The Saint Paul globe., 1904-08-13
SATURDAY, AUGUST 1s, 1904.
A VICIOUS CIRCLE


1t is interesting to observe how the
supporters of President Roosevelt and
of the Republican party at this june
ture are obliged to give up one by ore
the principles and ideas which are the
most precious inheritance of American
citizenship. They are caught in a
vicious circle, in which one step re-
quired by partisanship compels an
other, and that another, and so on un-
til they have gone too far for retreat.
The American system is not a hap
hazard affair 1t is coherent, and
hangs together SO closely that you
cannot wound or repudiate one part
without severing your allegiance to the
rest Thus it is that to condone the
glaring violations and usurpations of
law by this administration is to lead
in principle, and ultimately in prac-
tice, straight to a despotic system;
which, though not yet in sight, is
strictly and necessarily implied in the
preliminaries.
For example, our esteemed con-
temporary, the Pioneer Press, is COM
PEELED, in order to criticise Judge
Parker's speech of acceptance and to
Iaud the Republican idea as opposed
to it, to reject the system of trial by
jury. Judge Parker had alluded with
proper censure to our treatment of the
Philippines, and had rightly branded
as un-American and alien to our sys-
TEN any control or relation which
obliged us to withdraw from peoples
subject to our rule the fundamental
right of trial by jury. Replying to
this, the Pioneer Press says, first, that
trial by jury is not "an inalienab1e
right which is a mere quibble, since
there are no rights which in a certain
sense can be called "inalienable." The
meaning of Judge Parker, as well as
of the declaration of independence, is
pCAAOObly SlSelA. 1OlIlS 1uICHeI CIldu
this. the Pioneer Press, referring to
trial by jury, adds: at could be
abolished in most AngIo-Saxon states
without any danger to justice or to lib
erty. 1t is not improbable that on the
whole justice would be promoted il
some other system of determining the
weight of evidence were introduced"
Nothing, perhaps, could measure a
greater departure than this from
American ideals. Nothing could more
surely show the need of return of
reverence for even the forms, as well
as the institutions, under which
America has grown great and re-
NAMED free. We cannot think of any
one institution so vital, SO funda-
mental, SO indissolubly united with
liberty and progress as the right of
trial by jury. 1t does not always Sc
cure justice. Has anything been dis
covered that does? Because judges do
not always, decide in conformity with
the law shall we abolish the courts
Because ssome men remain vile shall
we decry purity? It is enough that
trial by jury has come nearer to secur-
ing uniform justice than any other
method attempted or devised since
mankind appeared upon this planet.
1t is enough that it has been the great
agency and. measure of our progress
towards the establishment of justice
and the reign of law.
The most important function of all
of the system of trial by jury is really
not related to the fortunes of the ac-
cused at all. 1t is the calling upon
all the individuals in a community,
each in his turn, to become a part of
the dispensation of justice. It is the
education of the individual in the most
sacred rights and duties of citizenship.