The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1916-02-17
THE CIRCUIT JUDGESHIP.
To The Editor of The Pilot:

10 Inc E1ltor OF Inc IllOt.
No man can be bau ed for cherishing
a just ambition. To win the respect
and esteem of our fellow men is desir-
able, if obtained as the just result Of
welldoing. To seek to merit the appro-
baton of our fellow citizens by doing
right, is worthy of commentator.
To court mere popularity by being a
mechanical smiler or a pumphandle
handshaker, with no more sentiment
or feeling than Eastwood Indian be-
fore cigar store, may produce 3 sue
cessful demogogue and vote getter for
a short time, but ere long the real
personality of the man is found out.
The selfish object becomes apparent,
popular disgust supplants the short
lived popularity created by assumed
atfability and in due time the profess
ional smiler for office drops to earth
with the much quoted dull thud. y
The people soon learn the truth of the
aphorism "a man may smile and smile
and yet may prove villain.
The professional office hunter, who
seeks office for what there is in it for
him, rather than the opportunity to
benefit his felowmen by doing work
for which he is specially fitted, is but a
poor thing after all. Where big sal
ary is the first consideration and effic-
iency the last, the result, in the final
analysis is failure.
Popular appreciation in the end,
goes to the man who day by day seeks
to do right in the sphere in which be
labors, who news to the line of rec.i-
tude, regardless of results even to him,
self. The man who continually plays
politics, who constantly has his ear to
l the ground listening for the applause
lof the grounGiings, will in the end, IN
~ yitably fiud himself an object of con-
tempt and suspicion.
What has been said above is true
generally. 1t is especially true Of the
judicial office.
In the very nature of things al up
right Judge will be compelled at times
by force of the law to decided some ques-
tion before him adverse to the tempor-
ary consensus of popular opinion.
There may be no other course open to
him without violation of conscience.
If he is a wtakling he will quail, and
yielding to temptation, sacrifice right
will "do right though the heavens
fall.
Any man upon the judicial bench
who thinks politics, acts politics or in
any way is swayed by political consid-
erations, is a menace TO the state.
Every Judge is supposed to represent
one of the three coordinate powers in
our system OF government-th leg
islative, executive and judicial, the
last the most important OF all. The
judicial is, and of right ought to be,
above politics for the reason that its
exercise implies the regulation and
control of the political powers, bolh
legislative and executive. A Wis
consin court has annulled legislative
apportionment. 1t has annulled a
fiscate private property. Wisconsin
judges once removed a governor of the
state from his high place.
Hence the people of this state from
the earliest period Of its existence,
have steadfastly refused to permit pol
itical considerations to sway them in
their elections for judicial office.
They made +. G. Ryan, the most
prominent democrat in the state, Chief
! Justice of the supreme court at time
tNhen the state was strongly repub.
lican. They honored him but they
honored themselves more. Mere party
politics is not the worst element nor
the most to be feared IN the selection
of Judges. There is such thing as
the personal politician. There is the
the man who is less swayed by party
feeling or conviction than personal
profit. There is the office hunter and
place holder who holds all political
beliefs and measures subordinate to
gratifying unwarranted ambition and a
bigger salary. When office and place
so sought is judicial in character, let
the people beware. For iunluly sought
by unseemly methods, 1t stamps the
seeker as wanting in due appreciation
of its character and unfit to discharge
its responsibilities. 1t has been char
ged by Sheboygan paper that in the
pending judicial election a candidate
has sought to inject political issues.
Who is it? Certainly not Judge
Kirwan.
A VOTER