Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-06-16
Justice Hughes as a Candidate.

1t matters little that Justice Hughes did not
seek the Republican nomination. The telling fact
is that he accepted it, One positive word from
him, while events still in the balance, could
have kept the Supreme Court out of the dust and
danger of craftsmanship. His silence gave consent
However sincere his motive in effect he yielded to
the Old Guard gamesters who were hunting a
candidate to prop bankrupt machine
The countrys independent and thoughtful opinion
will not approve that course, not even in so up
right character as that of Charles E. Hughes
So unbiased an observer the New York Jour-
nal of Commerce hastens to declare:
1.-The place occupied by the Supreme Court
of the United States in our system of govern
ment imperatively demands that its members
should be free from the promptings of politi-
cal ambition they from the influence
of partisan bias 1t is dangerous precedent
for any party to take it's candidate for the
chief office in the nation from the bench of the
Supreme Court; it is much to be regretted
that any member of that tribunal should, for
a moment allow himself to be regarded as in
the line of success to the Presidency. There
have been members of the Court who had
Presidential aspirations and sixty-fve votes
were actually cast for Justice Field on the
first ballot for the Presidential nomination at
the Democratic National Convention in Gin
stance rather accentuates the binding nature
of a rule of whose observance there has been
at no time more urgent need than today"
Still more emphatic is the judgment of the New
York Times, which says:
"Mr Hughes will not be elected. His defeat
is to be desired, among many other reasons,
for this good and sufficient reason that the in
vasion of the Supreme Courts chamber by
needy politicians in search of a leader, now
for the first time in American history sue
cessfully accomplished may be rebuked and
made precedent too dangerous for following
The ermine that we have been taught to be-
lieve should touch nothing less spotless than
itself must not be donned for few seasons
wear to be stripped off by reckless party
convention forcing its wearer into the dust and
turmoil of the political arena. The Republic
ans have assailed the purity of that great
bench They have put the Justices who sit
there under the almost irresistible temptation
to turn their minds aside from the questions
that alone concern them, to let their thoughts
wander to fields of contention where they
should have no part 1t is disturbing and
menace to that judicial calm and impartalty
which should prevail in that chamber and to
which by the acceptance of appointment JUS
tees of the Supreme Court should devote their
minds and their lives
1t is not necessary that the Democrats should
make the sinister circumstances of the Hughes
nomination issue in the forthcoming campaign
The issue will make itself. Though it has no
bearing on the practical questions of the hour, 1t
touches great and wise tradition and involves an
institution which above all others should be kept
untainted and inviolate.
In nominating Justice Hughes, the Republican
party controlled by the same bosses and the same
that have ruled it in the past chose the
man who in temperament and character is most
nearly comparable to President Wilson. AS the
World cogently says: at has brought the Supreme
Court of the United States into politics, because
it was afraid to nominate candidate with a record
of opposition to the President"
The forces behind the two radically
different President Wilson is backed by party
from the yoke of special interests and stamped
with constructive service, party that is united
within its own ranks and capable of redeeming its
pledges Mr. Hughes is backed by party notori-
Gus for it's Standpat bosses and it's shady alliances
party that is at war within itself and obviously
of making good its words.
AS for the men themselves, however, they are
singularly alike in their attitude toward national
problems and duties. Both are conservative. Both
are averse to spectacular methods. Both are de-
liberate and restrained. Both are the antithesis
of Roosevelt What President Wilson has done in
the face of the European problem and its conse-
uuent issues, Mr.. Hughes might be expected to do
in the same circumstances in so far as he was
able AS an opponent of President Wilson, there
fore, Mr.. Hughes, paradoxically enough, is an
opponent of himself The question for the Ameri-
can people to decide is whether they prefer as
President man who is untried and inexperienced
or one whose hand is practiced at the helm and
whose mastery is written large in his deeds.