The daily Alaska citizen., 1920-01-25

|uOISeu DN Ellnu hOOt- Will pc ieaQ Wltn a feeling of relief by many liberals who have been conscious of disparity between rich and poor in the courts. The author of the study Is Richard Heber Smith of the BoS- ton bar, and his analysis is scholarly and critical. There have been many indict- mentS of American courts, both by thOtlCSS radicals and by aroused citizens, but ncvcrI any careful collection of data as the baSi, for considered conclusions. The subject is now fairly up for discussion. The facts are before Us. The poor man has ittIcI chance in our courts; the rich man haSI every chance. When a man has plenty off money he can afford to be arrested and, within certain limits, can pay hlS way out! of the mill which would grind a laborcr toI pulp. If a man is living on the edge off subsistence he has practically no dcfcnSeI against legal assault whether it be honest or fabricated
 The administration of American
 justice Is not impartial; the rich and
 the poor do not stand on an equality before the law; the traditional method
 of providing justice has operated to
 close the doors of the courts to the poor and has caused a gross denial of
 justice in all parts of the country to
 millions of persons.
 But the whole difficulty is not em- braced in the distinction made between those who have and those who have not. The system, according to this investiga- Ition favOrs chicane and puts premium on intrigue. The straightforward man is at an actual disadvantage before the law. The evil is not one of class in the
 sense that 1t gives the poor yer to the
 mercies of only the rich. It enables
 the poor to rob one another; 1t per
 mits the shreWd immigrant of few years residence to defraud his more
 recently arrived countrymen. The
 line of cleavage is that between the
 dishonest and the honest Everywhere it abetS the interruptions, the crafty,
 and the vicious in their plans to ex-
 ploit their less intelligent and less for
 tunate fellow. The system not only
 robs the poor of their only protection
 but it places in the hands of their op- l pressors the most powerful and ruth 1 less weapon ever invented
 If the inequality of rich and poor in the courts were the only basis for criticism i the institution of the public defender might be put forward as the solution of the whole problem. And in a large proportion of the cases where in ustice is obvious the public defender would probably prove an adequate remedy. Here, 1t would seem, we can do something to ameliorate conditions and win over to American standards those work men who have felt that our government was against them and they might, there fore, just as well be against the govern mcnt. Discrimination in the courts has doubtless destroyed many an immigrant s trust in our national good faith. It is not to wondered at; justice should be as free as air; nobody should fear the courts save the wrongdoer; nobody should hesitate because of lack of language or money to enter i the courtroom to secure redress. And if there were men paid to defend as we'll as to prosecute, and if fees were abrogated, the court might prove at least in a meas ure, house of refuge for the oppressed
 But the peculiar traditions of our law would still give the advantage to the moneyed man and the tricky man in every case at law When money opposes craft the outcome becomes neghbible, but when, as is too often the case, they are both on