112 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
112 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
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*** The following is a welcoming speech allegedly delivered by
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*** Dean William S. Prosser to his freshman law students.
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It is my duty to welcome you all to the Law School of the
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University of Minnesota. It has been my custom to greet the entering
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class by asking each one of you to look at the man on his left, and at
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the man on his right. I ask you to do that now. Take a good look, and
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impress the features of each man on your memory. Next year, all three
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of you will not be here.
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I always wonder why students come to study law. As I gaze into the
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faces now before me, that wonder becomes amazement. I do not know what
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business, what trade, what hard labor your faces suggest to me, but it
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is not the law. There is nothing legal about them. They fill me with
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revulsion approaching nausea. Some of you are here because your fathers
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are willing to spend the money for three more years in the university.
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That money would be better spent on drink.
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Some of you are obviously here because you are looking for a place
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to sleep. This is not the place. There is not a comfortable bench in
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the building. I have tried them all.
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Some of you, the female students, are all too evidently here for
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biological reasons. Of that I most emphatically disapprove. I warn you
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that no biological activities will be tolerated in this school.
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Some of you do not even know why you are here. I am sure that I
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cannot tell you. There are other institutions for morons, for
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criminals, for alcoholics, and for the mentally deranged. There is
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still time to seek them out, and I urge you to do so before it is too
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late.
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There may be a few of you, perhaps four or five, who are normal
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human beings and capable of making an intelligent choice, but who have
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come here through ignorance, or misinformation or aberration or folly.
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To them I have this to say: Abandon the idea. Go away. Dig ditches.
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Drive garbage trucks. Clean sewers. Go back into the army. Even teach.
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But do NOT study law. If you do, you will rue it. You will work long
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hours of the day and of the night. You will read thousands of
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incomprensible decisions, written by incompetent judges, and endeavor
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in vain to understand them. For three years you will get no sleep. You
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will have no time to eat. Above all you will have no fun. No one has
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any fun here, not even I. You will slave for three years like the
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beasts of the field, and in the end you will fail. All of our students
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fail.
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If you do not fail in this school, you will fail in the bar
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examinations. All of our students fail in the bar examinations. And if
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you do not fail, you will not find employment. There is no employment
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to be found in the law. The legal profession is saturated. It is
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crammed. It is overflowing with graduates of this and other law
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schools--for there are other law schools, for reasons that I do not
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know--Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, Iowa, Arkansas, Idaho, even Yale.
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Out of 20 men in our last graduating class, seven are now working in
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filling stations, five are selling popcorn, four are shoveling ashes,
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two and one-half are in jail, and one man is playing the piano. I have
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heard him, and he does not play it well.
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If you try to practice law you will be extremely unhappy. It is a
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dismal and distressing trade. You will be brought into contact with
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clients. They are dishonest, corrupt, unrefined, bad-tempered,
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ill-mannered, disagreeable, and above all unremunerative. You will not
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be able to earn a living. According to figures complied by Professor
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Llewellyen, the average income of the lawyers in Minnesota for the last
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10 years, that is, before the payment of state and federal income
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taxes, was sixty-four dollars and eighty-three cents. Your wives--if
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any of you are ever so foolish to marry, which I sincerely trust that
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none of you will ever do--your wives will be forced to take in washing,
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or driven to a life of shame. Your children--your children will starve.
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The cemetaries of Minnesota are filled today with the emaciated bodies
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of lawyers' children who have died of starvation. I urge you to
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consider before it is too late what be your feelings if one of those
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fragile little bodies should some day be your child?
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Now we will pause, and there will be soft music while you reflect
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on what I have said.
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(Flute: Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground.)
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I do not mean to be unduly discouraging. In the practice of law,
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there is always room for a good man at the top. Sometimes even for two
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good men. But in this school we have not had a good man in the last 31
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years.
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I welcome you to the Law School of the University of Minnesota. My
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office is open for the cancellation of registrations. Will some of you
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in the back please carry out the men who have fainted? The assignment
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for tomorrow will be the first 168 pages of my casebook on property.
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