Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1928-08-02
SLUGGISH JUSTICE

when Abraham Lincoln ana MS
partner started their practice of law
they had a superior" library, which
consisted of some twenty or thirty
law books and some Illinois state re-
ports.
Today, the general laws of the Fed
eral Government, which are supposed
to be severely restricted, fill vol
ume of 2125 pages; the laws of Lin
coins own State fill $500 pages of
small type; a single standard work
of legal reference, incomplete, runs
so far to forty-three volumes; the re-
ports of cases decided by the court Of
last resort in the single State of HI
inois run to 1926 volumes; the latest
volume of the United States Supreme
Court is No. 27O.
That is the difference between
Abraham Lincoln's time and this year,
in which the great American Bar As
sociation celebrates its fiftieth ami
versary. The ceremonies occur this
month, in Seattle, Wash. The occa-
sion naturally raises the desire to
take stock of the legal affairs of the
country.
No one will deny the Importance
of the matter. Confidence in the law
and respect for the courts are requi-
site in a democracy, and particularly
in the United States, where the judic-
larry occupies an equal place with the
executive and legislative. Even a
casual glimpse shows that things are
not going smoothly with the system
of legal machinery in the United
States. America has a shamefully
high homicide rate. AS far as statis-
tics go, they seem to show twice the
ratio of homicides to population that
exists in the next highest country
Italy. Then, too, there are notorious
delays in Justice; failures of justice.
The Remus case, the Sinclair case,
come to thought. Looking further,
one finds politics playing a part in
municipal courts; cities under-polic-
ed; the mouths of judges gagged by
artificial rules that r.event them
from assisting cropping juries in the
din of attorneys eloquence. There is
a tendency for the man in the street
to shrug his shoulders when the cri-
minal law is mentioned.
So far, this has been the gloomy
side of the picture. On the other side
there are plenty of evidences of light
breaking through previous dark
spots, of justice being speeded up in a
hundred ways, in a hundred places;
of public-spirited citizens organizing
crime surveys, and carrying through
valuable reforms. The American Bar
Association itself has been at the
forefront of many of the most impor-
tant improvements, and it deserves
the support of the public in many of
the proposals put forward by its adj
mirable committee on Jurisprudence
and law reform under the chairman
ship of Henry w. Taft.
Harsh things have been said about
the courts of the United States. The
country needs a Charles Dickens to
sting it into indignation by depicting
and humanizing, once and for all, the
tragedies that dilatory justice and
criminality still represent. The ap-
FALLING high American homicide rate
stops abrutly at the Canadian line.
Why? Primarily because the public
in Canada has assayed, simply and
informally, all the values of national
existence and has decided that at the
very top of civic virtues are respect
for law and obedience to it; and be-
cause from this feeling has grown a
somewhat simpler legal machinery.
The machinery itself is unimportant
except as it expresses the view be-
hind it. 1t is unthinkable that the
United States can remain apathetic
in view of recorded criminal condi-
tions, or allow any of it's courts to
continue to administer sluggish jus
tee. christian Science Monitor