At Detroit

As they had done at Philadelphia and London last year, at Minneapolis the year before, bigwigs of the legal profession shook hands all round--last week at the 49th annual meeting of the American Bar Association, at Detroit.

Last year Frank B. Kellogg, Ambassador to the Court of St. James's received members of the Bar Association on tour led by Mr. Secretary Hughes. This year, Attorney Hughes, as President of the Association, received Mr. Secretary Kellogg as a speaker. The 49th meeting followed tradition in bringing to the same platform three defeated candidates for President of the U. S. This year's trio: Alton B. Parker, John W. Davis, Charles E. Hughes, all of New York.

It followed tradition in hearing a speech from the U, S. Attorney General. Last year big Harlan F. Stone warned against shyster and semi-shyster attorneys This year big John G. Sargent warned against the same. He, a country lawyer, pointed out the tendency among urban attorneys to advertise themselves, to present "surprise" evidence, to forget the veneration which in less noisy times was paid to the great Principles of Justice.

Nor did last week's meet lack the traditional presence of onetime Attorney General George W. Wickersham, solicitous that the Bar Association remain faithful to the World Court and other instrument? of world peace.

Two great figures were, however, conspicuous by their absence. One, Elihu Root, whose speeches to the Association a decade and two decades ago are now classic, has passed through the portals of many years into a remote seclusion. One, the Chief Justice of the U. S., William Howard Taft, grandfather of ten, pride of his profession, remains vacationing in preparation for an arduous fall, winter, spring at his public post.

During the course of many speeches, two pronouncements of great weight were made. Mr. Secretary Kellogg's was of immediate importance. He stated the Powers, under the leadership of the U. S., were prepared to go more than halfway in restoring to China her lost sovereignty, in nursing to manhood her newborn sense of nationality.

Mr. ex-Secretary Hughes was of immediate importance in the sense that his subject--"Liberty Under Law"--is forever important.

A new President was elected: Chester I. Long, onetime U. S. Senator from Kansas, member of the Wichita law firm of Long, Houston, Cowan & Depew.

Fred E. Wadhams, of Albany, N. Y., age 77, was reelected Treasurer--a post he has held since 1902. The new Secretary is William P. McCracken, Jr.

Past Presidents of the Association:

1901 Edmund Wetmore

1902 U. M. Rose

1903 Francis Rawle

1904 James Hagerman

1905 Henry Tucker

1906 George R. Peck

1907 Alton B. Parker

1908 J. M. Dickinson

1909 Frederick W. Lehmann

1910 Charles Libby

1911 Edgar Farrar

1912 Stephen Gregory

1913 Frank B. Kellogg

1914 William H. Taft

1915 Peter Meldrim

1915 Elihu Root

1916 George Sutherland

1918 Walter G. Smith

1919 George T. Page

1920 Hampton Carson

1921 William Blount

1922 Cordenio Severance

1923 John W. Davis

1924 R. E. L. Saner

1925 Charles E. Hughes