Year: 1872

|


on the Bill to Inc nse the


Salaries of .jpl 6es Of ~ -


the Supreme and


Common Pleas


Courts.


| The question being on the passage of
House Bill No. II, by Mr.. Fulton, to
increase the salaries of Judges of the
Common Pleas and Supreme Courts, Mr..
Stilwell said:


MIR. SPEAKER: This debate seems to
be taking considerable range, especially
among the legal fraternity-concerning
as it perhaps does the future of some of
! the members Of that profession who are
now upon this floor; and as a lawyer, a
friend to the taxpayers and of the work
ing class, for l represent constituency
of working men, l wish to enter my
protest against the passage of this bill.
The arguments which are used for this
measure are old, are stereOtyped, have
been rehearsed over and over at every
session of every legislature for years, in
considering some project for the in
crease of salaries and thus necessarily
increasing public expenditure. Not
alone is the increase of the salaries of
the judiciary demanded at almost every
session, but an advance is asked in the
pay of officers of the State and local
governments, from Governor down to
justices of the peace, constables and
other officers, until, in fact, if all were
gratified, our expenditures in salaries
would swell up to double and treble
what is necessary to secure talent and
integrity in public position.


| And these demands are such as never
to be satisfied. Increase the salaries of
one or more positions, and at once you
give reason for demand for the same
increase in others; and yet experience
shows that the more you advance the
pay of public officers the greater zeal
do they manifest through their friends
for still further advance; and this in
the face of experience which shows us
that the lowest salaries ever paid in
Ohio secured us the best talent on the
bench and in other positions that was
ever obtained in our State history. Our
history refutes the argument which has
been reiterated during the debate that
the salaries of our judges are not suffi-
cient to secure the best talent ON our
Common Pleas and Supreme benches.
We need only to go back ten years and
our Common Pleas judges received fif-
teen hundred dollars, our Supreme
Court judges seventeen, and yet the
corruption of which the gentleman
from Champaign speaks as following
low salaries was not heard of in our
State, while other States-New York,
for instance-has been called a cess
pool of corruption, with the salaries of
her judges, as the gentleman from War
rem states, at fifteen thousand dollars
per year. Ohio, as has been admitted
by gentlemen in favor of the bill,
stands without peer in the character
TO our Supreme Court, while the salary
was low. Ranney, Thurman, Corwin,
BARLEY, Reed, Grimke and others to
whom we might refer, present an array
of legal talent of which any State or
any nation might be proud, a galaxy of
names as bright on the judicial bench
as ever illumed the seats of justice in
any age or nation. Yet those men left
large practice, perhaps in each case,
from two to ten times as lucrative as
that derived from the salary paid to the
judge. but the honorable position to
which the individual was elevated was
considered as sufficient inducement to
bring to the bench the best men of every
State, just as to-day the paltry sum
paid to a member of the Legislature
and the honor Of the position induces
men to fOrego their pecuniary interests
and accept position which, only with
the utmost economy, will pay expenses.
But has the change in salary within ten
years from fifteen hundred dollars to
twenty-five hundred been followed by
any beneficial effects? One of the eff
fects of the advance in salary is that
the position of judge has acquired such
an importance, in pecuniary point of
view, that some of our lawyers are
tempted to make a political fight, seek
ing the office, while that is position
which should seek the man; yes, in
many districts of our State during the
last campaign two or more men, in
many cases Of the same political party
were contending in the most bitter man
ner for the judgeship, while if the sal
airy attaching to the position had re-
mained at the original amount, this
would have not occurred. The effect of
the present high salary is to bring the
dignity of the position down to the
level of other positions-to degrade the
judiciary; to make it an object to be
obtained for the spoils which flow from
it; to cause corrupt rings and cliques
of men to bring corruption and fraud
to bear to thwart the will of the peo-
pie, thus placing some favorite on the
bench, from whom, unless they miscal-
culate their man, they expect to de-
mand and receive favors. Another eff
feet of the increase in salaries has been
the unprecedented increase of the num-
ber of judges in the last ten years. The
salary is an object; the Legislature con-
tains number of men who themselves
are ambitious to sacrifice themselves ON
the bench for the good of their country,
or have friend who will condescend
to do so, and the result is that the num-
ber of judges have been increased by
special acts, during ten years, about
sixty-two per cent, while the expenses
of the judiciary of our State has been
increased to such an extent that in 1871
it was one hundred and thirty-f five per
cent. greater than in 1861, nearly two
and one-halt times AS great, and yet
this bill proposes to make an addition
to that expense equal to over fifty per
cent. Oh the expenditure as it stood in
1861.