The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923, November 25, 1904, Page 13, Image 13

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NOVEMBER- 25, 1901
trary, in tho discharge of such office.
In short, they possess the autocratic
power of absolute irresponsibility.
"Stop by step, one goes very far," says
the French proverb. This is true of the
federal judiciary. Compare their juris
diction in 1804, when Marshall ascend
ed the bench, and their jurisdiction in
1904. The constitution has been re
made and rewritten by the judicial
glosses put upon it. Had it been un
derstood In 1787 to mean what it is
construed to mean today, it is safe to
say that not a single state would have
ratified it. This Is shown by tho de
bates in the state conventions, in
many of which the bare possibility of
much less objectionable construction
was bitterly denied and yet nearly
caused defeat of ratification. In 1822,
in his letter to Mr. Barry, Mr. Jeffer
son said that it was imperative that
the United States judges should bo
made elective for a term of years, and
suggested six years as the period.
The tenure of judgesfor a term of
years is the popular will and judgment
as Is shown by the adoption of that
method in forty-one states. It has
worked satisfactorily in those states,
else they had returned to tho appoin
tive life-tenure. The latter system of
selecting the United States judges has
not been satisfactory. It lends itself
to the appointment of corporation at
torneys, whose natural bias, 'however
honest they may be, is adverse to any
ruling that will conflict with the views
maintained by them while at the bar.
The life-tenure Is especially objection
able, because the conduct of the judge
is beyond review by any authority. A
more autocratic and utterly irresponsi
ble authority nowhere exists than that
of the United States judges, clothed
with the power- to declare void acts of
congress and rendered by life-tenure
free from any supervision by the peo
ple or any other -authority whatever.
An elective judiciary Is less partisan,
for in many states, half the judges are
habitually taken from each party and
very often in other states the same
men are nominated by both parMes,
notably the recent selection by a re
publican corvention of a democratic
successor to Judge Parker. The people
are wiser than the appointing power
which viewing judgeships as patronage
has with scarcely an exception filled
the federal bench with appointees of
its own party. Public opinion, which
is the corner-stone of free government,
has no place In the selection or super
vision of the judicial augurs who as
sume power to set aside the will of '.he
people when declared by congress and
the executive. Whatever their method
of divination, equally with the augurs
of old they are a law to themselves and
control events. A people's destiny
should always be in-their own hands.
As was said by a great lawyer lately
deceased, Judge Seymour D. Thomp
son, fn 1891 (25 Am. Law Review, 288);
"If the proposition to make the feder
al judiciary elective instead of appoin
tive is once seriously discussed before
the people, nothing can stay the growth
of that sentiment, and it is almost cer
tain that every session of the federal
supreme court will furnish material to
stimulate that growth.?'
Great aggregations of wealth know
their own interests, and it is very
Certain that there Is no reform and no
constitutional amendment that they
will oppose more, bitterly than this.
What, then, is the interest of all oth
ers in regard to it? Judge Walter
Clark in the Arena for November.
The Commoner
s.
13
DAVIS'
fPamkilW m
(The world-known household remedy for cota,
borng, bralaca conghB, colds, eore throat.
Should Not the Opinions in the Moyer
Case be Reviewed
The verdict of the people of Colo
rado admits of no doubt about their
mental attitude toward tho adoption
of arbitrary and lawless methods by
tho governor, although his professed
object may he to restore a state o(
industrial peace and safety where the
opposite is claimed to prevail.
Denying absolutely that there was
just provocation for tho course of
Pcabody, yet upon tho theory that the
crimes charged against the Western
Federation had been committed, the
News holds that tho machinery of the
law, used within the limits of tho law,
in the hands of a resourceful and de
termined governor, were ample to over
come all the lawless elements that have
yet appeared in the state and to
promptly restore peace and safety
where they may have been disturbed;
and now that Governor Adams is elect
ed and there is nothing political to bo
gained, the News repeats with empha
sis all that it has ever said about Gov
ernor Adams' ability and determina
tion to enforce law, to maintain order,
and to afford protection, full and com
plete, to life, liberty and property,
while the majesty and integrity of tho
law will be maintained without the
infraction of a single one of its pro
visions. Apropos to this subject the News
would recall the supreme court to its
decision in the Moyer case. It asks.
Is it precisely what the court desires
shall stand for all time as the solemn
judgment of the majority of tho codrt
in matters that so intimately pertain
to tho personal liberty of the citizen,
to the efficacy of the writ of habeas
corpus, to the constitutional guaranty
of speedy trials before juries of the
peers of those who may be accused,
and the power of the governor to be
come a despot at will,,holding the lives
and liberty of every citizen at his sole
mercy? Should not (hat decision be
reviewed? Should not the court, with
a petition for rehearing in the Moyer
ci'Se yet undisposed of, take up every
phase of the decision that in the heat
of the campaign just closed has been
publicly construed, as members of the
court have asserted, to misrepresent tlio
real meaning of the court in dealing
with the vital Questions it embraces?
The action of republican voters In
dealing with Governor Peabody has
been a revolt against the powers tha
governor asserted under that decision.
No fewer than 30,000 republicans reg
istered their protest against the deeds
perpetrated under that decision as a
cloak. The Moyer opinion, delivered
within twelve hours after the horrible
explosion at the Independence depot,
was used to justify such a wholesale
deportation and imprisonment, not
alone of members of the Western Fed
eration of Miners in the Cripple Creek
district and of business men and law
yers whose only crime was sympathy
with, them 'for the persecutions so
many were compelled to endure, but
also of hundreds of coal miners in the
southern part of the state, who bore no
relation whatever to the Western Fed
eration but were members of John
Mitchell's organization among the
most conservative labor organizations
in tho country as never before par
alyzed the business of a state and
shocked the humanity of a nation.
When such crimes were cloaked un
der the Moyer decision, and that de
cision was boastfully proclaimed as
justifying all that was done, the News
puts it most seriously to the court;
should not tho decision bo reviowed
and the maturor views of tho court,
if they have undergono change or mod-
tuiaiuuii, uc boi lorui so j8 to afford no
shelter for those who would repeat,
under claim of official duty and auth
ority, the things against which tho pco
plo have so docidedly remonstrated.
Denver News.
If tho American Federation of Labor
ceases its policy of exclufiivesww, it
will movo forward; otherwise, it will
dwindle away and be forgotten oC xen
Columbug Press-Pout
Union Labor's Problem
Preliminary reports from the meet
ing of the American Federation of La
bor give litlo proiniso. thnt this pow
erful organization win moim i.
or a glorious opportunity to becomo a
rallying point for tho vast army of
American laboring men. Organized la
bor has dono much good for the labor
ing men of the country, but they have
paid attention to but half tho problem
that la before thorn. If the Amorlcan
Federation of Labor has failed, or if
n the last year or two it has seemed
to make but littlo progress, it is be
cause it used up ItH energy in wasteful
strikes and petty disagreements which
are necessarily local in character, while
overlooking the broad economic prin
ciples underlying our industrial sys
tem. What good is it to raise wages,
so long as the. trust magnates havo
power to raise the cost of living? How
is a laborer better off to get a dollar
a day Increase if it costs a dollar and
a half a day more to live?
What is political economy? What is
democracy? What is republicanism?
What is socialism? What Is capital?
What is labor? Are not all these Inter
related? Doesn't it stand to reason
that organized as well as unorganized
labor should stand solidly with one
party or the other? Or if none of the
present parties answer their purpose
should they not have a party of their
own? Are political parties a joke or
do they really stand for something?
Is organized labor so weak that it must
beg a few crumbs from the political
bosses at each election?
Organized labor must cease to be the
tool of politicians. It must take on
more breadth of character. It must
adopt policies the establishment of
which will benefit not only themselves,
but all men who labor and who do not
get all that they produce. To have an
uuuuaiuuui BiriKe is to iiudlo while
Rome is burning. For organized labor
to be at war with unorganized labor Js
a stigma on humanity and ridiculous
on its very face.
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