urner, no other course would have been followed. Here
are two, and there are numerous other concrete examples of what may be
accomplished by sane and timely appeals to our judicial tribunals. Our
government has three well defined departments separate and distinct,
each operating in a manner as a check on the other, and all together
working for the common good of the whole. We have resorted generally to
the executive and have been satisfied with its appointment of a few men
to office, and with its passive execution of the laws affecting us. In
recent years we have arisen to the point of seeking legislation in the
defense of our civil rights, and it is hoped that as the years pass more
of this will be done. But in the judicial branch of the government is
where, after all, we must place our reliance. We need a body of trained
lawyers in full sympathy with our community life, eager, anxious, and
capable, prepared at any emergency to present our cause fairly and
intelligently before any tribunal; and with this accomplished, I have
faith in the American people that justice will prevail, and right
triumph over every wrong. I do not mean that the lawyer is to seek such
service by the fomenting of litigation; far from it, but let him be
prepared for it by study and devotion to racial ideals, and when the
hour comes he will be called on to marshal its forces and take charge of
the legal contests of a race. This will never be if he dreams only of
his money, if he thinks only of present material gain, if he counts his
successes in terms of houses and lands. He must be willing to serve for
the sake of the service. The failures in our professional life come
almost wholly from those who had no high ideals of their calling, and no
devotion to the interests of their race or country. Country and race in
this matter are synonymous; you can't serve one without at the same time
serving the other. The lawyer who advocates the protection of the
lives, the property, and the civic welfare of ten millions of Americans
of whatever hue, or origin, is not a racial zealot, but a patriot of the
highest character, and his worth in preserving the nation's ideals is
beyond calculation.

Young men, you who are either about to leave these halls for the active
life of the lawyer, or you who are just beginning the pursuit of your
studies here looking to the same end, I bring you, I hope, no
discouraging note. My aim is to do the contrary. The heavy burdens t