Imperial Valley press., 1912-03-26

eSts. | believe that Just Judge
would be far safer in the hands of the
people than IN the hands of those great
interests. My remedy is not the re-
suit of a library study of constitu-
tional law, but of actual and long con-
tinued experience in the use of gov
ernmental power to redress social and
industrial evils Again and again
earnest workers for social justice
have said to me that the most serious
obstacles they have encountered,
during the many years that they have
been trying to save American women
and children from destruction in
American industry, have been the
courts. That is the judgment of al
most all the social workers | know
and of dozens of parish priests and
.clergymen, and of every executive and,
legislator who has been seriously at
tempting to use the government as an
agency for social and industrial bet
terment. What is the result of this
system of judicial nullificatiOn was
accurately stated by the Court of APP
peals OF New York in the employers
liability case, where it was calmly and
Judicially declared that the people, I'M
der our republican government, are
less free to correct the evils that op-
press them than are the people of the
monarchies of Europe. To any man
with vision; to any man with broad
and real social sympathies; to any
man who believes with all his heart in
this great democratic republic of ours,
such a condition is intolerable 1t is
not government by the people, but
mere sham government, in which the
will of the people is constantly de-
feated. 1t is out of this experience
that my remedy has come, and let it
be tried in this field.
When, as the result of years of edu-
cation and debate, majority of the
people have decided upon a remedy
for an evil from which they suffer and
have chosen a Legislature pledged to
embody that remedy in law, and the
law has been finally passed and
approved, | regard it as mon
strous that bench of judges
shall then say to the people: You
must begin all over again" First,
amend your constitution (Which will
take four years. second, secure the
passage of a new law (Which will take
two years more); third, carry that
new law over it's weary course of liti-
cation (Which will take no human be-
ing knows how long,; fourth, submit
the whole matter over again to the
very same judges who have rendered
the decision to which you object
Then, if your patience holds out and
you finally prevail, the will of the ma
jority of the people may have it's way.
Such system is not popular govern
ment, but mere mockery of popular
government.
The decisions of which we complain
are, as a rule, based upon the consti-
tutional provision that no person shall
be deprived of life liberty and prop
erty without due process of law. The
terms life, liberty and property" have
been used in the constitutions of the
Charta. Until within the last sixty
years they were treated as having
specific meanings: Property" meant
tangible property; liberty" meant
freedom from personal restraint, or,
in other words, from Imprisonment, in
its largest definition. About 1870 our
courts began to attach to these terms
new meanings. Now, property" has
come 70 mean every right of value
which person could enjoy, and lib
erty' has been made to include the
right to make contracts. AS a result,
when the state limits the hours for
which women may labor it is told by
the courts that this law deprives them
Of their liberty and when it re-
StrictS the manufacture OF tobacco in
a tenement it is told that the law
deprives the landlord of his property.
Now | do not believe that any peo-
pie, and especially our free Ameri-
can people, will long consent that the
term liberty" shall be defined for
them by bench of judges. Every
people has defined that term for itself
in the course of it's development.
The task is to strive for justice.
Friends, our task as Americans is
to strive for social and industrial JUS
tice, achieved through the genuine
rule of the people. This is our end,
our purpose. The methods for achev-
ing the end are merely expedients, to
be finally accepted or rejected accord
ing as actual experience shows that
they work we'll or ILL But, in our
hearts, we must have this lofty pur-
pose, and we must strive for it in all
earnestness and sincerity, or our work
will come to nothing. In order to sue
ceed we need leaders of inspired
ldealism leaders to whom are grant
ed great visions, who dream greatly
and strive to make their dreams come
true; who can kindle the people with
the fire from their own burning souls.
The leader, for the time being, who
ever he may be, is but an instrument
to be used untiIbroken and then to be
cast aside, and, if he is worth his salt,
he will care no more when he is
broken than a soldier cares when he
is sent where his life is forfeited, in
order that the victory may be won.
In the long fight for righteousness the
watchword for all of us is "spend and
be spent" 1t is of little matter whether
any one man fails or succeeds, but
the cause shall not fail, for it is the
cause of mankind. We, here in
America, hold in our hands the hope
of the world, the fate of the coming
years; and shame and disgrace will
be ours If. in our eyes, the light of