United labor bulletin., 1911-01-05

| OF British colonies, governed by the laws
of England; and when they seeded from
the mother country in 1915, they retained
the British laws at that time in force
among them. So we had chancery courts,
and law courts apart from chancery
courts, with different groups of judges
in each; and our chancery courts were
not allowed to manufacture judge-made
law affecting human liberty, or freedom
of speech or of the press, nor to try
criminal cases on pretense of trying
cases of contempt of court
If we had continued this separation of
chancery courts and law courts, it is
probable that no chancellor in our coun-
try would ever have ventured to grant
injunctions. either creating crimes or
forbidding those the law created. The
judges of the other courts would have
seen to that; for judges are pretty jeal-
Gus OF their powers, and this would have
encroached upon the powers of the law
judges.
But in course of time the distinction
between chancery courts and law courts
was abolished with us; not in form every
where. but in fact. for the same men
came to sit as judges in both courts. 1t
was as if the kings conscience had been
turned over to the law judges, SO that i.
ready-made law wouldn't fit a particular
case they could peer into their chancery
powers and construct judge-made law for
that case After this there were no law
judges to be jealous of chancelIors. for
they were themselves both chancellors
and law judges: and in due course the
chancellor in them usurped a good deal
~ lox
any protest. So judge-made law for par
ticular cases encroached upon the regu-
lar law for all cases.
Many people approve this, because
they think that justice is only a cues
ton Of doing the right thing in each
case. 1t might be if judges were infalli-
BILE But
Judges Are Mere Men
and like all the rest of us they have
their hearts chock full of all kinds of
devils. as Mr.. Chesterton says The only
way, then, to do justice in particular
cases is to apply general rules. This
may make misfits sometimes, but never
with the dangerous consequences of
judge-made law. For isn't 1t plain that
business association, personal friendship
and class prejudice are powerful inf1u-
ences in courts where judge-made law
hourishes?
1t certainly has been SO in this country
since the distinction between chancelIors
and law judges was abolished None of
the judges are interested now in holding
any other set of judges in check, and we
have government by injunction" Its
henefciaries are business men when la
Dor strikes are on. ad its victim is organ
lied labor.
Through injunctions forbidding law
less acts by labor strikers. Judges usurp
the power to try strikers for crime. with
out witnesses or juries, and to punish
them at will-not for the crime. indeed
but for contempt of court in having COM
mftted the crime And through injunc-
tions forbidding lawful acts that are re-
pugnant to the kings conscience, which
is the Big Business conscience now.
these judges get not only the power to
act as juries in the trial of criminal
cases, but also the power to act as legis-
latures in making criminal laws.
Please observe that there is no objec-
tion to Furnishing crimes by organized
labor. nor to preventing them if you can
The objection is that judges forbid acts
that are crimes, and also acts that are
not crimes. and then try out the ques-
ton of guilt or innocence in their own
way. without those safeguards which the
experience of centuries has proved to be
necessary for the. protection of limo
cence.
This makes our judges dictators Now
a dictator on a judges bench is just as
bad as one on a monarch's throne, and
that is the moral of this story about or
ganized labor and judge-made law.