STRAWN ATTACKS MAYOR THOMPSON'S PUBLICITY

Characterizing the recent "America First" campaign of Mayor W. H. Thompson of Chicago as a political gesture unworthy of serious attention by thinking people, S. H. Strawn of Chicago, president of the American Bar Association, stated to a CRIMSON representative last night that Thompson's efforts to "chase King George out of America" were humiliating and childish.

Strawn, who was in Cambridge to address the students of the Law School in Austin North last night under the auspices of the Law School Society of the Phillips Brooks House, stated that the feeling between England, Canada, and the United States must continue to be one of friendship and trust, because of common language ties and economic relations.

"King George will of course not sue Mayor Thompson for his slanderous remarks, but libel is perhaps the term that should be applied to the charges male," was Strawn's summary of the Chicago mayor's campaign: "That the present agitation is a publicity move is proved by the fact that many of the books which have been destroyed were placed in the schools during Mayor Thompson's administration. The whole affair is apparently an effort to attract attention."

Strawn left the discussion of the Chicago mayor with this final remark, and turned to the subject of his address at the Law School, which was suggested by a misstatement of the lawyer's place in modern life in a recent magazine article entitled "Officers of the Court."

"The article in question is so flagrantly erroneous that it hardly needs refutation," said Strawn, "but it affords an excellent starting point for a discussion of the lawyer's true function and place in society. I want to give the law school men a statement of legal ethics, and at the same time destory any wrong impressions which may have lodged in the minds of those who may have read the article."

"The author of the article." Strawn continued, "describes lawyers as parasites on society, but I shall endeavor in my address before the Law School men to show that the man who tries to be a parasite cannot suceed in the practice of law."

Strawn pointed out that one section of the article in the typewritten text of his speech which stated, "At their best, lawyers are of just about as much value to society as an army of cross-word puzzle fans; at their all too frequent worst, they are a deadly drug on social progress."

Commenting on this statement, Strawn said, "There are a few lawyers still at the Bar who are wont to engage in the laborious and meticulous job of winding red tape. This type of lawyer is rapidly disappearing, for the obvious reason that that kind of exercise is not compensating, remunerative, or even interesting.

"My observation has been that the law schools are endeavoring to teach their students not only the fundamental principles of the law, but they are also developing a capacity to express one's thoughts accurately, Society looks to the lawyer for constructive leadership. Twenty one out of the twenty nine of our Presidents have been lawyers, and a very large proportion of the members of our Congress and of our several state legislatures are now and always have been lawyers.