The Bar Association That Never Was

The efforts of the attorneys of Lewis County to organize a bar association have come to naught. This is after three meetings were held. The last one was held in Centralia Saturday, and while it did not exactly break up in a row, a number of pointed remarks were made by gentlemen apparently indifferent as to whom they hit. The first proposition to organize a bar association is alleged to have been as innocent as a lamb. However, there were those who considered it hostile to his honor, Judge Langhorne, and a scheme was forthwith laid to nip it in the bud, in which Langhorne took a hand. It is stated that the Judge promised the Centralia attorneys that if they would see him through and get the organization postponed until it was too late for the legislature to take up the matter of Hunter's proposed impeachment proceedings, his son Maurice would not practice in his court any more, and that he would not take another drop of liquor as long as he remained on the bench. The postponement was carried, but when the meeting was held, the desire to organize seemed to have died away in every lawyer's heart. One man who had favored the association remarked that 'in his honest opinion Judge Langhorne had treated this bar like a set of dogs.' The result was that after a number of orations had been made it was agreed not to organize a bar association.