Diamond Jubilee

From four-year-old John Hancock Hall to 211-year-old Faneuil Hall, Boston was crowded with lawyers last week. Occasion: the 75th (diamond jubilee) Anniversary of the 50,000-member American Bar Association, top organization of the legal profession and one of the major opinion makers in the U.S.

In honor of the convention, the Secretary of the Navy (a lawyer himself) ordered the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Tarawa to lie off Boston, open for inspection. The Post Office dedicated a new purple 3-c- stamp, depicting the scales of justice, the owl of wisdom, the mirror of truth. A historical society put on display the records of the Salem witch trials. And the Statler Hotel thoughtfully stocked its rooms with such legal bedtime stories as a Nero Wolfe mystery in which the senior partner of a law firm gets knocked off (Murder by the Book).

Liberty Under Law. The announced theme of the meeting was: "Liberty Under Law." And for five days, the house of delegates (227 elected representatives) and the assembly (any A.B.A. member at the convention) debated a basic issue: the demands of individual rights v. the demands of national security. By the time the last "now therefore" had followed the last "whereas," the A.B.A. had:

P: Authorized a committee, headed by Manhattan Lawyer Whitney North Seymour, to investigate "congressional investigations and their impact on U.S. life," and chosen the same topic as the 1954 subject of the $2,500 Ross essay prize.

P: Noted with alarm that lawyers of "outstanding" reputations have recently been subjected to "severe personal vilification" for representing Communists, persons accused of being Communists, and racketeers. The house of delegates reminded the nation that 1) every defendant has a right to counsel, and every lawyer has a duty to give counsel "even to the most unpopular" defendant; 2) such representation does not mean that the lawyer shares his client's "views or character."

P: Urged Attorney General Herbert Brownell and state authorities to disbar any lawyer who is "presently a Communist," or who abuses his professional trust by willfully obstructive tactics in the Communist cause. Two days later, the assembly applauded Brownell's announcement that he had ordered the National Lawyers Guild to "show cause" why it should not be put on his subversive list.

P: Condemned book-burning: "Resolved, That the freedom to read is a corollary of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press, and American lawyers should oppose efforts to restrict it."

P: Appointed a committee to study the administration of criminal justice in the U.S. The Ford Foundation kicked in $50,000 to help foot the bill.

P: Provided refresher courses on the latest developments in law for nearly 4,000 lawyers, and heard Assistant Attorney General Stanley Barnes, the Eisenhower Adminstration's new chief trustbuster, give his first major policy address (see BUSINESS).

Stare Decisis. The most heated debate of the A.B.A. convention revolved around the Bricker Amendment (TIME, July 13), which would put a congressional check on the President's.power to conduct foreign relations by executive agreement. Twice before the house of delegates had endorsed the Bricker Amendment. Last week Secretary of State John Foster Dulles flew to Boston to stick his head in the lion's mouth. In packed John Hancock Hall, Dulles told the A.B.A. assembly that the Bricker Amendment "would set the clock back to ... the Articles of Confederation." * Yalta and Potsdam, Dulles conceded, were executive agreements--but so was the Korean armistice. Said the Secretary of State: "I do not admit that because power can be abused, it follows that power should be annulled."

Next day the lion's jaws closed. Frank E. Holman, 67, Seattle corporation lawyer and A.B.A. past president who gave Ohio's Senator John Bricker the idea for the amendment, stopped chain-smoking cigars long enough to take the floor in the three-hour debate in the house of delegates. Holman wasted little time on the specific points of the Dulles argument. His appeal was to a deep-seated legal concept: the force of precedent, stare decisis. If the house of delegates "turned turtle" now after twice backing the Bricker Amendment, warned Holman, the A.B.A. would lose all future influence in Washington. That did it. The vote: 117 to 33 for endorsement of the amendment.

"Shame!" That afternoon, the anti-Bricker forces rallied for one last fight in the assembly. Endicott ("Chub") Peabody, 33, Harvard's last All-America (guard, class of '42), World War II submarine officer and Boston lawyer, introduced a resolution calling for a referendum of all 50,000 A.B.A. members--in effect, a demand to see whether the membership would reverse the house of delegates. Striding down to a front-row mike, ex-President Holman angrily retorted: "You gentlemen just want to get your, names in the press." (Cried voices from the assembly floor: "Shame!") But a few minutes later, Lawyer Peabody walked into a parliamentary mousetrap set by Holman supporters, who substituted a resolution leaving it up to the house of delegates to decide when to call a referendum--and-whether to call one at all. The vote against Peabody: 252 to 175.

That night, at the annual banquet, the A.B.A. presented its gold medal for jurisprudence to ex-President Holman--for his Bricker Amendment leadership. Then outgoing President Robert G. Storey, 59, of Dallas handed over his gavel to incoming President William J. Jameson, 55, a Billings, Mont, lawyer, and the diamond jubilee of the A.B.A. was over.

* Secretary Dulles also told the lawyers that he will recommend some fundamental revisions in the U.N. charter, when it comes up for review in 1955. Suggested changes: 1) a strict atomic-age disarmament plan; 2) a broad change in the voting system, including an overhaul of the Great Power veto in the Security Council; 3) a written code of international law behind the charter, to which all nations would subscribe.

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