The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1911-03-03

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as this would have the people trust il
with the great power of setting aside
the peoples laws.
If anything further could be added tC
this disgradeful chapter it is that Milo
II. Root is still Il member of the SUI
preme court bar, an attorney at law in
good standing and has been appointed
temporary judge in King county doz-
en- times since leaving the supreme court
bench; and M. J. Gordon is also men,
Der in good standing of the supreme
court bar of Washington, and prac-
ticing lawyer in Tacoma.
Is there any wonder the people OF
Washington are disgusted with the
courts and the judges sitting in them?
No civilized country in the world
save the United States, allows its courts
to arbitrarily set aside the acts of the
people as expressed by the legislature
In England, from which country we
have received the majority of our law
| from the foundation of the courts
themselves they have never presumed
to exercise or possess authority to set
aside an act of the people, passed by
parliament.
In other continental European coun-
tries, the same state of law exists, and
the people of European countries set an
example of respect for the law that we
in America can well afford to pattern
after.
The people have lost confidence in
the courts, not only of this state, but
all over the country, and the courts
themselves are to blame for it. Decisions
and actions outragng law and decency
itself, rendered by the courts, have
aroused long suffering people to ac
ton. The people of New York state
mpeached and drove from the supreme
bench thirty years ago two corrupt
Judges whose actions had branded them
as mere servants of a celebrated stock
speculator and manipulation
The people of Cleveland, Ohio, WIN
remember the fight against the street
railway corporations, conducted by their
fighting mayor, when automobiles were
kept ready at hand day and night, at
the residences of judges favorable to the
corporations, in order that injunctions.
restraining orders and other favorite
corporation methods might be issued
by complaisant judges whenever the cor
porations deemed it necessary.
The residents of Nome, Alaska, have
bitter cause to recall the kind of Jus
tice" they got from another so-called
Judge Noyes, and the legalized robbery
under the protecting wing of what we
once referred to as the bulwarks of our
liberties, the courts.
The tenderness of the courts in look
ing after interests favorable to them are
notorious. Witness the New York courts
opening the doors of Sing Sing prison
on technicalities to henchmen of this
dominant power, the Missouri supreme
court releasing every one of the boodlers
convicted by Folk; the California su-
preme court setting the convicted San
Francisco grafters free-in one case do
ing so in the face of the defendant 5
plea of guilty. This was the case of
Ruef, and to come right home, let us not
forget the farce recently enacted in Sc
attic. where $50, 10000 of he city's mon
ey disappeared, and if the papers are to
be believed, also the city comptroller,
John Riplinger, dropped ont of signt
and remained in Honduras about two
years. He finally returned and was
brought to trial. What was done
Nothing.
Finally, staying right at home, We see
the people of Washington enacting a di-
rect primary law for the nomination of
all public officers, including supreme
Judges. What do we see next? A spe-
cial act passed to exempt these judges
from the direct primary, Likewise, at
the special session of this Legislature in
1909, we see members of the supreme
court quietly lobbying against bill
which would put them back again in
the direct primary.
Should the supreme court of this state
be above the people who created it,
Responsible to no one, doing what il
pleases and answering for their acts tC
nobody; and after the Root-Great North
ern scandal in this very court, and the
actions of the members of the court tC
prevent its members being made subject
to the peoples vote in the primaries, the
answer is an emphatic NO. The viii
of the people is supreme and no court