Morris tribune., 1909-01-23
AN EQUITY JUDGE.
/ S I

/ A worthy cause suffers by a victory un-
worthily won, and it is matter for regret that
those who opposed the wide open tax amend
ment cannot but feel that the have been un-
| fairly treated. We have always advocated the
adoption of the amendment, but we do not be-
| lieve that it received majority of the votes
| two years ago, and it was defeated again this
year. The mistakes made in counting the bal
| lots two years ago have been often noted in
| these columns and it is perhaps unnecessary to
| say more than that enough of tile ballots were
| recounted to convince the ordinary that
| the amendment failed
When the supreme court therefore, with
Justice Brown dissenting found that the
| amendment had carried, the opponents of the
amendment cannot accept the result in the
same way as the American has learned to ac-
cept defeat when the will of the people is clear
ly expressed, nor can the friends of the amend
ment feel the corresponding satisfaction in the
victory.
There is therefore, something entirely diff
ferent from mere disappointment over the re-
suit which prompted the editor of the Duluth
News-Tribune to write the following compli-
mentary editorial on Justice Brown, What
ever opinion may be on the amendment, we
feel the force of the editors high opinion of
Justice Browns position. The News-Tribune
says
"Broadly speaking, judges may be divided
into two classes to their methods in making
their decisions-equity judges and technical
judges. The latter do not belong the bench.
They start with technical construction of the
law. They are always strict constructionists
and great sticklers over words
"They read into the law what their narrow
vision wishes to see in it and then bend the
facts of the case to meet this view. Equity
Judges start with the facts in each case. They
are of broad views, looking far into the
future, and correlate the facts before them first
with the great law of humanity as showing
what the decision in the case before them may
read into the law of their state and country.
"When such Judges, men of great heart,
great conscience and wide comprehension, as
we'll as great ability, decide what ought to be,
they then apply the law regarding rather the
spirit than the punctuation marks. These are
the Marshalls of the bench, the men who make
history.
Such judges would read fraud in
to states constitution, nor lend the laws aid
to make effective political trickery. They
would not place the court above the electorate
nor make a technicality do service in over
riding the will of the people.
"Such court wonld never find it neces-
sary to enforce perfunctory respect by legal
restraint of honest opinion, would it fall to
give due weight to the official judgment of the
higher court Of the people after direct appeal to
it. Nor would such court sanction permit
the spreading broadcast of an important decis-
ion with dissenting opinion omitted
"The contract between these two kinds of
judges is we'll illustrated in the recent decision
in this state in the tax amendment case. The
majority finding reads like search for ex-
cuse for preconceived judgment based on
technical construction of the law. It is honest,
but all of the Taney order.
"The dissenting opinion by Judge Brown is
of the other kind. 1t is clear, so clean-cut,
so simple in argument and statement, so broad
in it's view of right and equity and shows such
a grasp of the bigger question involved, that
even the 1aymen feel it's charm and the strength
of the man who wrote it.
"He no longer wonders that every lawyer
classes Justice Brown among the soundest
and ablest judges of the states. He is of the
Marshall type"