Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1904-12-23
THE SITUATION IN COLORADO.

y From the Nebraska independent
The conduct Of the supreme court OF Colo
,ado is attracting the attention of the lawyers
both in this country and in Europe. 1t has
appeared from time to time in the news dis
patches that the Colorado supreme court mas
constituted itself, as it were, returning board
to canvass the Denver election returns; and, in
connection Herewith, to ferret out and punish
irandS on the franchise. But just how the
court got into this extraordinary position is not
generally known and should be matter of in
terest to all American ctizeus, as it ce tainly
is to lawyers.
The action of the Colorado court is only the
logical outcome of the new assumption of au-
thority by the judges, popularity known as
government by injunction" and will end IN
the complete transformation of our govern
ment 1t began with Cleveland and the work
of the courts in the Debs case, and has grown
with what it fed upon ever since. Son etimes
it rises to threat against the dtt.nses set up
in the constitution to preserve the liberties OF
the people, and sometimes descends to the
ridiculous, as in the case recently reported in
the newspapers where a judge issued an ipjunc
ton against woman to prevent her talking
TOO much.
In this Colorado case, where the supreme
court has constituted itself returning board,
created hundreds of offices not known to the
law or the constitution of the state, and ap-
pointed many men to these Offices, paying thea
large salaries, under the name of "watchers tor
the supreme court =" the whole thing is bas I'd
on au injunction. lawyer went before the
supreme court, asking all injunction, and ne
following is the argument that he made:
"The king, when his prerrgative' we're as
sailed, could direct his cl ance lor to any or
all the machinery of his court to protect those
prerogatives. So the people of Colorado, not
as political corporation having property
rights to protect, but as a political sovereign
having prerogatives to conserve, can come into
the supreme court, as tribunal of original
Jurisdiction invested by the constitution with
the power, among other things, to grant injunc-
lions, and demand an Injunction, not for the
protection OF a candidate in any property right
he may have in the Office, nor for the protection
of state property Of any kind or in any way,
nor because there is no other adequate relief,
hut solely for the conservation of the kingly
preroeatives which American states derive
from the common law of Englaud-and this
without regard to the fact that the act enjolned
may be crime, Upon the plea, then, that
the dzbauching and Justification of the suffrage
is destructive of the prerogatives CT the people
Of state entitled to'a republican form of gov
eminent"
A bill in equity was presented to the court
and all injunction was granted, based on the
principles set forth in that argument. When
court in the United States claims for itself all
the prerogatves of an unlimited monarch-the
preroya,ives of king of feudal times-it has
only extended the principle of government by
F, junction one step further. If the principle
is. right the action of the Colorado court is
logical.
This action of the court brings under it, and
subject to its control, the coordinate branches