The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1914-10-20
MORE JUSTICE
and LESS Law
CONTINUED from Page. One.I

ICont1nuco rom Page One.J
cumstance that it does not observe the
ordinary rules OF evidence which has
sometimes suggested to me that the
ordinary rules of evidence had shown
some signs of growing antique.
Everything. rumor included. is
heard in this court and the standard OF
Judgment is not with regard to the
character of the witness. The motives
are disclosed, the purposes are con5ec-
tured and that opinion is finally ac-
cepted which seems to be not the best
founded in law perhaps. but the best
founded in integrity of character and
of morals.
''That is the process which is slow
~ working it's will upon. the world
and what we should be watchfu1- Of Is
not SO much jealous interests as sound
principles of action. The disinterested
course il always the biggest course to
pursue, not only. but it is in the long
sue. II you can establish your char
acter you can establish your credit.
What 1 wanted to suggest to the
association in bidding them very
hearty welcome to the city, Is whether
we sufficiently apply those same ideas
to the body OF municipal law which
we seek to administer, citations seem
principle.
New LAWS Like Patches.
There was a time when the
thoughtful eye of the Judge rested
upon the changes of social circum-
stances and almost palpably saw the
law arise out Of human Life. Have
we got to a time when the only way
to change law is by statute? The
changing of law by statute seems to
patch; whereas law should grow by
the life that Is In 1t, not by the life
that il outside of 1t.
II should hate to think that the
law did not derive its impulse from
looking forward rather than from
looking backward or rather, that 1t
did not derive its instruction from
looking about and see what the cir
cumstances of men actually are, and
what impulses of justice necessarily
are.
Understand me, gentlemen, I am
not venturing in this presence to i'm
peach the law. For the present, by
the force Of circumstances, / am in
part the embodiment Of the law and
1t would be very awkward to disavow
myself. but 1 do wish to make this in
timation. that in this time of world
change, in this time when we are 60
ing to find out just how, in what par
ticulars and to what extent the real
facts of human life and the real moral
judgments of mankind prevail, it is
worth while looking inside our mu-
picipal law and seeing whether the
moral judgments Of mankind are made
square with every one Of the tudg-
ments Of the law itself.
Cust0tlians of . Spirit.
For l believe that we are custo-
dams, not Of commands but of a spir-
it: We are custodians of the spirit
OF Righteousness, of the spirit OF equal
handed justice. Of the spirit of hope
which believes in the perfectibility Of
the law, with the perfectibility Of hu-
man life itself.
Public life like private life would
be very dull and dry If 1t were not
for this belief in the essential beauty
of the human spirit and the belief
that the, human spirit could be trans
lated into action and into ordinance
Not entirely. You cannot go any
faster than you can advance the aver
age moral judgments OF the mass.
II have in my life dealt with an
sorts and conditions Of men and /
have found that. the nanie OF moral
Judgment. burned Just as bright IN
the man of humble life and limited
experience as in the scholar and the
man OF affairs. And I would like his
voice always to be heard, not as a
witness. not as speaking in his own
case but as II he were the voice of
tice as well as the voice of the law
yers remembering what the law has
bean.
my hope is that being stirred to
the depths by the extraordinary cir.
cumstances Of the time in which We
live we may recover from those
depths something Of q renewal OF that
vision OF the law with which men
may be supposed to have started out
In the old days OF the oracles. who
communed with the iutimatious Of
divinity"