438 State Papers and Addresses

I had the privilege of appointing others on Local Boards, Appeal Boards, and as
Appeal Agents. Without regard to affiliation, or any other ulterior considera-
tion, the lawyers responded patriotically. The fact that only last week the
National Administrator commended the operation of Selective Service in Mary-
land is an indication of the efficient way in which the lawyers have performed
their duties.

In the abrupt termination of their civil life, faced by so many of our
male citizens, the fact that they can have such expert and trustworthy assist-
ance in the handling of the many legal problems involved is a contribution to
the morale of these men. And morale, as you know, was in the last war, and
will be in any emergency, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all the
weapons possessed by our Army and Navy.

While all of these and many other services are being rendered freely and
gladly by members of the Bar to promote the National Defense, in my judg-
ment the Bar has today a higher, if less tangible, duty to its Country and to
the preservation of true constitutional principles.

Everyone, by our very membership in the fraternity of the Law, has the
same obligation put upon us. Occasionally the law is tested so publicly and
so dramatically that pages of history are written. But much more often the
very same testing takes place without fanfare and commotion. Not a day
passes but lawyers and judges and jurymen re-enact the scene of government
being carried out by law. Not a night falls but some humble citizen has had
his rights weighed and adjusted by some branch of our great Judiciary System.

Is that so commonplace a statement? If so we have good reason to be
proud and pleased. In more than half the world today, such a statement would
not be commonplace and certainly not be true. • On what other continents, in
what other hemisphere are human rights guaranteed and upheld by the State?
Name the nations, if you can, which are governed by Law and not by men.
How much responsibility, therefore, falls upon us of the legal profession? No
instance is so small, no case is so insignificant that it does not form part of
the substantial whole. There is no freedom where there is no justice. There is
no Democracy where Law ceases to function in its joint capacity—that of
upholding the State and of standing eternal watch over the rights of the people.

How different in countries where force has usurped the place of right,
where justice is being forced to give way to the all-powerful wills of the ruling
groups. In Germany, for instance, and undoubtedly in every one of the coun-
tries that have been over-run, one of the very first moves made by Hitler to
make secure his domination, was to take command of the courts and of the
Bar. In Germany, as far back as 1936, the flow of students into the law uni-
versities was regulated and later admission to the Bar was made practically
impossible. During the whole year of 1936, we are informed, only sixteen
lawyers were admitted to the profession in Berlin. Jewish lawyers, with few
exceptions, were ousted, simply because of their race.

Such lawyers who are now permitted to practice, moreover, find conditions
entirely changed from those of two years ago. Where once a lawyer had to
be familiar with the interpretation of the highest German Court, nowadays