# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S326
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 112 —

Report of the St. Louis Committee.

We had not, it is true, intended to submit a separate report to the
Reverend Synod, but since we have learned that the Milwaukee
committee has done so, a similar step will probably be expected of us
as well. We have held several meetings, the minutes of which lie
ready for inspection. A meeting held jointly with the Milwaukee
committee on February 15, 1909, at which representatives of the
Milwaukee committee, their attorney Sheridan, the St. Louis committee,
and the attorneys Franklin Ferriss and Joseph H. Zumbalen were
present, closed with the following joint resolution:

"Resolved, That a legal method be devised by which the interest
of the Missouri Synod will be safeguarded, so that it cannot be
effectually attacked in any court; provided, however, that no other
changes whatever be made.

"Resolved, That the attorneys of both Committees be herewith
instructed and authorized to jointly execute the work outlined in the
above and foregoing resolution."

Such a meeting never came about, although the St. Louis attorneys had
a draft ready and were prepared at any time for a meeting with the
Milwaukee attorneys; indeed, this draft by attorneys Ferriss and
Zumbalen was already on hand at the February 1909 meeting and was
known to the Milwaukee committee. In fact, that committee quotes from
this very draft in its printed pamphlet, "An Opinion of the
Legality," etc., on pp. 22, 23, and elsewhere. We have, however,
taken no steps to press specially for such a meeting later, since,
despite thorough consideration of the Milwaukee proposals and of the
Milwaukee opinions and legal opinions, so far as they were laid before
us (for we were given no insight into everything they had written and
printed), and after consulting outstanding legal specialists, we could
not be convinced that the legal existence of our Synod, or its legal
qualifications to maintain its title of ownership to all the real
estate belonging to it, is threatened by the danger that our brothers
in Milwaukee fear.1)

1) As early as 1908, Judge Lübke, in answer to a direct question, gave
the definite opinion (see the Eingaben of the 1908 Delegate Synod,
p. 109) that our incorporation faces no danger from the government.
Judge Franklin Ferriss and the firm of Rowell & Zumbalen concur in
this opinion. The latter firm writes explicitly, in an opinion that is
also quoted by Milwaukee, at its conclusion as follows: "In conclusion
we beg to say that we do not wish to be understood as intimating that
it is necessary that the charter of the Synod be amended. The Synod
is now a corporation. Its charter can be attacked only by the state
through its attorney-general, in a direct proceeding. It is not
subject to collateral attack; and we do not think it in the least
probable that the state will ever raise the question."
"ROWELL & ZUMBALEN."