The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-08-02
M b N w o M B N
 A ND T HIN G s

There are some strange ideas afloat in this democratic land of ours, foI when the attorneys for the governor of great state are ready to argue that the chief executive need not sub init to arrest for embezzlement. 1t i' time for us to review some facts ir bistory.
 It would be a strange thing, indeed after hundreds of years struggle in England against the tyranny ot kings, and the settlement of Amer ica by freemeu, mat we should revert to the ancient idea that the King is above the law in this twentieth cen tury when the United States fought tc make the world safe for democracy
 The fact that Governor Small's ad- visers, or that he himself agreed to submit to the serving of the warrant only shows that such preposterous doctrine as the King can do nc wrong is out of harmony with the law as well as the spirit of America and that the people would frowu upon any one foolish enough to make seriously such claim.
 The "bill of rights won after a long fight in England, asserted most clearly that the law was sovereign in England by enumerating the acts by which James l had exasperated the nation, and declaring them, one by one, to be illegal. Henceforth there could be in no part of the constitu- ton claim to set aside law when duly passed by King, Lords and Commons.
 The right to act in virtue of a discretionary" power which was summed up in the words salus populi suprema lex. was to be heard of no more. The motto which the Stewards had tried to affix to the English con stitution must after the revolution be read lex suprema populi salus This was the solution of a problem which had pressed for answer so long and which led Englishmen along the path of toleration and self gov ernment.
 The stewart Kings thought them selves the nation, with personal mis- sion to govern, and treated opposi- tion and criticism as impudence or ignorance. They believed that they possessed a divine hereditary right, a right indorsed by their own wisdom and abilities, sanctioned by the per sonal power allowed to past kings, and upheld by their family tree; but the people got it inserted into the con- stitution that government is con tract and not an heirloom in any family.
 The Stewards drew a line between themselves and the nation, and while Henry VIII had often taken his parliaments into his confidence, King James Or King Charles was always careful to, remind the two houses that they and their sovereign could never treat as equals, thereby alienat- ing the King and the people; and so among a few there grew up a pas sionate claim for the supremacy of Parliament over the royal power.
 The King commanded and the na tton chafed It was James I whose high handed ideas of the personal rights of royalty that brought him in collision with Chief Justice Coke. for the lawyer plainly told him that the royal power was official rather than personal, and that the law was above 1t. It was because the King had showed disposition to side strongly with church against the state in mat ters of law and proposed to settle the vexed questions of Jurisdiction of church courts by hearing cases him. self.
 Then came servile bench in which through his appointees James appealed to sympathetic court for a confirmation of ms r1gnts. Small wonder that the British Solomon as James was called. with his ab- normal views on divine right of royalty, put great strain on his claim that kings govern because they know best Coke, refusing on occasion to act on the Kings orders. but as the law dictated, was-di smissed.
 It was so much more to James way of thinking to adopt Bacon fatal theory that the judges should be lions under the throne,u i. e.. the Kings tools, and Coke, asserting his duty as judge to act under the law without kingly commands lost his job, but made lasting name for himself as an upholder of the sanctity of the law even in the face of discretionary" power. divine right" and the King can do no wrong.
 It took weary years of struggle and cost many lives to place the law above the stewart Kings, and 1t i. hardly possible that here in ire. America the public will lister with patience to the claim of an, governor that he is above the law and cannot be reached by crimina process. As to the merits of inc cas,