge or governor or other executive office shali be an exception to this rule) or ceasing to be engaged in any one or more of the characters of business herein referred to, may have his inembership terminated by vote of the Executive Committee, after thirty days' notice to the said member, with opportunity to explain his position.

Mr. Hart: On behalf of the Executive Committee I move the adoption of the amendment.

The motion was seconded.

President Krauthoff put the question on the amendment and the amendment was adopted.

President Krauthoff: In the year 1895 the first convention of the Commercial Law League of America was held at Detroit, Michigan. There was presented to that convention this gavel. Those of us who are interested in archaeology and are desirous of knowing of its origin will do well to read the Bulletin or the number of the American Legal News which contains the proceedings of the Colorado Springs convention. My predecessor, Mr. Vose, there described it in language that I shall not attempt to equal. or repeat. At the conclusion of the 1895 convention, by a unanimous vote of the convention, it was presented to Mr. William C. Sprague as his property. The title to the gavel has since remained in him. Through his courtesy this gavel has journeyed with us through the length and breadth of this fair land, and has ever served as a warning that the convention should be in order. It is with very great pleasure, Mr. Sprague, that on behalf of this organization this gavel is returned into your keeping. We feel it the more so upon this occasion because you have come back and are again with us. We can almost feel upon this occasion like repeating the beautiful lines of the poet when he describes "the hare whom hounds and horns pursue pants to the place whence first he flew." "He still had hopes, his long vexatious past, here to return." (But with you not as the poet says) "to die at home at last," but rather to live at home at last, and to realize that life is ever lord of death and that love can never lose its own. Eighteen years ago under your tender care and administration there came into existence this organization, and as you return to its active councils and as it returns to you, we feel in a sense that we have come to our father's home. We feel that this child has returned to his father's house, and that with you we may say that all that you have is ours and all that we have is yours, and we want you to feel that this is your place, that this is your home; and we want you to feel that here indeed you may say "with all your prospects brightening to the last, your heaven commences ere the world be past." (Applause.)

Mr. Sprague: Mr. President, I shall make no address in response to these beautiful remarks. I shall have enough to say to you before we have finished. We have quite a long program and I shall only say that I am very glad to know that what is yours is mine. I wish you would tell that to the hotel manager when you go upstairs.

Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for the members of the Old Guard who want to be heard and seen, there are a few papers to be inflicted upon you. These are to be read this evening. I will ask myself and the others who are to speak that they be as brief as possible, though I flatter myself that these papers are matters of interest to you all. I have the first paper, and that is on "The Origin and the Personnel of the First Convention."

Mr. Sprague here read the paper as follows: