Valdez daily prospector., 1914-12-01
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1914.
SENATOR BORAH UPHOLDS
 COURTS.

N---'
 ho, in the Senate, replying to assaults upon the courts:
 Tt is a common, and I think, a deplorably common thing in these days to be always assailing the courts. I do not sympathize with this wholesale assault.
 II do not claim that the courts do not err; they sometimes err signally and pronouncedly. l do not claim that they always administer justice with an even and exact hand, for judges are human and the passions and pre- iudices, the limited vision and the clouded mind which sometimes at tach to their kind are also theirs I do not claim that they are always free from political bias or at all times wholly exempt from that strange at tachment which in republic some times places party above the com mon welfare, for presidents and gov ernors and electorates in selecting judges do not always seek men most likely to resist such influences. But I do claim that of all the methods and contrivances and schemes which have been devised by the wit of man for the adjustment or controverted judicial questions and the admlnlstra- tion of justice the courts and the ma chinery of the courts, built up from decade to decade and from century to century, built of the experience and the wisdom of proud and freedom loving race, the courts as they are built into our system, though not per feet, are the most perfect.
 Courts Barrier To Oppression.
 "The courts will not always be abreast of the most advanced opin- ions in the march of progress, but that they will in due time mortise and build into our jurisprudence all that is permanent and wise and just, all that a settled and digested public opin- ion finally indorses, no one familiar with the history of our jurisprudence can for a moment doubt. Not only that. but more than once the courts, both in England and America, have stood as the sole protector in the hour of turmoil and strife for the rights of the weak and the poor, the oppressed and the hunted, when the executive and the legislature have yielded to the whip of the strong and the powerful. I need recall only one instance in the hurry of this debate, though I might recall hundred, be- ginning with the days of Coke's cour- age, and that is the instance where in our own great Supreme Court pre- served against the encroachments of war and the hunger of hatred the right of trial by jury, a most sacred right of the American citizen and without which the whole scheme of a republic would be but a delusion and a tormen+.
 When the courts can no longer stay the steps which may lead to vio' lence and bloodshed, then what? When the arm of equity can no long CT be extended to hold things in abey- ance until rights can be adjudicated and reason and counsel can have a hearing, then what? Be not deceived. The alternative is the soldier and the bayonet.
 Government By Court Martial.
 "One can not be oblivious to the alacrity with which wealth in these days is prone to appeal to the sol. dier. When a delegation of working men informed me few months ago that their fellow workmen had been arrested without warrant, tried with out jury, sentenced. by no court that at time when the courts were open and in the midst of an intelli gent, prosperous, modern American community men had been herded be fore military tribunal, given the semblance of trial, and sent to pris on, it seemed incredible. For nearly 600 years no such repulsive scene had marred the story of the orderly de velopment and growth of Anglo-Saxor jurisprudence. Our English ancestors had executed the petty tyrants who had last attempted it. did not sup pose that here, where jury trials ant common-law courts were a guaranty a part of our system of law and jus tice-that anyone would be so blind so cruel. so witless as to covet the infamy of rehabilitating that discard