[Address before the American Bar Association, in Continental Hall,
October 20, 1914.]

MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION:

I am very deeply gratified by the greeting that your president has given
me and by your response to it. My only strength lies in your confidence.

We stand now in a peculiar case. Our first thought, I suppose, as
lawyers, is of international law, of those bonds of right and principle
which draw the nations together and hold the community of the world to
some standards of action. We know that we see in international law, as
it were, the moral processes by which law itself came into existence. I
know that as a lawyer I have myself at times felt that there was no real
comparison between the law of a nation and the law of nations, because
the latter lacked the sanction that gave the former strength and
validity. And yet, if you look into the matter more closely, you will
find that the two have the same foundations, and that those foundations
are more evident and conspicuous in our day than they have ever been
before.

The opinion of the world is the mistress of the world; and the processes
of international law are the slow processes by which opinion works its
will. What impresses me is the constant thought that that is the
tribunal at the bar of which we all sit. I would call your attention,
incidentally, to the circumstance that it does not observe the ordinary
rules of evidence; which has sometimes suggested to me that the ordinary
rules of evidence had shown some signs of growing antique. Everything,
rumor included, is heard in this court, and the standard of judgment is
not so much the character of the testimony as the character of the
witness. The motives are disclosed, the purposes are conjectured, and
that opinion is finally accepted which seems to be, not the best founded
in law, perhaps, but the best founded in integrity of character and of
morals. That is the process which is slowly working its will upon the
world; and what we should be watchful of is not so much jealous
interests as sound principles of action. The disinterested course is
always the biggest course to pursue not only, but it is in the long run
the most profitable course to pursue. If you can establish your
character, you can establish your credit.

What I wanted to suggest to this association, in bidding them very
hearty welcome to the city, is whether we sufficiently apply these same
ideas to