The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-08-22
Press Com
nlents on the Polit-
ical Issues.
Usurpation BY the Judiciary.

Kansas CITY journal: In commenting
upon the iniunctions issued against the
striking coal miners, the New York
Evening Post. which is perhaps the
strongest American champion of cor
Dorations. observed that where these
orders were aimed at unlawful trespass
they might be legal, yet there was no
reason why the ordinary police could
not prevent such wrongs as were al
legged to be cont emolated.
The latter phrase expresses the Situa-
ton exactly. Our political system. from
the earliest common law down to the
latest statute, provides for the enact
ment of laws by one body, their inter
pretatiDn by another and their enforce
ment by a third.
We have always before this decade
considered it the function of the leSls-
latiye branch to make laws. and the
province of the police to prevent their
infringell1ent. The courts were to right
wrongs and punish wrong doors. 1t has
never been demonstrated that the iu
dietary has the duty of making laws or
of taking police measures to prevent it's
arbitrary injunctions from being ig-
nored.
When the acts against which the fed
eral judiciary issues miunetions would
w Illegal, IIlCIG III IGdSOIl WHY Liz
police should net be left to keep the
peace as usual. Especially unwarrant-
ed is the assun1 ption by a federal judge
than men acting with such splendid
orderllness as has characterized the coal
strike are about to break laws. sEo AFRO
gantlv prohibit law abiding men from
law breaking is an insult To put them
en- the defensive, TO consider them as
criminals when they have shown plain
ly they are loyal citizens. is an outrage
against Justice.
When, to cap the climax. a federal
Judge, at the behest of a rich. anarchiS-
tic corpora ton. issues an injunction de-
Driving law abiding men of the rights
Of liberty and free speech, he is guilty
of a despo'tic usurpa tica CT. power. And
to complete his arroga.1on OF absolute
sovereignty it is only necessary that he
impIisJn without trial those who dare
to assert their rights as men in de-
f1ance CT his imperial mandates.
The federal judiciary does ret appear
now for the first time in the role of a
usurper. From the beginning it has
steadily striven for more than its due
share of power. Now boldly. again
Graf lilly, it has reached out to grasp the
supreme sovereignty. F'creseen by JEFF
ferson, watched with apprehension by
later patriots, this process has gone on
urtil in our own time the federal jul
dietary aims daringly at open govern
nier,it tEf
This is not its function. It is a small
body of men, appointed for life, not
subject to the people, but protected
from the ccc1seauea,ces of their acts by
their petition as Interpreters of the
law. and ';1nelr assumption of power to
enforce their caDfieieus DEGREES. No
such body should betpermitted virtually
to make laws, to suspend the rights of
trial by jury habeas corpus, liberty of
action in the limits of the law. free
speaceh. and access by state or indi-
viduaI at all times to the courts.
Nothing could be more antagonistic to
the sacred principles upon which our
government is founded than the pre-
tensions Of federal Judges. favorites of
"a. president, but subject to no earthly
power. to the unIifhited and arbitrary
control of the American people,