Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1908-12-10

pressure of modern life have produced con
ditions which render the public confused
as to who its really dangerous foes are
and among the public servants who have
not only shared this confusion, but by some
of their acts have increased it, are certain
judges. Marked ineficiency has been shown
in dealing with corporations and in re-
settling the proper attitude to be taken
by the public not only towards corporations,
but towards labor, and towards the social
questions arising out of the factory sys-
TEN, and the enormous growth of our great
cities.
The huge wealth that has been accumu-
lated by a few individuals of recent years.
in what has amounted to a social and in
dUstrial revolution, has been as regards
some of these individuals made possible
only by the improper use of the modern
corporation. certain type of modern
corporation, with its officers and agents, its
many issues of securities, and its constant
consolidation with allied undertakings,
finally becomes an instrument complex
as to contain greater number of elements
that, under various judicial decisions, lend
themselves to fraud and oppression than
any device yet evolved in the human brain.
Corporations are necessary instruments of
modern business. They have been permit
ted to become menace largely because
the governmental representatives of the
people have worked slowly in providing for
adequate control over them.
The courts hold a place of peculiar ana
deserved sanctity under form of gov
eminent. Respect for the law is essential
to the permanence of our institutions and
respect for the law is largely conditioned
upon respect for the courts. 1t is an Of
tense against the republic to say anything
which can weaken this respect, save for
the graVest reason and in the most care
fully guarded manner. Our judges should
be held in peculiar honor. On on average
they stand above any other servants of the
community, and the greatest judges have
reached the highest level held by those few
greatest patriots whom the whole country
delights to honor. But we must face the
fact that there are wise and unwise judges,
just as there are wise and unwise execu-
tiyes and legislators. When a President or
a governor behaves improperly or unwise-
ly, the remedy is easy, for his term is
short; the same is true with the legislator
although not to the same degree, for he is
one of many who belong to some given
legislative body, and it is therefore less
easy to fix his personal responsibility and
hold him accountable therefor. With
Judge, who, being human, is also likely to
err, but whose tenure is for life, there is
no similar way of holding him to response
bility. Under ordinary conditions the only
forms of pressure to which he is in any
way amenable are public opinion, and the
action of his fellow judges. 1t is the last
which is most Immediately effective, and to
which we should look for the reform of
abuses. Any remedy applied from without
is fraught with risk. 1t is far better, from
every standpoint, that the remedy should
come from within. In no other nation in
the world do the courts WELD such vast
and far-reaching power as in the United
States. All that is necessary is that the
courts as a whole should exercise this
power with the farsighted wisdom already
shown by those judges who scan the fu-
ture while they act in the present.
Forests.
If there is any one duty which more
than another we owe it to our children and
our childrens children to perform at once
it is to save the forests of this country, for
they constitute the first and most impor
tant element in the conservation or the
natural resources of the country 1t mat
tiers not whether this deforestation is due
to the actual reckless cutting of timber, to
the fires that inevitably follow such reck
less and uncontrolled grazing, especially by
the great migratory bands of sheep, the
| unchecked wandering of which over the
country means destruction to forests and
disaster to the small home makers, the
settlers of limited means.
ShortSighted persons, or persons blinded
to the future by desire to make money in
every way out of the present, sometimes
speak as if no great damage would be done
by the reckless destruction of our forests.
| 1t is difficult to have patience with the ar
guments of these persons. Thanks to our
own reckleSsness in the use of our splen-
did forests, we have already crossed the
verge of a timber famine in this country,
and measure that we now take can, at
least for many years, undo the mischief
that has already been done. But we can
prevent further mischief being done and
| it would be in the highest degree repre-
hnsible to let any consideration of temper
| fere with such action, especially as regards
| the national forests which the nation can
now, at this very moment, control.
Inland Waterways.
Action should be begun forthwith, during
| the present session of the Congress, for the