OPPOSITION
Xat Goodwin, the actor, who has been
married to five different ladies at various
periods in his life, is opposed to Social
ism on the grounds that it would
“break up the home.”
i—i—nwni ii ii imi 'iiiii amiiiiii inn1 w m
First Class'Accommodation.
Nordale Hotel
Your Patronage Solicited*
| There May Be Others 1
1 In The Grocery
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| Business, But No |
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5 - . Place Like f
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ONE ON THE
LAWYER
s'
A gentleman called on a lawyer a few
nights ago to ask his advice regarding
certain matters and after talking for
about ten minutes rose to go when the
attorney interposed with the following :
“Excuse me, sir, but I am in the habit
of charging for my advice. Ten dollars
please." “Oh, that’s all right," re
plied the gentleman, bowing himself out
“but I’m not taking your advice. Good
day!"
I Patronize the
Miners Home
Restaurant
White Swan Lauudry
ESTER CITY
Carries gents furnishings, .socks,
drawers, top-shirts etc.
Wholesale and Retail Bread, Cakes and Pies
ICE CREAM PARLORS IN CONNECTION.
Creek Orders Promptly Pilled
HOT BREAD POR DINNER
SECOND AVENUE Next Orpheum Theater PHONE 188
4
MINER’S HOME
MILLER & STOLCIS, PROPS.
WINES, LIQUORS AND CIGARS. ROOMS, STEAM HEAT,
ELECTRIC LIGHT AND ALL MODERN CONVENIENCES.
Opposite Tanana Valiev R-R- Repot
P. 0. BOX 797, FAIRBANKS, ALASKA
Pioneer! btel
Oldest And Largest Hotel
In Fairbanks.
Warm Stables And Dog Houses.
DAVE PETREE, PROP.
FRISS’ COFFEE HOUSE
Thoroughlyrenovated audfrebuilt
FIRST CLASS BATHS. FURNISHED ROOMS.' LUNCHES.
READING/ROOM AND WRITING MATERIALS
Electric'light and allaccomodations. The worker’s home
THE RECALL OF JUDGES
r? Proceedings of a Session of the Illinois State Bar Association
April 26, 1912, 8 O'Clock P. M, '
(Continued from last issue)
Fourth. Our profession, bench and
bar, is making too much of a fetish of
the precedents of the stone age. We are
always marching backward:, to find out
what some lord or baron said i n the
days of feudalism. The surgeon wants
the latest, the newest, successful oper
ation ; the physician, the most improved
effective medical remedy. The manu
facturer is looking and paying well for
the latest machine, saving cost of pro
duction, or both. In short, every depart
ment of life and activity, professional,
productive and otherwise, except the
bench and bar, are improving and econ
omizing their service by the adoption of
substantial practical reforms. Govern
ment alone drags behind, wasting time,
money and rendering inefficient service
and in the government procession, it is
hardly complimentary to say, but no
doubt the fact, that the judiciary is
bringing'up the rear of that belated pro
cession.
In the present Ohio constitutional
convention, on the question of reforming
our judicial system and procedure,
twenty-eight votes were cast against it,
nineteen of which were from lawyers.
Fifth. Our profession, from which
the bench is chosen, is becoming sadly
commercialized. The standard to-dav of
the big lawyer is the big fee. And as the
big fee is generally paid by big business
and as loyalty to clients is one of the
most admirable characteristics of the
lawyer, it is easy to understand why the
Roots, the Choates, the Milburns and
the Thurstons are with the special inter
ests. And most of them are honestly
with big business. They can say with
Paul of old, himself a great lawyer be
fore his conversion, that his .JtOTtocience
was void of offence against God and
man. Put a inan who for ten or twenty
years has served the big corporations of
his state by employing his mind and his
skill in favor of forced technical con
struction of laws regulatiug or restrain
ing corporate interests, so as to defeat
the spirit and purpose of laws in favor
of human health; safeH-, life and gen
eral, welfare, such a man, by the most
elementary laws of psychology, acquires
the corporation squint as a lawyer,
which he cannot wholly abandon when
he becomes a judge on the bench.
Blit it is urged that the judge should
be independent. Independent of what?
Independent of whom? We say “yes”
independeut of the boss, who too often
nominates and elects him. We say1
“yes” -independent of the machine and
the special interests who too often nom-i
inate and elect him. But it is not in
that sense that it is urged that the judge
should be independent. It is rather that
he shall b e absolutely regardless and
unanswerable to public opinion in what
soever form it may clearly and cogently
express itself. Where is there any auth
ority for this sort of judicial indepen
dence?
Some distinguished men have tried to
improve on Lincoln at Gettysburg. They
declare themselvse in favor of govern
ment of the people, for the people “by
a representative part of the people. ’ ’
Well, thank God’ they are at least
forced to admit the representative
character of the ruling class, and I
assume they include judges in their def
inition.
Now, an officer, judicial or otherwise, •
cannot be at the same time represen- i
tative of the people and independent of j
the people, any more than an officer of i
a private corporation can be represent
ative o f that corporation and at the
same time independent of the corpor- j
ation. Upon the contrary, both are dir
ectly and decisively dependent, respon
sive and responsible to their master in
order to be really representative.
Such a political paradox needs no
further discussion. It is a contradiction
both in terms and in truth.
The constitution of the nation does
not provide for such independence, ex
pressly or impliedly. The constitution
of none of the states of the Union pro
vides for i t. Whence then does the
doctrine eome ? Some judge said it, and
many judges have since been repeating
it.
The judiciary should be independent
in its legitimate field as legislatures and
executives should be in their respective
fields.
No trespassing is charged against ex
ecutive, none is charged against the leg
islative, but the judicial branch is gen
erally chargeable and justly so with
trespassing on legislative right, exec
utive power aud the general welfare.
From 1902 until 1908 the respective
supreme courts of the different states
of this Union declared not less than 468
different statutes unconstitutional, and
these were mainly statutes in the inter
est of social and industrial justice, pub
lic health, safety and life.
The judicial branch is not content to
day with merely interpreting and apply
ing law as it is in every other civilized
country in the world, but it is making
law, amending law and nullifying law,
under the mask of interpretation. So
that the judiciary has become in fact and
in law the supreme power over aud
above the legislature, over and above
the executives, and even over and above
the people. Instead of a gevernment of
the people, for the people and by the
people, as Lincoln understood it, it has
become a government of the people by
the judges.
Some one says, oh, well, we are in
favor of the removal of legislative and
executive officers, but you must not lay
your hands on the judiciary.
There is nothing new about this ar
gument. When the provision of the
Federal Constitution providing for the
removal of public officers by impeach
ment was under debate, there was, in
some quarters, a movement to except
the president from such removal. I want
to call attention to the suggestion made
by Colonel Mason in that constitutional j
convention, when he said — “No point;
is of more importance than that the
right of impeachment shall be continued.
Shall any man be above justice ? Above
all, shall that man be -above it who can
commit the most1 extensive injustice?’’
I want to supplement this by what Mr.
Gerry said. He urged the .necessity of
impeachment as applicable to- the pres
ident in the following language: * ‘A
good magistrate will not fear it.' A bad
one ought to be kept in fear of it. ’ ’ He
said he hoped the maxim would never
be adopted here that the magistrate
could do no wrong. The same argument
is being used to-day to except the jud
iciary from recall by popular vote.
Destroy yo u r textbooks. Tear out |
your Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg!
classic on American democracy, or forth
with amend it so as to read-—Govern- i
ment of the people, by the people and
for the people, except the judges who j
come from heaven a n d are to heaven J
alone responsible' Imagine Washington !
Jefferson or Lincoln talking such trash, j
You say,—I don’t want the judge with i
his ear to the ground. Well J don’t
either, but if he is going to get down i
that low, I would rather have both
his years to the ground than one year
to the railroad track. But I do want
him to respond to the instincts of the
American heart, the wisdom of the*
American head, and the just deserts of |
the American hand.
Washington did, Jefferson did, Lin
coln did, Rosevelt did. And the fame
of their great worth and works rests
largely in the fact that they were exem
plary exponents of the best of our com
posite American life and thought. The
American judge should go and do like
wise.
Isn’t it a little peculiar that men who
admit the people are qualified to nom
inate their own judges, who are qual
ified to elect their own judges, most of
them largely unknown, many of them,
wholly untried, that these same people
should not be qualified after the judge
• I
has had a fair and reasonable opportun
ity to make good, to pass in judgment
. ..i..
upon him and to wisely remove him for
good *fiftPisu5icient cause when he fails
to efficiently and justly administer his
trust. When we nominate him we pass
in judgment upon his qualifications, and
that is all that we do wBen we vote to
IV . . I . . .
remove him It is almighty strange
that the sovereign citizen has his lucid
intervals only when he nominates and
when he elects. Thereafter he becomes
the part of the mob when he criticises
and censures the court, or when he asks
by petition to vote to remove the judge,
The old theory of elective officers as
first provided for in the various state
constitutions, especially in staid old New
England, was for short official terms.
Why ? So that if the officer proved in
capable, -inefficient, corrupt or unrep
resentative of the best thought and life
of the people that when Be came up for
re-election he could be defeated. Fre
quent elections are but frequent oppor
tunities to recall the judge. Judge Ren
field, one of the most eminent jurists
that ever sat on a bench in the state "of
Vermont or any other state, was elected
and re-elected annually for twentv-five
consecutive times. It did not impair his
usefulness, his efficiency, liis proper in
dependence or distinguished service up
on the supreme court of the.state of
Vermont.
What was the reason of the fixing of
tlfe short term in the election of presid
ent of the United States but to provide
the people the right to recall him if, at
the end of four years, his official service
was unsatisfactory. The same with our
governors, the same with our legislators
and every other line of official service.
You could not organize in Chicago to
day a million dollar corporation for the
manufacture of any staple article no
matter what the prospects of profits
might be to stockholders, if you were to
provide iu the charter that the president
general manager, board o f directors,
foremen, subforemen and every employe
should be employed for a term of four
years to six years without right of re
moval for inefficiency, misconduct, in
attention to business, disloyalty or any
serious dereliction of duty. No one
would care to invest a dollar in such an
enterprise. If the private corporation
needs the right to remove all its officers
for its protection, the public needs the
same right for its protection.
It would seem eminently fair that the
men w ho select til e judge, the men
whom the judge is to serve, the men
who pay the judge, should be the men
to remove him for misconduct in office.
But you say the people will make mis
takes. As the legislatures of the sev
eral states may be justly faulted for the
nonuse of the power so the people will
be faulted for abuses of the power. Well
the proofl of the pudding is in the eat
ing. The proof of the wisdom of any
principle is in it practical application,
Oregon is the hotbed of American pro
gressive thought and legislation. They
(Continued on Page t.)