The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-12-08

PNOBlO 10 SUPP bllAOg Nllb ulllLudlt Safety
of the Nation can only rest in train
ing and guiding the people so that
what they will shall be right, and
not in devising means to defeat their
will by the technicalities of strained
construction.
For many of the shortcomings of
justice in our country our people as
a whole are themselves to blame, and
the judges and juries merely bear
their share together with the public
as a whole. It is discreditable to us
as a people that there should be diff
ficulty in convicting murderers, or in
bringing to justice men who as pub
lie servants have been guilty of cor
ruption, or who have profited by the
corruption of public servants. The
result is equally unfortunate, wheth-
er due to hairsplitting technicalities
in the Interpretation of law by judges,
to sentimentality and class conscious
ness on the part of juries, or to hys-
terra and sensationalism in the daily
press. For much of this failure of
justice no responsibility whatever lies
on rich men as such. We who make
up the mass of the people can not
shift the responsibility from our own
shoulders. But there is an import
ant part of the failure which has
specially to do with inability to hold
to proper account men of wealth who
behave badly.
The chief breakdown is in dealing
with the new relations that arise from
the mutualism, the interdependence Of
our time. Every new social relation
begets a new type of wrongdoing-of
sin, to use an old-fashioned woodland
many years always elapse before So
ciety is able to turn this sin into crime
which can be effectively punished at
law. During the lifetime of the older
men now alive the social relations have
changed far more rapidly than in the
two centuries. The i'm
mense growth Of corporations, OF
business done by associations, and the
extreme strain and pressure of mod
ern life, have produced conditions
which render the public confused as
to who it's really dangerous foes are;
and among the public servants who
have not only shared this confusion,
but by some of their acts have In
creased it, are certain judges. Marked
has been shown in dealing
with corporations and in re-settling
OF 10 H.. N,1- 1.
he public not only towards corpora |
ions but towards labor, and towards |
he social questions arising out of the I
actory system, and the enormous !
growth of our great cities.
The huge wealth that has been &C
by few individuals of re-
'ent years, in what has amounted to
social and industrial revolution,
has been as regards some of these in
lividuals made possible only by the
improper use of the modern corpora
ion. A certain type of modern cor
,oration. with it's officers and agents,
is many issues of securities, and its
constant consolidation with allied I'M
finally becomes an instru-
neDt so complex as to contain a
greater number of elements that, I'M
der various judicial decisions, lend
themselves to fraud and oppression
han any device yet evolved in the
luman brain. Corporations are neces-
airy instruments of modern business.
they have been permitted to become
menace largely because the govern
mental representatives of the people
AVE worked slowly in providing for
dequate control over them.
The chief offender in any given case
nay be an executive, a legislature, or
judge. Every executive head who
dvises violent, instead of gradual, ac-
ion, or who advocates ill-considered
nd sweeping measures of reform les
ecially if they are tainted with vim
ictiveness, and disregard for the
lights of the minority is particularly
The several legislatures
re responsible for the fact that our
avs are often prepared with slovenly
aste and lack of consideration.
III CONCls lnGN arc OlICu
nd still more frequently amended
uring passage at the suggestion of
he very parties against whom they
re afterwards enforced. Our great
lusters of corporations, huge trusts
nd fabulously wealthy multimillion-
Tres, employ the very best lawyers
hey can obtain to pick flaws in these
tatutes after their PASSAGE; but they
lso, employ a class of secret agents
Tho seek, under the advice of eX- 1
erts, to render hostile legislation in 1
ocuous by making it unconatitution-
J, often through the insertion of
hat appear on their face to be dras- I
C and sweeping provisions against {
ne interests of the parties inspiring
lem; while the demagogues, the COR
lpt creatures who introdue black
failing schemes to strike" corpora
ons, and all who demand extreme,