New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-07-10
NOT DECADENT.


Those persons who have been laboring
under the delusion that the United
/ States Supreme Court has been steadily
/ charging its power and increasing us
! influence will be unpleasantly surprised
10 learn from that great CONSTITUTIONAL
authority, 1.-The Richmond Times-Dis-
patch" that, on the contrary, the court
/ has latterly fallen into condition OF
soreness and desuetude. The decay or
! the great tribunal once presided over by
a Marshall and a fancy is thus de-
/ scribed by our Richmond contemporary
/ Its greatness had been forgotten and
/ its power had been eclipsed. Occasion
/ ally, by & great decision, the court would
startle the country and set the people
thinking, but generally il wove its web
/ Of legal precedent, handed down its in
rricate decisions and construed disputed
laws unnoticed by men Its opinions
were TOO complex for the average man
10 grasp; its work was too unootrUsiVe
for the average editor to notice; It's
Judges sat in the gloom Of their old
courtroom and seemed the creatures Of
another world
Only the recent changes IN member
ship and the prospect Of further
changes. The Times-Dispatch" thinks
have revived popular interest in the fed
eral Supreme Court We do not know
( Just how far back the GoJterdammerung
period OF our Richmond contemporary S
fancy was supposed TO extend Yet there
are many students of the courts work
who will dissent entirely from the opin-
ion that il has suffered an eclipse Of
energy or Of prestige either in the last
generation or in the last two genera
lions.
Possibly in The Times Dispatch's'
view the courts political and legal
credit touched high water mark in the
fancy regime. which eliminated in the
bred Scott decision. Yet sounder critics
will say that the fancy regime was only
q halt for rest between TWO great con-
strucIive periods Marshall and his as
sociates expanded the authority Of the
court and made it q force for national
izaIion. In the period Of reconstruction,
when the court had to Teinterpret the
Constitution in the light Of the results Of
the war. it had TO do MarshalI's work
over again in a new way The task put
upon il was more colossal than any
put upon it in its earlier history,
and It's decisions reached down 10 the
very roots Of our political fabric. The
opinions in which the effects Of the
war amendments were measured and
the balance between the old and the
new order was readjusted were not
too unobtrusive for the average edi.
tor to notice" Nor were they made
in the gloom Of an old courtroom
by men who seemed the crea Of
another world" They represented the
successful solution IN the open day, by a
tribunal constantly harassed by the
clamor Of political passion and partisan
ship, OF the problem Of recognizing the
new status Of broadened nationality
without urduly disturbing what was es-
sentiaI in the old balances between the
nation and the states.
Since reconstruction, also, 1t will seem
10 most fair minded observers that the
Supreme Court has gone on delivering
decisions Of farrea ching import and
strengthening itself in popular conf
dence and respect. The opinions by
means Of which the power OF the nation
prohibit restraint Of trade has been sus-
tanned affect directly the whole machin-
cry Of industry and traffic and so come
home practically 10 every citizen. These
decisions have not vet been rounded out,
but the court in the last twenty years
has been gradually laying the basis for
its final judgments. These will be as
important in their economic effect as the
greatest decisions Of the past have been
n their constitutional and political eff
feet. Moreover, the court has within this
decade settled, in the insular cases, a
constitutional problem as acute as any
submitted TO Marshall or fancy. That
decision certainly made a stir both on
the stump and in the newspaper offices.
The Supreme Court has proved TO be one
Of the greatest successes Of the Consti-
tuition. developing far beyond the ex-
pectations Of the men who framed that
instrument. 1t is more powerful now
than It was fifty years ago, or q hundred
years ago, and is threatened less than
ever before with observation and de-
cadence.