The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1912-06-07
Should They Be Recalled.
SURF,!!

great deal of fdscussion is going on at present
as to whether court Judges Should be recalled.
Taft says No, Teddy Yes Teddy is right We
believe that the State of Indiana has as competent
and honest Judges as any state in the Union, and
also that if one.haf of them were recalled (ired)
today the State would be better off, What is
Judge anyhow? Usually a pettyfogingxroads
lawyer who can't make a living practcing law. so
ne sets himself up as candidate for Judge and by
means fair or foul secures enough votes to give
mm the office; Then by some hocus-pocus change
ne Immediately begins to set himsef up as an IN
fallibe god. Big and little should be made to
sign up the recall before they take the oath of Of
tce No one should claim greater virtue for a
Judge than he is entitled to receive as a man. A
Judge is still man and none the less liable to err
giles out the judge as parsonage with sacred pre-
negatives and as independent OF the great mass of
people is both silly and inspid.
Ii the courts of this land have been surrounded
with halo OF divine fire, warding off the consti-
tuents to weom judges are responsible and if gre
sent tendencies point to the collapse of this popu
lar reverence for the judicial ermine, the Judges
and the courts must be held accountable for the
change. The present presidential campaign, if it
has done nothing more, has lifted the veil of sup
erstition thrt lowered around our judicial nstitu
tions. In restoring public sentiment to normal
basis the campaign has served aworthv purpose
At last we are coming to believe about the courts
what the fathers and the great constitutional law
yers believed and which only fatuous perversion
OF the public mind by the courts themselves per-
mitted to become distorted. = -
Charles Sumner has written one of the best
men," ''-0 ""'
For myself, let me say that hold Judges. and
especially the supreme court, in much respect but
am too familiar with the history of judicial pro-
ceedlngs to regard them with any superstitious
reverence. Judges are but men, and in all aces
have shown full share of human frailtv. Alas
alas! the worst crimes of history have been nerne
trated under their sanction
Ay, sir, it was judicial tribunal in England,
surrounded by all the forms of law, which sane,
toned every caprice of Henry the Eli ght, from the
u unjust 1 divorce OF MS queen to the beheading of
Sir Thomas More which lighted the fires of perse
cutlon that glowed at Oxford and Smthfeld over
the cnders of Latimer, Ridley and John Rogers
tyranny OF ship money against the patriotic resist
ance OF Hampden-which, in defiance of Justice
and humanity, sent Sidney and Russell to the
block-whlch persstently enforced the laws of
conformity that our Puritan fathers perpistentlv
refused to obey and afterward, with Jeffries on
the bench, crmsoned the pages of English history
with massacre and murder, even with the blood of
innocent women.
Ay sir, it was judicial tribunal in our own
country, surrounded by all the forms of law which
hung witches at Salem which affirmed the cons
titutionality of the stamp act, which it admonish.
ed jurors and the people to obey--and which now.
in our own day. lends its sanction to the fugitive
slave act
repeat, judges are but men, and know no
dlterence between the claim now made for them
and that other insulting pretension put forth
sometimes in the name of king and sometimes
of people,
The whole dogma os passive obedience must be
rejected under whatever alias it sulks---whether
in tyranncal usurpations of king, parliament or
judicial tribunal.
When the public has shorn the courts of polit-
cal power which the constitution does not confer
upon them and which they were not intended to
enjoy we shall have returned to the original bases
of representative government. The absence of in
terference from the country at large and the mere
fact that the public has acguiesced in an exercise
of political power is the only license which exists
today for such wanton use of authority as the
reading into federal laws Of meaning not express
ly contained. Our next great reformation in
court procedu els likely to be the limitation of
judicial Authority to the boundaries prescribed in
the cOnstition ilSo!f