Los Angeles herald., 1890-10-17
COL. GEORGE H. SMITH.
Southern California's Only Opportu-
nity.

SouSuCIu SaluOIula Ouly OppOICu-
nifty.
OF the hold-over members of the SUI
preme court of California, there is not
one from Southern California. OF the
candidates for the position to be filled in
that august body at the coming election,
Col. George HI. Smith is the only one
from Southern California. If Col. Smith
is not elected, Southern California will
be for many years without representa-
tive on the supreme bench. Will her
people throw away their only oppOrtu-
nifty to secure voice in the decisions
of that tribunal, that must in the near
future finally settle many questions of
right and policy in which they are deeply
interested? will call attention to one
subject of peculiar and vital Importance.
The subject is that of water rights.
Within the next five or six years most
of the questions involved in the intricate
and complicated rights growing out of
the use of water, will be finally adjudi-
Gated by our supreme court. Such being
the case. how important it is that South
ern California should have an able rep
resentative as member of that court.
Colonel Smith is peculiarly fitted to be
that representative. He is ripe scholar,
a learned lawyer, a close reasoner, and
most profound and analytical writer
upon the law as science. The mem
bers of the legal profession are by mem
tai habit divided into two we'll defined
and distinctive classes. One class be-
lieves in yielding blind and implicit ODE
dience to the decisions of the past,
whether consonant with reason and
natural right and adapted to pres
ent circumstances or not. The
other class, while yielding all due re-
spect to well-founded presidents, yet
believe that every rule and precedent
should be treated by reason and natural
right, and should be adapted and suit
able to the circumstances and peculiar
conditions that surround and en-
viron the community, whose interest
and property rights they shape. To this
latter class Col. Smith belongs. In the
several profound and scientific law trea-
tises, OF which he is the author, he
has clearly and forcibly placed himself
among those, who believe that law is
based u pon principles of natural right
and that natural right is that rule, that
conduces to the welfare of the great
body of people to whom it is applied,
and that any rule or line of decisions
antagonistic to that welfare, must nee
esearily be wrong. In his mastery lit
tie work entitled "The Law of Private
Right Col. Smith says:
"Of late years the notion has spr ung
up, and has become prevalent, that all
questions of law are to be decided
simply by referring to, some statute or
some rule established by precedent.
If this were 80, all that would be re-
quired of the lawyer would be faculty
of hunting up authorizes and a reten-
tive memory. But this is very tar from
being the case. When authority is
found, the more difficult task remains
to determine its value, and this can
only be determined by means OF a
thorough familiarity with the general
principles of the law, and by the ex-
ercise of independent reason. This is
one of the most important functions OF
other respect is the difference between
90 manifest as in the capacity for per-
the function of the lawyer involves, in
the highest degree, the exercise of the
reasoning or logical faculty. He ,must,
If he would be a competent jurist,
possess the faculty of broad and COM
prehensive generalization, and also that
Of fine and accurate distinction; he
must be capable Of correct and scientific
definition, and of reasoning boldly and
logically from his premises, and of form
ing confidently his own conclusions.
Just snch competent jurist'' South
ern California needs upon the supreme
bench at this time. II in settling the
various questions affecting water
rights" they are to be determined by
sssimply referring to some "rule estab-
1inh6d ~ precedent made in 9 country
Whose circumstances and environments
nre entirely different from our own,
&hen viii tie true interests Of Southern