By Stephen Anderson

Editor

Sifting the driftwood

One of the joys that befalls an editor is appraising the continuous stream of stuff and fluff from which content is created. While much of the flotsam flows to the circular file, some gems of the jetsam remain to be polished for printing.

Last month, Donna Schechter of our legal department in Springfield provided a skein of anecdotes about Lincoln connections among ISBA staff members that was fun to knit into the summary you’ll find on page 13.

And couched among the paragraphs was the oblique reference to a secluded spot in our Web site, at www.isba.org/lre/isba&lincoln, that reveals a trove of Lincoln treasures from past ISBA conclaves and publications.

As liaison to the Committee on Law Related Education for the Public, Schechter compiled this list for teachers and coaches of high school mock trial teams.

The discovery there of a rambling speech by the illustrious Isaac Newton Arnold, during an ISBA meeting in January 1881, contains nuggets that can be used appropriately in future compositions on many topics in Illinois legal and political history.

Among those are Arnold’s personal observations of the appearance, lawyering skills and speaking talents of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during the quarter century in which they were his colleagues at the bar.

Words from past are but prologue

“I have detained you already too long,” Isaac Arnold said as he neared the conclusion of his hour-long 1881 oration. He congratulated his ISBA brethren for keeping unstained “the good name of our noble profession” from neither breach of faith nor judicial or professional corruption.

Arnold hailed as “a bright page” in Illinois history the day when “she banished slavery from her borders. She may be justly proud of the intellectual conflict, when her prairies echoed to the great arguments of Lincoln and Douglas, and still more proud when Lincoln proclaimed liberty throughout the land.”

As to the status of the legal profession in society, Arnold said the bar “has been the guardian, under law, of all our liberties; it has furnished the teachers of all parties, and led the advance in all true civilization and progress.”

He cautioned, though, that “some call the bar an aristocracy,” but added, “it will be happy for the republic if there shall be, in the future, as in the past, such an aristocracy of intellect, honor and culture, made up largely from members of the bar.

“Happy is that country where talents, intelligence and high character, rather than money, control political affairs, and make and execute the laws.”

Now for the bad news. In Arnold’s words 128 years ago, “Wealth acquired or inherited is to be protected; but money, as a means of political power, is necessarily corrupt, and is today the most dangerous enemy to our institutions.”

Drawing an analogy to the fall of the Roman Empire in its heyday of corruption, Arnold warned, “If the day should ever come when money shall control the legislation and politics of the country, we shall deserve and may expect the fate of Rome.”

The flotsam, on the day this writer read that challenge, included Rich Miller’s appraisal in Capitol Fax that the special legislative session, called on August 12 to deal with education funding, “was a farce on its face.” Joliet attorney Tom Cross, the House minority leader, concurred: “It’s a sham. It’s a shame.”

Well at least the legislators who showed up had the good sense to discern that their recent performances did not merit pay raises.

ABA’s Bellows earned her laurels

Thanks to the editors of the Daily Law Bulletin for finding space to give Chicago attorney Laurel Bellows her due for illustrious leadership of the ABA House of Delegates during the past two years (see ABA report on page 11 and photo on page 18).

In her valedictory on August 12 in New York City, Bellows reportedly seized the opportunity to express opinions on some of the debated issues, shedding the constraints that had bound her in her role as chair.

While giving credit to “lawyers who have spoken out when those who govern us, when executive officers and legislators and even courts, sought to impose on our freedom,” she chided the bar for looking the other way at times.

Never again should the profession fail to stand up against grievous incidents such as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the ruthless outrages of McCarthyism during the Cold War, Bellows insisted.

“We must be courageous,” she said. “We must be eloquent. We cannot be silent.”

And we of the bar cannot be anything but grateful for the commitment of this diminutive leader to the great responsibility she has shouldered so well.