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Address before the New York State Bar Association

The legal profession may justly claim much credit for the making of our government. American Democracy may justly claim a large part in making the prestige of the legal profession. No other people have submitted so generally to lawyer leadership. We have held all of the judicial and many of the legislative and executive offices.

The Struggle Against Monopoly

Few items of unfinished business present a challenge to this country so insistent as the settlement of an attitude toward the increasing concentration of business control. After 47 years of experience with the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the National Recovery Act and the Robinson-Patman Act, Senator Wagner commented that this experience has produced no coherent system of industrial control, and said: "Half of the laws enacted by Congress represent one school of thought, the other half the other. No one can state authoritatively what our national policy is."

Children of the Rich and Children of the Poor

For years we have heard easy lip service "in principle" to the commonplace that it is bad for America, economically as well as socially, to have child labor, sweated labor, low standards of living, inhumane and unhealthy working conditions.

Labor and the Law

When we met here twenty years ago, a dark era in labor's legal history had begun. The Supreme Court had recently held that the State of New York had no power to limit hours of labor in bakeries to 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week. For years that philosophy blighted efforts at reasonable hours in industry and retarded labor in getting its fair share of the leisure that mass production makes possible.

Should the Antitrust Laws Be Revised?

For forty years the United States has had a statue that appears to condemn every combination which restrains trade. Its general language might include almost any combination, trade association, or industry. But we have court decisions which make possible a plausible legal defense of almost any combination in restraint of trade. What business conduct the resulting law will really reach has become our major governmental mystery.

Founders Day address at University of North Carolina

In this spirit let us examine our Constitution as a chart to control administration of our organized society. Our forefathers never expected finally to solve the social and economic problems of their own day, much less those of all days to come, in the 4500 words of the original instrument. The chief purpose was to devise mechanics and to create a form of political organization, so that questions as they arise might always be answered by a peaceful method, and by a democratic process.

Why a College Education?

Perhaps you have heard about the College Executives who were discussing what they wanted to do after retirement age. One hoped to run a prison or school of correction, so the alumni would never come back to visit. Another chose to manage an orphan asylum so he would not be plagued with advice from parents.