Arizona republican., 1908-12-09


 The Courts BuIwark.
 But the extreme reactionaries, the persons who blind themselves to tht wrongs now and then committed by the courts on labOring men, should
 also think seriously as to what sucf
 a movement as this portends. The judges who have shown themselves
 able and willing effectively to check the dishonest activity of the very rich man who works iniquity by the
 mismanagement of corporations, who have shown themselves alert to dc
 justice to the wage worker. and sym [ pathetic with the needs of the mass
 of our people, so that the dweller in
 the tenement houses, the man who
 practices a dangerous trade, the man | who is crushed by excessive hours of
 labor, feel that thir needs are un-
 derstood by the coUrts-these judges i are the real bulwark of the courts l; these judges. the judges of the stamp 1 of the president elect, who have been | fearless in opposing labor when it i has gone wrong, but fearless also in holding to strict account corpora tions that work iniquity, and far sighted in seeing that the working man gets his rights. are the men of all others to whom we owe it that the appeal for such violent and mis- taken legislation has fallen on deaf ears, that the agitation for it's pas sage proved to be without substan- tial basis. The courts are leopard ed primarily by the action of these federal and state judges who show inability or unwillingnesS to put a stop to the wrongdoing of very rich men under modern industrial cOndi- tiOns, and inability or unwillingness to give relief to men of small means or wage workers who are crushed down by these modern industrial con- ditions; who, in other words, fail to understand and apply the needed remedies for the new wrongs pro duced by the new and highly com plex social and industrial eiviliza- tion which has grown up in the last half century.
 Judicial sIugeards.
 The rapid changes in our social and industrial life which have at tended this rapid growth have made it necessary that, in applying to concrete cases the rule of right laid down in the constitution. there should be a full understanding and appreciation of the new conditions to which the rules are to be applied. What would have been an infringe ment upon liberty half a century ago may be the necessary safeguard of liberty today. What would have been an injury to property then may be necessary to the enjoyment of property now. Every judicial de- cision involves two terms-One. an interpretation of the law; the other, the understanding of the facts to which it be applied. The great mass of our judicial officers are I believe alive to these changes of conditions which so materially affect the per formance of their judicial duties. Our judicial system is sound and ef- fective fat core, and it remains, and must ever be maintained. as the safeguard of those principles of lib- erty and justice which stand at the foundation of American institutions; for, as Burke finely said, when lib- erty and justice are separated, neither is safe. There are, however. some members of the judicial body who have Jagged behind in their under standing of these great and vital changes in the body polite, whose minds have never been opened to the new applications of the old principles made necessary by the new cOndi tions. Judges of this stamp do last ing harm by their decisions, because they convince poor men in need of protection that the courts of the land are profoundly ignorant of and out of sympathy with their needs. and profoundly indifferent or hostile to any proposed remedy. To such men it seems a cruel mockery to have any court decide against them on the ground that it desires to preserve liberty in a purely technical form, by withholding liberty in any real and constructive sense. It is desir- able that the legislative body should possess, and wherever necessary, eX ercise the power to determine wheth CT in a given case employers and employees are not on an equal foot ing. so that the necessities of the latter compel them to submit to such exactiOns as to hours and conditions of labor as unduly tax their strength; and only mischief can result when such determination is upset on the ground that there must be no inter ference with the liberty to contract often a merely academic liberty" the exercise of which is the negatiOn of real liberty.
 There are certain decisions by va rious courts which have been eX ceedingly detrimental to the rights of wage workers This is true of all the decisions that decide that men and women are, by the constitution, guaranteed their liberty" to contract to enter a dangerous occupation, or to work an undesirable or improper number of hours, or to work in un- healthy surroundings; and therefore can not recover damages when maim ed in that occupation, and can not be forbidden to work what the legis- lature decides is an excessive num- Der of hours, or to carry on the work under conditions which the leg islature decides to be unhealthy. The most dangerous occupations are often the poorest paid and those where the hours of work are longest; and in many cases those who go into them are driven by necessity so great that they have practically no alternative, Decisions such as those alluded to
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