The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-02-06
AS LIVELY AS A FUNERAL.
An Irreverent Description of II SEES
sion of the United States Supreme


sion of the United States Supreme
Court.
When the procession enters the court
| room, says a writer in the Pittsburg Times,
| the lawyers and spectators rise and young
| gentleman with deep bass voice far be-
| yond his age announces: The honorable
| the chief justices and the associated justices
| of the supreme court Filing into their
| seats in front of the marble pillars with
! their background of red cloth, the justices
| bow to the bar and sit down. Then the
young gentleman says: "OyeZ! Oyer! Oyez!
| All manner of persons having business re
| fore the honorable the supreme court are
admoniShed to draw near and give atten-
| ton. The court is now sitting. God save
| the United States and all this honorable
court!' Having thus pushed the button he
| sits down and allows the court to do the
rest.
| and the counsel begin. Those who go to the
| supreme court to hear heated arguments
and brilliant oratory so on an idle errand.
| A funeral is lively compared with the cr-
| binary proceedings, and there is more ex-
element in a Pennsylvania county court
| room in hour than here in a week. The
main arguments are printed in the paper
book which the judges scan while the law
yer speaks, and it is irreverently said in
Washington that the sessions resolve them
selves into three periods in the first of
| which the judges wonder why in the
| lawyer insists on repeating the arguments
| laid before them in print, in the second they
wonder why i'll he ever wrote such an
argument, and in the third when in he
intends to stop.
case regarding the taking of oysters in
Chesapeake Bay is up, the states of Vir
gln1a and Maryland opposing each other,
and counsel find it necessary to go back as
| far as 1882 in presenting their side of the
question at issue. One lawyer quotes from
| a charter granted by King Charles l. to
Lord Baltimore, and another impressively
discusses a map of Pocomoke sound and
| the Wico river, declaring that the section
| in question had been outlined in map form
by Capt. John Smith in 1908. The court
grows tired Justice Harlan expectorates
| tobacco juice freely. Justice Brown goes
out, Justice Shiras yawns openly, as do
others of his learned brethren. The busts
of Marshall Jay, fancy, Chase, and the
other dead chief justices survey the scene
| from their pedestals and look as though
they would yawn, too, could they move
their marble jaws. And over in the senate
Mr.. Stewart, of Nevada is booming away
on the seigniorage bill, and has almost got
down to Abraham's purchase of the cave
of Machpelah for 400 shekels of silver, cur
rent money with the merchants" In the
house they are fighting the war over again
on the pension bill, and have reached the
second day at Gettysburg. And here is the
supreme court rummaging among the dry
bones Of King Charles l., Lord Baltimore
and Capt. John Smith to settle saddle
rock oyster case
When orators loudly declaim of presi-
dents, congresses and the people, how
many of their hearers ever knew that the
supreme court is bigger than all of them
put together? These nine can say
what is and what is not the law, and
neither presidents nor congresses nor peO-
pie say them nay. Was is not Edmund
Burke who wrote: armies have fought
and navies have sailed that twelve men
might sit in the box and say guilty or
mot guilty." And running whole
system of government back from the people
to the supreme court, summing up our
history from Plymouth Rock to Apo
mattox, from Washington to Lincoln and
Grant, it practically resolves itself finally
into one fact: That these nine old men
in silken gowns sit here and say what's
Uba