NecrologySource: American Bar Association Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3 (MARCH, 1922), pp. 190-191Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25710826 .

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190 American Bar Association Journal

(5) The fourth may be temporary or permanent, it matters not which, for he is to act until it

be removed.

It is of no consequence that, whether through ambition, party spirit, or any other'prepossession, the clause may have been differently construed in practice in the past. It has never received judicial construc tion.

In the calm, clear atmosphere of the Supreme Court, actuated by no other impulse than a desire to

expound the true meaning of this clause, what man, educated in the correct use of ordinary words in the

English language, can doubt that the construction here

given would be adopted by that tribunal ? If that is true, all talk of ousting the president

from his office, in case of inability to discharge its

duties, passes into nothingness. He remains President, and if he regains his ability to discharge the duties of his office, he resumes their discharge. If not, the Vice-President continues to act "as president," until a new president is elected.

Inability may be mental, or physical, long or

short, full or partial. Whatever it is, it is a fact, and must be determined by some one. There can be no doubt as to the other three events, removal, death, or

resignation. No dispute can arise as to them. The case of inability is very different. But it re

mains a question of fact, none the less. Who is to

^decide it ? My answer is to suggest a simple solution. Both. All that is needed is harmony between the President and Vice-President, instead of jealousy. There should always be harmony between the officials of the state. The President and Vice-President are now of the same political party. So that political dif ferences would not cause discord.

If we adopt the idea that the Vice-President of our nation is, like all other vice-presidents an officer

elected, not to oust a president but to act as president in case of inability of the President, all trouble over this clause of the Constitution will disappear.

The inability may be temporary due to a passing illness or absence from the seat of government. It may be total or partial. The President may be so over burdened with important matters of state, that he .cannot find time, for example, to sign his name to the

many documents which call for merely formal action. Is there any reason why he should not have the as sistance of the Vice-President in such cases of in " ability to discharge all the powers and duties of the office? It should not be thought that this would de

grade the Vice-President from a Presidential Possi

bility into a Rubber Stamp. There is no loss of dignity in a President in affixing his signature to various documents, which come before him as matters of

routine. How then can there be any loss of dignity in a Vice-President in doing the same thing? Let the Vice-President be made a member of the cabinet. Not a line of legislation is needed. Nothing but an invita tion of the President to become a member. Put him in close touch with the Administration. Make him an active part of it, so far as advice and counsel are con cerned. Let him aid the President in the performance of such ministerial duties as they two shall decide. Thus he would receive a training for the more im

portant duties that would devolve upon him, in the event of death of the President, or permanent mental

inability to discharge them. In short, let us rid ourselves of the prevalent con

ception of a Vice-President as an official who is only

waiting for a dead man's shoes, and meanwhile passes his time in presiding over the Senate. Let us take up the idea, wrapped up in the word "Vice-President." It is nothing more nor less, than that he is an official whose duty is to act as President, in the event that the President is, for any reason continuing or tempor ary, unable to act.

If we become possessed with that idea and apply it to the question in hand, there will no longer be any problem to solve.

Lastly if it be thought desirable to obtain a judicial construction of this clause, it would be easy to do so. The President could call upon the Vice-President to help him in getting rid of an accumulation of docu ments' needing signature. The two could work to gether. The Vice-President signing his' name, "acting as President." The validity of such action could then be questioned, and a case made for construction by the Supreme Court.

As the question is an important one and has re ceived diverse answers for many years from many men, it might be as well to have it finally settled by the Supreme Court. It hangs upon the construction to be given to the word "same," that is to say whether in the tour events named the devolution is of the office or of its powers and duties.

John Brooks Leavitt.

Necrology Death of Chief Justice Siebecker of

Wisconsin Robert G. Siebecker, Chief Justice of the Supreme

Court of the State of Wisconsin, was sixty-eight years of age at the time of his death, February 12,1922. He was born in Wisconsin of German parentage; educated in the common schools and in the University of Wis consin ; studied law at the Wisconsin College of Law; was admitted to practice in 1879; practiced ab Madison until 1890, when he was elected Circuit Judge. He served as a Judge in one of the most important cir cuits in the State until 1903, and from 1903 until his death was a member of the Supreme Court. He thus pursued an uninterrupted career of thirty-two years upon the bench, and leaves a commendable record, commanding the approval of his associates, the bar, and the public generally.

In appearance the Chief Justice was a tall, well formed, handsome man. He was quiet, dignified, kindly, and invariably courteous. There have been few, perhaps none, upon the bench in Wisconsin who knew so well how to announce a ruling from the bench, or direct the entry of a judgment without leaving a

sting in the defeated party. In 1876 he married Josephine LaFollette, the

sister of Robert M. LaFollette, long a prominent mem ber of the United States* Senate. He was appointed an associate Justice to the Supreme Court in 1903 by Senator LaFollette, who was then Governor of the State. The intimate association of these two men for

nearly fifty years appears never to have been inter

rupted. -

Philip Alston Willcox As the result of complications following an at

tack of influenza, P. A. Willcox, representative of the State of South Carolina on the General Council of the American Bar Association, died at his home, Flor

ence, S. C, February 16th, 1922. Mr. Willcox was

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The Coming Annual Meeting 191

born in Marion, S. C, December 8th, 1866, and

graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1887. He had long been a member of the American Bar Association, and in 1920 was President of the Bar Association of his State. He was not only re

garded as a leader of the bar of his State, but of the entire South. Besides representing other large cor

porate interests, at the time of his death, and for sev eral years prior thereto, he was General Solicitor of the Atlantic Coast Line Railway Company. He leaves a

widow, two sons and a daughter.

Judge William A. Kinkaid

Manila's legal community assembled on Sunday morning, January 22, 1922, to pay tribute to the mem

ory of Judge William Abraham Kinkaid, one of the first judges appointed to the judiciary of the Philippine Islands. Judge Kinkaid died in the city of Los An

geles, California, on the fourth of the same month after an illness of several months. At the services were the Justices of the highest tribunal, under whose auspices the program was held, and the leading law yers of the Islands. It was a remarkable tribute; the Arellano building was crowded. The judge's son, now a member of the firm to which his father belonged, was

present. The principal addresses were delivered by his late law partner, E. Arthur Perkins, and Mr. Justice E.

Finlay Johnson of the Supreme Court of the Philip pine Islands.

"He possessed the virtues and the best traditions of the calling which inspire, not only in the forum but also in the people, confidence and adhesion to the prin ciples of the famous instructions of President McKin

ley. Aristocratic in deportment and intelligence, but

eminently democratic in his habits and education, he at tracted the sympathies and affection of all those who

met him. . . . Numbers of lawyers and law students went into the courts just to hear Kinkaid display the resources of a mighty mind. Clear and methodical in

exposition, terribly grilling in cross-examination, formidable in attack, eloquent and forceful in speech, the legal fights in which he fought constituted a school for those who knew him." This was the remarkable language of Judge Jose C. Abreu, a Filipino, who like Judge Kinkaid, has resigned from the bench to prac tice at the bar.

Justice Johnson's position at the services was particularly conspicuous due to the fact that out of the first nine judges who were sent by President McKinley to the Philippines in 1900, he is now the only one alive. Justice Johnson traced the career of Judge Kin kaid and paid a fitting tribute to his achievements ii the law.

John S. Miller

John S. Miller, a leading lawyer of Chicago and one of the best known members of the bar of the country, died on Feb. 16 at his home in Chicago at the age of 74. He was senior partner of the firm of Miller, Starr, Brown, Packard and Peckham. One of the most famous of the legal battles in which he was en gaged was the case of the United States against the Standard Oil Company, in which he appeared for the defendant. A fine of $29,000,000 was imposed on the company in the lower court, but he won the case on appeal. He also represented certain packers in the so-called "Beef Trust Case" in 1905.

The Coming Annual Meeting Some of the Climatic and Other Advantages

of San Francisco in August?California Committee of Arrangements Is Active

San Francisco, Cal., March 1.?That the meet ing of the American Bar Association in San Fran cisco August 9, 10 and 11 is to be California's most notable convention is the belief of the lawyers who are putting into the preparations for it all of San Francisco's "know how" spirit.

The Executive Committee of Arrangements of the California Bar Association, of which Beverly L. Hodghead, Senior Vice-President of the Bar Association of San Francisco is Chairman, is rap idly getting its program into shape. Sub-Commit tees have been organized and are functioning and the tentative program of entertainment has been discussed. Headquarters have been opened at Room 215, Holbrook building, with Andrew Y. Wood, Managing Editor of The Recorder, the lawyers' newspaper, in charge, and through that office all business pertaining to the Convention will be transacted.

The message concerning this convention is be ing gotten to the lawyers of the State through a series of meetings. On the evening of February 23, Chairman Beverly L, Hodghead addressed the Santa Clara Bar Association at a well attended meeting at San Jose. He emphasized the necessity for united effort on the part of the lawyers of Cali fornia to make of this meeting the most success ful in the history of the American Bar Associa tion. He also pointed out that certain guarantees had been given to the Executive Committee with regard to a greatly increased membership, not alone in California but in the entire "region of the Pa cific/' which obligations must be met in order that the American Bar Association may become a truly national organization. Early in March a similar meeting is to be held in Oakland, at which time the Alameda County Association will be "stirred up/'

August will be a splendid month in San Fran cisco. The lawyers coming across the great sage brush plains or across the desert of Arizona, out of the blistering heat of the east, will come down from the mountains into the pleasant valleys of California, with their great expanse of green fields and heavily fruited orchards, through great vine yards wTith the new grapes just beginning to pur ple in the summer sun, past vast fields of alfalfa, down to the great bay of San Francisco, glistening in the sun and rippled by cool breezes from the great Pacific beyond whose vast expanse lie the "problems" that have been so happily and so re cently settled at Washington.

There in the cool shadow of beautiful Tamal pais, in a series of bright, cool, rainless days, the delegates to the American Bar Association will be able to hold their deliberations. There is no con vention city so favored in the United States as is San Francisco, with its marvelous surroundings of bay, ocean and hills, its immediate vicinage of mountains, redwood-grown canyons, oak covered slopes, its great universities, its beautiful public buildings, its extensive parks and boulevards and its great business district.

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