The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-03-07
PUBLIC OPINION
Editor of the Farmer. Sir:

Editor of the Farmer. Sir:
 At the 33rd annual banquet Of the Bridgeport Bar Association, held on the evening of March 1, 1912. Judge William s. Case was very bitter Tn his remarks against the recall of judg-
 He Is reported as saying:
 Under the new regime the judges gown becomes negligible part Of ms outfit. His real insignia seems to De the mob's collar, and his own fealty to the feeting whim and clamor of the fabble.''
 The Declaration of Independence de- clares that governments derive their just powers from the consent Of the governed" Lincoln declared that mo CT man without that other mans con- sent" This is said to be a democrat ic government-but is it?
 Ut has been common to designate our form of government as democ- racy, but in the true sense in which that term is properly used, as defining a government in which ali its acts are performed by the people. it is about as far from 1t as any other Of wnlcn we are aware Former Associate Lectures on the Constitution of the United States"
 The Supreme court consists of nine men. These nine men can set at naught the will of nation of 90,000,- O00 They can tell the President, the Congress and the people that, when they made a law, they meant either more or less than they said. They can take out or put in; add or sub- tract.
 If four of the judges were in favor of the people-hve men would be the
 If four judges were with the people and four against-and one man on the fence. Then the whole power would be in his hands. Then 1t would depend on whether he could be coaxed or scared or bribed to side with one or the other of the contending sides.
 From 'The Usurped Power of the Courts" by Allan l.. Benson, I gleaned the following:
 Nowhere in the constitution of the United States is the Federal Supreme Court authorized to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional. When it was proposed. in the constitutional convention of 17S7, to give the Fed eral Supreme Court even limited veto upon Congress, the convention. not once, but four times, refused to do SO. The Federal Supreme Court in the beginning claimed no such pow CT and, for years, made no attempt to exercise it.
 The power to declare acts of Con- gress unconstitutional was usurped on
 
 Justice John Marshall. who, in order to read into the constitution his au- thority to do so, was compelled to re- pudiate his own words upon the same subject, as expressed before the Vir- ginia convention that ratified the con- stitution, and at least one other of his earlier utterances. Congress has the power, which 1t may exercise at any time that it chooses to do so, to com pei the Federal Court to keep its
 A. proof of which is that Congress once exercised this power, and the Supreme Court. without hesitation, yielded to it.
 Also. it will be shown that prior to the revolution, no colonial supreme court ever dared to set aside the act of a legislature. and that, to this day. ahe United States is the only great nation on earth that permits a court to override a legislative body.
 If these statements are true, every American citizen ought to know they are true. If they are true, we fought the Revolutionary war for one thing and got another. If they are true, we should make up our minds whether we want the republic for which our forefathers fought, or the limited des- potism-constantly growing greater that the courts are imposing upon us. . If we want the despotism, we need do nothing. Just let the courts go their way. But. if we want republic, we shall have to put our courts down where they belong, and our congress and our state legislatures up where they belong. We shall have to say to our judges, both big and little; You are not good enough to rule us with nut our consent and we don't con- sent"
 If Lincoln was right when he said that the nation could not endure "half slave and half free" was not Thomas Jefferson right when he said that the nation could not endure, under the present judicial despotism? In oth- CT words. il despotisrn and liberty ex- ist in the same nation, is it not in the nature Of things that the despot- ism should eventually crowd out the liberty or be crowded out by the lib- erty?
 Tt has long been my opinion-that :he germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of our federal judiciary. an irrepressible