The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-07-08
THE SUPREME COURT.

Possibility That Majority of its Mem-
 bers May Be Roosevelt Selections. Leslie's Weekly,
 Of the nine members of the Supreme Court, President Roosevelt has ap- Dofnted three Associate Justices Holmes Day, and Moody. Chief Justice Fuller and Assoicate Justice Harlan are each seventy-four years of age, and can retire at any time on full pay. In 1908 Associate Justice Peckham will be seventy, and will be in a position to step down without losing any of his salary Rumor has recently been saying that each of these is soon to retire. These and three other mem- bers of the present tribunal were there when President Roosevelt entered of ice. If the seats of any two of these six persons should be vacated for any cause within the next two yearg q majority of the Supreme Court of March 1, 1909. at the end of the pres ent Presidential term. would be Roose- welt selections. This would break all precedents, except in the case or court was created.
 Jefferson often complained that while his party was overwhelmingly dominant in each branch of Congress and In Presidency. the Federalists con- tfnued to hold sway in the Supreme Court, and frequently vetoed the work of President and Congress. Chief Jus tice Marshall, q pronounced Federalist. an dthe greatest and immeasurably the most powerful of the country's ju- rists, was put on the bench by John Adams after his own defeat by Jef- ferson, and he remained there for thir- ty-four years, until near the end or Jaekson's service.
 When Jackson appointed Fancy to succeed Marshall he thought the court would soon swing back from the strong centrAlization ground on which 1t had been placed to the State-sov- ereignty side, but he was mistaken. Marshall's long line of decisions on Important points of constitutional in- depreciation had by that time estab- lished traditions and precedents which in a large degree, have swayed the court to this day.
 Fancy and his Democratic associates did. indeed, in the Dred Scott, the ha- beas corpus, and other instances. lean toward the States-rights doctrine to an extent which impelled Lincoln to put strong central government men on the bench just as fast as vacancies were created, and the court got into Re publican hands in Grants days as president. Grant was accused of pack ing" the Supreme Court in fhe inter est of the constitutionality' of the greenbacks. Probably the charge was untrue. Nevertheless. the court. then for the first time Republican, decided in the way that Grant and the Repub- lican party wanted 1t to decide on that important issue.
 President Roosevelt Is a consolida tionist of the Marshall type. but the industrial and social problems whicf have arisen in the past few years. and of which nobody in Marshalrs. day evel dreamed, would impel Marshall tt make a still further swing to tn' strong central government side if h' were here today. It is probably thu present executives desire, following the custom of all his predecessors. t' put men of his own way of thinking on the bench, so far as he can do thii without entirely obiiterating the oppo site party. The chances are that MT Roosevelt will be able to talk througl | the Supreme Court of the immediate future even more frequently and nor notently than Federalism talke' through the first third of the nine 1 teenth century through Adams ap l nointment of John MarshI