The Connecticut labor news., 1923-01-19
'|BIG MONEY" PICKS JUDGES TO SERVE
 RICH, SAYS FORD

Declaring the courts "constitute the Hindenburg line of the money powers" and show "a tendency to back the en- p1oyer against the employee, to serve the rich rather than the poor, to espouse the cause of the mighty rather Ford of the New York Supreme Court last night warned against a judicial usurpation of monarchial powers, in ad- dressing the Bedford Community Council in Brooklyn.
 The Justice declared American jurists were embodied to defy public sentiment by their immunity from criticism-an immunity he declared has no foundation in Federal or State laws, but came tf us from English common law and is a notion inherited from the times Judges were supposed to be the deputies of the king and therefore invested with divinity.
 "The sooner American citizens get rid. of the idea that a judge is more honorable than a legislator, and that a court is more entitled to respect than a legislature, the clearer will become our perception of the evils Of judicial usurpation-the most threat ening present-day danger to our democracy" sa.-
 Justice Ford said that in New York the Bar Association presumes to tell the people who should and who should not be their judges. That association, like similar organizations, is controlled by handful of its mem bers, the so-called leaders of the bar. Who are those leaders of the bar?" he demanded. @S
 Justice Ford spoke of the courts undoing Gin a heeting moment" the legislative work of years. In his opinion, when the United States Su- preme Court in 1918 declared by a vote of 5 to the Child Labor Law to be unconstitutional, "the vote of one man thwarted popular will"
 He declared that Chief Justice Taft in writing the prevailing opinion of Child Labor Bill unconstitutional in 1922 spoke with the voice of a sover- eign," whereas Supreme Court Jus tices are "only men, human, errant, selfish, like the rest of us"
 Justice Ford was specially hard on Chief Justice Taft. No wonder he holds popular sentiment in supreme contempt Does anybody believe that had his selection as chief justice de- peAded on the popular vote he could have been elected to that posi- ton? Yet there he is now for life, wholly irresponsible to the people whose laws he overrides."
 Justice Ford advocated amending the Federal and state constitutions so that any Legislative act, declared unconstitutional by any court, can be re-enacted by legislature elected af- ter the court decree and be immune from further judicial attack. To get rid of "the reactionary judge, the ser want of plutocracy," Justice Ford ap- proved the remedy favored by Col. Roosevelt-the recall of judges under safeguards preventing inconslderate action.
 He would also amend the constitu- ton to forbid issuance of an 1nJunc- ton in labor disputes except to the extent that congress or a state legis-- lature should expressly provide, and in no case until the facts were deter mined after hearing of both sides to the controversy. Attacking the Daugherty injunction, Justice Ford said that it was based on fudge made law drawn from the indefinite and in exhaustible reservoir of judicial cas- uistry."
 Justice Ford was elected as Re publican, but said two years ago he would enroll as a Democrat.