OUT OF THE FRYING PAN

When H. G. Wells wrote in his "Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind" of the "devoted persons who foster an ineradicable idea of disinterested integrity" he certainly was not thinking of lawyers. It is the lofty purpose of Judge William Clark of New Jersey, as he declared on Wednesday in quoting Wells' work, to give members of the bar this saintly character. Judge Clark, who last year starred as the champion of individual rights by declaring the Eighteenth Amendment unconstitutional, now appears in a quite different character and proposes to achieve his end by centralizing power in the hands of the judge. Each candidate for the bar, according to the policy Judge Clark has adopted, will serve a five-year "probationary period" at the end of which the judge will decide whether he is "worthy of the confidence of the court and the public" and thus whether he shall be given permanent license to practice.

This attempt at reform is no more fortunate than Judge Clark's Quixotic tilting at Prohibition. There is already a means provided by the state Bar Associations for disbarring lawyers convicted of unethical practices; the step is an innovation, then, only in so far as it takes the disbarring power out of the hands of lawyers and gives it to judges. Moreover, the new rule will actually make opportunities for worse corruption by giving arbitrary power to judges, some of whom have hardly shown themselves able to use discreetly the power they already have.

Lawyers, it is true, have proved extremely chary of disbarring their fellows and it is probable that they have failed to oust from the profession many men whose practices have been far from impeccable. The prospect of quelling the shyster lawyer is attractive. That possibility, however, cannot balance the danger of giving individual judges, inevitably fallible, unchecked control over the liberty of all members of the bar in their district.