The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-04-07

WASHINGTON, March 25.-The full
Committee on Judiciary of the House
discussed for two hours today the re-
pert of the subcommittee that investi-
gated the charges against Judge L. R.
Wiley. of the United States Court for
China, filed in an impeachment resolu-
ton by Representative George E. Wal
do of Brooklyn. The discussion
developed the fact that the report is
not at all satisfactory and that there
ter is disposed of.
A member of the committee stated to
the Eagle correspondent after the hear
ing that the evidence showed that Lor-
rim Andrews, the Brooklyn lawyer, had
had mighty rough deal at the hands
of Judge Whitley and that there was
strong feeling in the committee that
the matter ought not be dropped by
the adoption of the subcommittee IS re-
port, even though it contains sting
ing rebuke for Whitley along with the
Hvindication.
81 think Judge Whitley ought to
resign,'' said this member. 'Undoubt-
erly, a move will be made in the com
mittee for his impeachment. I do not
believe the committee will agree to
this, however. An effort will also be
made to strike from the report all
that portion which reflects on Judge
Whitley 1t is held by some that the
committee went beyond its authority
in criticizing Whitley without giving
him a chance to make a defense. It
is further contended that the commit
tee should have "confined itself to re-
porting conclusions as to whether or
not the evidence warranted impeach-
ment proceedings"
The committee gave out today the
report of the subcommittee. 1t refers
to Andrews standing as a lawyer in
mplimentary terms, and after re-
viewing the several charges and the
evidence offered in support of them,
says: "The conclusion of the com
mittee, deduced from the memorial, from
the examination of the petitioner, and
from the construction of the prece-
dents of impeachment trials is that
the actual facts upon which the charges
in the said memorial are based, even
though established by competent legal
evidence, would not justify convic-
tion of Judge Whitley upon articles of
impeachment before the United States
Senate, and would not, therefore, war
rant presentation by the House of
Representatives of such articles of i'm
parchment.
"But, notwithstanding this finding,
the investigation of this case has made
clear to us that the anomalous charac-
ter of this court, the extraordinary
power given by law to this judge, the
fact that it is separated 1000 miles from
an appellate tribunal, that broad
ocean intervenes between, presenting
obstacles that burden the statutory
right of review, with expense. delay
and hazard unknown to any other court,
Justify the people of the United States
in demanding of this judge a temperate
exercise of his great power.
1t is obviously true that an aggre-
cation of entirely legal acts may
develop into a system of tyranny and
oppression; and that an inequitable ex-
ereise of judicial discretion may con-
vert the machinery of justice into an
engine of despotic and autocratic pow
er. This may be accomplished without
the faint of individual corruption and
with a laudable purpose of purifying
a community and of inaugurating civic
reform.
sfTerror to evil doors, if purchased
at the price of judicial fairness and
overstrained legal authority, is achiev-
ed at too great an expense, for it de-
feats its own high aim and warps the
very fabric of the law itself