The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1911-08-02

signed. The cases In which this law
warks injustice are many. Thousands
of such agreements without doubt
have been made orally, and doubt
less thousands of dollars have been
lost through inability to enforce them.
But this provision prevents many
times more wrongs than 1t creates.
1t safeguards many times more rights
than 1t curtails. The few must sur
fer that the many may be protected.
Just as it is natures law that the In
noc~nt shall suffer with the guilty,
so have men found, in making their
own laws, that they can go no far
ther than to enact that which will
help the majority, and the few that
must be injured through the work.
ing out of it's provisions, can not be
assisted.
otherwise, we must leave to the
Judge the discretion whether or not
to apply the law in any certain case
that seems to have in IL unusually
impelling considerations for the re-
session of the law. When we do this,
know the law. No man will be able
to base his business plans on the
known operation of the statutes. In
addition to this, the courts will be
made the absolute rulers Of the rano.
They will be endowed with danger
Gus amount of power.
To put 10 BADLY the voters Of
any community are simply not quail
flied to pass on the merits of any le-
gal decision. If the complain of graft
In the courts, they have their redress
by impeachment, and if they object to
the decision of q lower court. they
can take the matter to higher court.
II they complain of the decision of
the highest court, let them alter the
laws concerned by an act of their
legislature. No cases have ever
arisen, no cases can, it would seem,
arse, in which these remedies If pur-
sued, would not secure the relief de-
sired
The only effect of the recall must
be to influence judges in the deliv-
ering of their opinions. This would
be morally as wrong as for him to be
desires OF one OF the parties to the
action. The wish of the majority
the clamor of the should
not be heard by him in the silence
of his court There is a place where
the peoples will may be properly ex-
pressed; it is the business of the
Judge to decide the cases before him
in accordance with the law.
The rights Of parties to litiga ton
are not seldom difficult to determine.
They are often complicated and abb
struse. The sensational side wnicr
so Influences the public mind may
obscure other rights not so pictur-
esuue but which may be equally pow
erful under the constitution and the
statutes For example, nobody who
has read with care the whole decis-
ion of the Interstate Commerce
Commission in the Spokane rate case
can help but he profoundly impress
ed by the amount of work required by
the commission to arrive at its decis-
ion. Quantities of data had to be col
lected, classified, weighed, and di-
gested. Commercial conditions in the
affected areas had to be accurately
known, and deliberately considered.
The com mission found that it could
not give Spokane all that it asker for
because by doing so it would be Sc
riously damaging certain other east
ern districts. The commission tried
to take an attitude of fairness to-
ward all the parties, and without any
question its decision was satisfactory
to the people.
But suppose that the commits sion
had actually found that while the In
land Empire was suffering from the
existing rates that the changing of
| them would more seriously damage
| other sections whose rights We're alb
solutely equal before the court? Sup