EDITORIALS

...To over-reach the action of Congress merely by judicial construction," says Justice Harlan, "is a blow at the integrity of our governmental system...

...By ordering a reconsideration of the judgment rendered in the 40 to 46 vote last March, by committing the "Lorimer case" to members whose bounden duty it is to probe fearlessly, searchingly and impartially into all the circumstances surrounding the election of William Loeimer, the United States Senate has bowed to the master whose servant it should at all times be,—Public Opinion...

...It involves both of the great political parties...

...Corporations have no right to ignore public questions and public interests...

...It shows the unclean hand of big interest—interests whose supremacy and wealth depend largely upon legislation—over legislators and judges and over a seat in the Senate itself...

...In some respects it stands alone,—a dark page in the history of lowered senatorial standards...

...The Sherman law, in my opinion, does not meet the conditions of to-day, and I believe it never can fully prevent these combinations...

...They will not destroy it...

...The unfortunate results that have grown out of it have already dispelled the myth that there is in ermine robes some" alchemy potent enough to change completely the nature of the man who dons them, that the man who is elevated to the bench becomes instantly different from that same man when practicing at the bar, that judges, in short, are better than lawyers...

...The Steel Corporation would be glad if it knew where it stood...

...This is the people's government...

...Our Judicial Oligarchy" "I THINK," said the president of a great university, recently, "I think the time ought to be here, and in-deed I feel that it is here, when honest c;iticism of judicial decisions may be made as freely as criticism of acts of legislatures or executives...

...We urge you all to follow these articles, week by week, line by line, word by word...

...Does the judicial branch of our government perform the duties allotted to it—and no more...

...Roe's articles are among the most valuable and interesting contributions upon matters of government that have appeared in recent years...

...I think there is a stopping place," replied Gary...

...Beginning with next week's issue La Follette's will publish a timely and important series of articles on "Our Judicial Oligarchy," by Giletrt E. Roe of the New York Bar...

...They will restore and forever preserve it as a government that shall be truly representative of the will of the people...

...I mean just that...

...Do you mean government control of prices...

...In recent years the allegations of fraud and corruption in connection with the election of United States Senators have been rife in scores of legislatures where the positive and direct evidence, always so difficult to secure in bribery cases, has failed to warrant filing formal charges...

...Whenever and wherever they fail, they will be so changed as to make them effective to execute and express the well considered judgment of the citizen...

...They will not permit organized privilege to destroy its vital principle...

...for when before has the chief official of a great trust unburdened himself of sentiments such as these: "I realize," said Judge Gaby, "the importance of considering how the people shall be protected against imposition of the great combinations of wealth...

...It is generally recognized that our tribuna's of justice have taken to themselves functions it was never intended they should have, functions entirely incompatible with the administration of justice, and, moreover, entirely incompatible with the orderly working out of self-government...

...We want to be free from danger, free from criticism by the public...

...For over and above constitution and statutes and greater than all is the supreme sovereignty of the people...

...Swift and earnest should be the action of the Senate in getting the truth, and all the truth, about this affair, and freeing itself forever from the odium that now attaches to the seat of the Senator from Illinois...

...They have been called the bulwark of special privilege...

...If we had some place we could go and say, here are the facts and figures of our property, our cost prices, tell us what we have a right to charge...

...Too little attention has been given to the workings of our courts...

...Their procedure is said to have resulted in one law for the rich and another for the poor...

...It would be comforting to know if Judge Gary's utterance were prompted by a desire to know where the public "stood" as strong as his desire to know where the Steel Corporation "stood...

...Government is now under the thumb of Business...

...Does it do this work in a spirit of strict impartiality and an abiding regard for justice...

...And with this artificial tradition of the sanctity of the courts put aside, there is nothing to hamper a free and critical inspection of the nature and work of the judiciary...

...Thoughtful persons of all shades of opinion, of every station in life, are agreed that our courts have drifted "far from the status accorded them when our system of government was laid down...

...It has become common to refer to the people as a "mob" and the people's rule as "the rule of the mob...

...We need not fear...

...It is time these questions were answered...

...It shows, what the former evidence failed to bring out, the crooked trail of the "men higher up...

...Judges are r.ot more immune from error than law makers...

...We are on the threshold of a new epoch when Business will be securely under the righteous thumb of Government...

...Their honor, the Senate's honor, the nation's honor, is at stake...

...This unwarranted assumption of power, this presumption of authority, has come to be one of the greatest problems with which we, the people, have to deal...

...However that may be, we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that the paramount rights of the public are beginning to receive tardy recognition from those dizzy heights of business where for so long the creed has been, "the public be d—d...

...Upon the answer depends the course we must take to bring the courts into line with our other institi tions of government...

...The decision last March in the "Lorimer case" makes another of these unfortunate precedents...

...They have been charged, by men in high places, with maladministration of justice...

...Yes," answered Gary...

...If we have the government control you suggest," said Chairman Stanley, "where will be the stopping place between government control and government ownership...

...For the Honor of the Senate IT IS A DEEPLY SIGNIFICANT FACT that for seventy years after this government was established the United States Senate had never been humiliated by a call to investigate a charge of corruption in the election of one of its members...

...There has grown up in high places a scorn and contempt for the plain citizen...

...We control national banks and the railroads without making any attempt to own them...

...asked Congressman Young...

...ffTHE WELFARE of the child is best attained through the proper education and training of the parents.—Bulletin, Chicago Board of Health...

...Blind indeed the men who will not see the certain and inevitable result...

...Men of vision see that it cannot long remain so...

...We must come to enforced publicity and governmental control...

...Constitutions and statutes and all the complex details of government are but instruments created by the citizen for the orderly execution of his will...

...What about it...

...What Gary Says WHEN JUDGE E. H. GARY, head of the United States-Steel Corporation, appeared before the House investigating committee last week, and said he favored government control of industrial corporations, even to the extent of fixing prices, the newspapers heralded this statement far and wide as "amazing" and "sensational...

...With some show of reason, too...

...Talk them over with your friends...

...This is not a party issue...

...A study of the ten bribery cases tried in recent years discloses the growing tendency toward the establishing of precedents which make it increasingly difficult to convict, excepting in cases where the proof is overwhelming and notorious...

...Even more recently, in the Standard Oil and Tobacco trust cases, Justice Harlan of the United States Supreme Court— agreeing with the court's judgment that these combinations were violating the law—ciiticized in vigorous language the dictum by which the Chief Justice undertook to put into the law a word—"unreasonable"—which Congress had ref sed to in-clude...

...Since that time eleven Senators have been summoned to the bar of the Senate to defend against the charge of bribery...

...If we had some such governmental body, we would be glad to avail ourselves of the opportunity...

...Does it, in any degree, deserve the distrust of the public...

...The new evidence uncovered since the Senate passed judgment upon this case is startling...

...The abolition of caucuses and conventions and the nomination of all candidates by direct vote, the election of United States Senators by direct vote, the nomination of presidential candidates by direct vote, the initiative, the referendum, and the recall,—all these are but the logical outcome of the betrayal of public trust by public officials...