Evening star., 1915-01-21
Tho Court Auditors Compensation.

Ie seems to Tho Star that the Board
Of Trade and tho Bar Association are
right in their almost unanimous con-
tention that in the public interest the
court auditor should be paid by the
fees Of litigants in exact proportion to
tho service rendered, and not by q
salary contributed by the taxpayers.
The wise modern tendency to sub
stitute salaries for fees has almost
universally found application in purely
ministerial offices. where the official
has merely to supervise a clerical force
that performs services for which small
fees are charged, aggregating large
and disproportionate income for this
supervisor. like clerks Of court. mar
shals, registers and recorders.
The office of court auditor or master
in chancery is not ministerial office.
Its functions are two-thirds judicial
and one third accountant In both
functions the service rendered Is per-
sonal. not performed perfunctorily and
by proxy through clerical assistants.
and varies in extent and arduousness
OF labor in every case handled. The
reasoning which renders wise the sub
stitution of salary for fees in COM
pensating officials like the recorder OF
deeds is totally inapplicable to the
auditor.
The auditor or master in chancery is
an appointee of the court to facilitate
the effective movement of the judicial
machinery, who performs special ju-
dicial or semi judicial or legal services
for litigants and who, under the super
vision of the court, is compensated by
these litigants in proportion to the
service rendered. In some jurisdictions
this work is distributed among special
masters appointed by the court for
each separate case. Here the bulk of
this work Is under the old Maryland
law intrusted to one court appointee,
the auditor.
If the present auditor has by his
marked ability and by his capacity to
work long hours performed profess
sional services for litigants which have
reasonably earned him an average of,
say. $4,000 year, and that amount is too
large sum for US to permit one lawyer
TO earn, the evil of profitable over
work would be corrected If more of
this work were diverted from him by
the court to special masters, or if two
auditors were appointed by the court
instead of one.
The litigantS, the people of Washington,
are not complaining that the auditing
fees in themselves are too great. The
taxpayers are not demanding the privi-
lege of paying the auditor salary and
Of turning arbitrary auditing fees from
litigants into the Treasury as new
source of District revenue. TO be manipu-
lated as an additional weapon to destroy
the half-and-half arrangement. The
Board of Trade and the Bar Association
have declared with practical unanmity
ror the present system.
II in the eyes Of the envious (and of
some, perhaps. who are unenvious) the
auditor earns too much. reduce his earn
lnss in the manner suggested through
the court which appoints him. Do
not, in order 10 strike him. revolutionize
the Character of the office itself and vio-
l'tte .he universal practice of the federal
Judiciary in respect to this Office.
The Judiciary committee and the SEN
ate itself are rich in lawyers of the
highest class who understand thor
oughly the character and functions of
this Office and it's relation to the court
and litigants These men not only rec
oSnize the motives back of the pro-
posed change. but foresee it's evil re-
suits. They will be slow to consent to
the conversion of the local court-ap-
pointed, fee-paid master in chancery
into salaried taX-paid official, to the
injury of the local judicial machinery,
when neither the court nor the liti-
Satng and taxpaying community has
asked it; and when. on the contrary,
the community has, through its largest
organized representative bodies, eX-
pressed its hearty approval both of the
highly efficient auditor and of the pres
ent fee system.