Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1912-03-20
FOR RECALL ByLAW
President Taft Takes Issue
with Roosevelt in Speech
at Toledo.
GIVES OBJECTIONS TO PLAN
Declares Methods Proposed Are With
out Merit, Are Reactionary, and
Would Sow Seeds of Confu-
sion and Tyranny.

Toledo, DIN an address on THE
Judiciary and Progress" President
Taft took issue with ex-President
Roosevelt in his stand on the recall
Of judges and their decisions as ex-
pressed in his recent Columbus speech,
by declaring that the proposed meth
cd of reversing decisions would LAY
an ak at the foot of the tree Of we'll
ordered freedom and subject the
guarantees of life, liberty and prop
erty without remedy to the impulse of
a temporary majority of an elector
ate"
President Taft declared that while
the present judiciary system was not
perfect, and that it could be bettered,
he proposed the remedy through the
enactment OF a law by which judges
might. be removed. Along this line
he said
I'm the remedy by judicial recall it
is proposed to provide by law that
whenever judge has so discharged
his duties as to induce a certain per-
centage of the electorate to deem it
wise to remove him and that percent
age sign a petition asking his recall,
an election shall take place in which
the incumbent shall stand against
other candidates; and if he does not
secure a plurality of votes, he is ipso
facto removed. l have pointed out that
under our form of government and
constitution many of the issues aris-
ing before our courts are in effect is
sues between the state and the indi-
Vidual, between the majority and the
minority-cases in which the popular
interest might be greatly excited to
secure a favorable judgment. By this
system the question whether the judge
is to be removed or not is to be left
to that majority that may be greatly
aroused to secure from him a judg-
ment favorable to them. Could sys-
tenn be devised, better adapted to de-
prive the judiciary of that independ-
ence without which the liberty and
other rights of the individual can not
be maintained against the government
and the majority"
AS a remedy for the present cum
bersome method of impeaching
judges, the president suggested; Gre
ate tribunal for removal of
judges for cause Give them an OPP
portunity to be heard and by an i'm
partial tribunal; but do not create a
system by which, in the heat of dis
appointment over lost cause, the de-
feated litigants are to decide without
further hearing or knowledge whether
the judge who decided against them is
to continue in office. 1t would be hard
to devise more unjust and ineffec-
tive method of purifying the judiciary
or one less likely to promote courage
of honest conviction
The suggestion for the recall of de-
cisions was the most remarkable, and
so contrary to anything ever before
proposed, the speaker declared, that
it was hard to give it proper consider
alton. "A most serious objection to
the recall of decisions" he declared,
SIS that it destroys all probable
ity of consistency in constitutional
Interpretation. The majority which
sustains one law is not the same
majority that comes to consider an
other, and the obligation of con-
sistency or popular decision is one
which would sit most lightly on each
recurring electorate, and the operation
of the system would result in suspen-
sion or application of constitutional
guarantees according to popular whim.
We would then have a system of sus-
pending the constitution to meet spe-
cial cases. The greatest of all despot-
isms is government of special in
stances"
The argument that if the people
were competent to establish a consti-
tuition they were competent to inter-
pref it, he said, was clearly a falla-
cious one, because the adoption and
approval of general principles in
constitution and the Interpretation of
d statute and the consideration of its
probable operation were greatly diff
ferent things.
President Taft closed with the state
ment that such a proposal as this is
utterly without merit or utility, and,
instead Of being progressive, is reac-
tionary, instead of being in the inter-
est of all the people and of the sta
bility of popular government, is SOW
ing the seeds of confusion and
tyranny.
Il do not hesitate to say that it lays
the ak at the foot of the tree of we'll
ordered freedom and subjects the
guarantee of life, liberty, and prop
erty without remedy to the fitful i'm
pulse of temporary majority of an
electorate"