The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-08-29
THE ILLINOIS GOVERNOR REPLIES
TO u DGE COOLEY,S CRLIICISN

vi,
SPRINGFIELD, H. Aug. Ex-Governor
Altgeld has been interviewed today regard
ing Judge Cooley's address before the
American Bar ASSOCIATE on critcising Alt
geld's protest to President Cleveland
against sending federal troops to Chicago
during the late strikea- Governor Altgeld
said
Judge Cooley's reputation is liable to
nave an injustice done it unless the people
VIII discriminate between the real Cooley
ana the later Cooley. In addressing the
bar association he was in the position of
a fashionable preachers who if he wished
TO be popular with his audience had to
cater to its taste. The American Bar AS
sochtion is a small body of men, most
OF whom have corporations for clients
Ihey are shrewd and able men who know
where fat fees come from. A lawyer whose
clients are poor could not afford to go to
saratoga and have good time and attend
a bar meeting.
Judge Cooley's utterances there must be
taken with some others recently made, and
the question is, how much Importance at
taches to them simply because they came
from Judge Cooley Nearly 80 years ago
when Judge Cooley was in his prime, when
he was a teacher in the Ann Arbor law
school, he wrote book constitutional
law, Whlch was an able work and gave him
reputation. In this work he points out
the limitations upon the federal government
and calls attention to the constant danger
that Tree institutions are in from the en-
croachments of a central power through the
agency of q standing army
Among other things he said "A stand
ing army is peculiarly obnoxious to any
tree government and is more dreaded by
the people as an instrument of oppression
than a tyrannical monarch or any foreign
power The alternative of standing army
is a well regulated militia
But after writing this book, and while
a member of the supreme court of the
state, he established a reputatio of being
a corpora ton Judge and made himself so
obnoxious that when his term was up the
people of Michigan arose and put an end
to his career in that state. For some years
he was out of a job. Then congress created
the interstate commerce board and Cleve-
land, during his first term as PRESIDENT
appointed the judge this board at a sal
airy of $1,000 a year and expenses, which
was princey in comparison with what he
had been receiving. He held on to this
place until couple of years ago, when he
retired on account of his old age, feeling
as he should very grateful to Cleveland
Recently, after the president had sent
troops to Chicago the judges gratitude i'm
PEELED him to rush into print in a letter
greatly commencing the president on his
acts. Among other things in that letter
he uses the following language: I am es-
pecially gratified that great and valuable
lesson in constitutional construction has
been settled for all time to come with re-
markedly little bloodshed,' thus admitting
that the constitution did not clearly give
the president the power to do what he had
done, and that it had been nee
eSsary for the president to
give lesson in construction in order to
do it, and the judge gratified that this
lesson in constitutional construction had
been given with SO little bloodshed. Had
the constitution clearly given the power
neither a bloodshed construction nor any
other construction would have been nee
esSary.
1.-THE world has heard of constitution
construction by means of the military be-
fore. 1t has happened before. The opera
tons sometimes brilliant, but were
always fatal to the patient.
when Judge Cooley in the vigor
of manhood he expounded the constitution
like free man addressing free people
There was nothing subservient in his ut
terances, and the bright reputation he then
made must not be clouded by utterances
that are born of a grateful dotage."