SEPTEMBER 10, 1926, AFTERNOON SESSION, 2 P. M.

PRESIDENT C. L. YOUNG, OF BISMARCK, PRESIDING PRESIDENT YOUNG: Before opening our afternoon program, I want to announce again to you members of the bar the evening session or annual banquet. I know that some of you have been on formal banquet programs-we feel that the association never has presented to the convention a better program that that which will be offered this evening and we urge every member to remain for that particularly.

One other thing. At the conclusion of the first address of the afternoon we have no doubt that many of you will want to leave, but I want to ask that you remain for a musical number which will be furnished following the principal address of the afternoon, but after that the bar association will continue with their business session.

I am reminded of the recent social story of what happened when the governor of North Carolina met the governor of South Carolina, and for a few minutes this afternoon I was wondering what was happening when the governor of North Dakota met the governor of Minnesota. But they are both here and I want Governor Sorlie to present the speaker of the afternoon.

GOVERNOR SORLIE: Good afternoon, everybody. I didn't know there were so many lawyers in the state of North Dakota.

We are very fortunate, that is, the members of the bar association, I don't happen to be one of them, to have the speaker of this afternoon. Being that all the lawyers are here, and I assume that we have the brains here, the fellows who adjust and fix things, I want to ask them to work out the problems I have in mind.

We have a lot of people in this state who are violating the laws, particularly the prohibition laws, and the penitentiary is not the place for them. The second offense, they are sent to the penitentiary. The first offense, they get a county jail sentence with hard labor, but it is usually less. If you lawyers can work out a law arranging to put these fellows on the highway to work out that sixty or ninety days at really hard labor, the gradual effect of that would be that they would not be in the peniteniary because there would not be a second offense. If the judge would sentence them to time on the highway, they would not commit a second offense and would not go to the penitentiary. And I believe it would eliminate a lot of crime that is going on if they were exposed at home in their own communities. And if the judges, with those habitual breakers of the law, in place of giv

ing them one or two years-if they would give them twenty years and then ask for a suspended sentence after they were a year in the penitentiary, and the pardon board would parole them, the courts would not have them again because the parole board could reach out and get them if they did not behave after that. If you give them a parole sentence for a year and a half, we could send out and get them at any time and save the county a lot of money.

I consider this a great pleasure. Governor Christianson and I have met before at different times and places. The meeting just referred to took place. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you at this time the governor of Minnesota, Governor Christianson.

GOVERNOR CHRISTIANSON: Mr. chairman, your excellency, Governor Sorlie, members of the State Bar Association of North Dakota, ladies and gentlemen: I shall speak today on the States and the Nation. I expect to discuss the relations of the state to the nation.

I suppose it is a rule that every address should have three parts: first, an introduction; second, a body, and third, a conclusion. In other words a public speaker should tell his audience what he is going to tell them, then he should tell them and then finally he should tell them what he has told them. That is the basis I have adopted this afternoon, though I ought to explain that although my address has an introduction, there will be very little body, and you will have to supply your own conclusion.

THE STATE AND THE NATION

Governor Christianson of Minnesota

I shall speak today on the subject, "The States and the Nation." To discuss the relation of state to federal authority before an organization composed of men, many of whom have made a life-long study of the American constitutional system, may seem like "carrying coals to Newcastle." I would not undertake the task if it involved constitutional interpretation only. But it involves vastly more: it involves consideration of the comparative efficiency of the two system of government, state and federal, to solve the problems and meet the needs of the people; of the effect on the quality of citizenship of removing the situs of governmental activity too far from the people in whom the sovereign power resides; of the possible danger of overloading the structure of the federal government by unduly expanding and unreasonably multiplying its departments and bureaus. I, therefore, offer no apology for discussing the subject, even in this presence; for it involves consideration of governmental policy even more than of legal principles.

It is a subject which now is to the fore, and it is fraught with large meaning. It touches such diverse and widely separated questions as whether the central government should give aid conditioned on state cooperation, whether the congress should establish a federal department of education, and whether the states through their legislatures should ratify the child labor amendment. These are only a few of the immediate and special problems which lie back of the larger question suggested by my theme, "The States and the Nation." From the structural point of view, it is perhaps the most important, the most nearly fundamental question that confronts the American people at this time.

The work of the fathers who framed the constitution is being challenged by some today; by others it is fullsomely and sometimes even blindly praised. I believe that the candid judgment of those who are capable of giving the instrument dispassionate and intelligent appraisal is that despite flaws and weaknesses which were introduced when the statesmen of the convention found it necessary to compromise with its politicians, it is the greatest document ever conceived in the mind and struck off by the hand of man. To realize the essential greatness of the constitution and the soundness of the scheme of government set up under it, we need to remind ourselves that our government, state and national, has suffered less shock and strain, has been less dislodged by the World War and the reconstruction which followed it, than any