The Mathews journal. (Mathews C.H. [Court House]) 1903-1937, 1912-01-11

reaching. can be adjudicated satisfac-
torlly. Colonel Roosevelt contends
that there are some matters which
| the courts should not try to deal with
at all.
Experience during the past TWEEN
ty-five years" says he. has shown
that the people may be aroused TO
sound and high thinking. and their
legislative and executive officers may
show the intention of carrying out the
peoples purpose and yet that the
whole movement for good may come
10 naught and fostering wrong and
injustice be perpetuated because GER
tain judges. certain courts, are steep-
ed In some outworn political or So
cial philosophy and totally misap-
prehend their relations to the people
and the public needs
Expects Misrepresentation
am entirely aware that no mat
ter how carefully ! guard what 1 have
, to say; no matter how cautiously and
exactly 1 state the bald facts and
truth, that We should all recognize
that what say will assuredly be mis-
represented by certain persons with
honest and conservative citizens into
the belief that Tam advocating some
radical and revolutionary and destruc-
1--WE form of our governmental sys-
tenn, and that 1 am making an at
TACK upon the judges But feel that
=
on this subject so vital to our com
mon welfare
Roosevelt then opens his attack.
Justifying himself, however, by citing
an excerpt from a defamation made
| by Abraham Lincoln immediately af-
ter he was inaugurated upon his first
term as President of the United
States. Lincoln had said that the
people would cease to be their own
rulers If the policy of government is
to be fixed by the Supreme Court.
! This, said the colonel, is his atti-
tude exactly. Then he continues as
| follows:
Moreover. it ought surely TO be
unnecessary to say that, in criticising
/ the public acts of public servant
whether judicial. legislative or eXecu-
tive. am not making an attack upon
the man himself. There are men to
| whom / am personally devoted and
for whom in their private capacity
| have the highest regard. with whose
views on public questions j wholly
| disagree. In every great crisis of our
national developments there have
been men of the highest character.
| men who in most respects reached
the highest level of good citizenship.
who nevertheless took what ] believe
| 10 be the wrong side
Comparing American conditions
with those Of foreign countries, the
colonel says that in some of the most
vital respects the judges have become
far more truly the law-givers than
either the executive or the legisla tive
bodies, State or national. can be. This.
he continues. is not true in Germany,
| France or England.
| Right of the People.
| Il am speaking" he says further
| of the peculiar function of the
American judge. the function or no
other judge in the world, the func-
ton Of declaring whether or not the
people have the right to make laws
for themselves on matters which they
deem of vital concern"
i The former President quotes from
an article written by an American
iurist which echoes the Rooseveltian
view in the following paragraph:
we have made a capital mistake in
transferring our faith in the ability
of courts to decide wisely controver-
sizes between man and man in private
litigation TO the great public problems
OF modern commerce and industry.
| The ordinary judge knows nothing
OF conditions out of which they
arise"
This indicates in plain language
that Colonel Roosevelt believes that
a mistake was made in allowing the
supreme Court of the United States
TO solve the trust problem. instead of
Congress. However. the colonel re-
| trains all the way through the article
from breathing the faintest direct
criticism against the highest national
tribunal.