HUMANIZING OF COURT DECISIONS
Humanizing of Court Decisions Former Industrial Head Overturns Precedents and Technicalities To Get To Merits of Cases Arising OUT of a myriad of incidents connected with the development of the...
...Ho had been sleeping with the problem for weeks...
...His devotion to these problems came from his sympathetic interest in the workingman...
...Early he devoted himself to the study of industrial problems...
...The law provided that compensation be made for injuries received in the 'course of his employment.' The straightened circumstances of the family without a lawyer injected into this particular case a strong human appeal that reached to the hearts of the Commissioners...
...Is Exception to Rule...
...Crownhart's candidacy makes the issue between the old and the new order...
...He was born on a farm in Fond du Lac county in 1863...
...This man is of the new order...
...It must not bo compromised...
...He is not afraid to blaze a new trail...
...These students are watching for the humanizing of one of the strongest courts of this country...
...Responding to a demand from all classes of citizens of tho state Mr...
...Crownhart awakened me jvith a cheery 'Wake up, Joe, I dreamed ths answer to that boy's case.' He was as happy and joyous as if he had got from under a great personal sorrow...
...Wisconsin and the country needs a man of his type, one capable of fitting the law to the new conditions...
...President, had his salary raised from f12,000 to $25,000...
...Lis success will place upon the court a man abreast of the times, a student versed not only in the law but abreast of the great economic and social movement which is asserting itself throughout the world...
...The farm was sacrificed to care for the family...
...Is Wisconsin again to blaze the way...
...Here is the simple story told by Mr...
...Superior loves Crownhart...
...Employer and laborer now unite in commending his work...
...NO MATTER in what poverty their origin may lie, many men elevated to high station, clothed with responsibility by touching elbows with the rich and powerful loose all practical sympathetic interest in the problems of the poor...
...In fact, within a short time employer and employed were cooperating for a common purpose...
...In that work he came into intimate touch with the employers, the working-men, the welfare organizations, the societies of all kinds that aim to better conditions and the state hastened to know Crownhart...
...Beck's story needs no elaboration...
...Crownhart was firm, and no matter how willing the injured man might be to forego full payment for a little ready money, no compromises were approved and payments in full were enforced...
...There were sign boards pointing the way...
...All classes recognized him as a broad gauged, disinterested public servant...
...He saw the way out...
...In the future the courts like the purely administrative departments of government must be concerned with the human side of law enforcement...
...Beck...
...The thoroughness with which he did this work won the state an enviable reputation throughout the country...
...In this way more amicable relations were established, factory conditions improved without friction or strife...
...Humanizing of Court Decisions Former Industrial Head Overturns Precedents and Technicalities To Get To Merits of Cases Arising OUT of a myriad of incidents connected with the development of the Wisconsin Compensation law, Joseph D. Beck, former chairman of the Industrial Commission tells one which not only is filled with human interest but has a deep significance which should at this time burn itself into the minds and conscience of the people of Wisconsin...
...The story is illustrative of a type of mind all too rarely found in judicial positions...
...was appointed Normal School Regent in 1905, reappointed in 1911 but resigned in 1912...
...He grew with that great community...
...The people of Wisconsin have an opportunity to do for this state, what President Wilson did when he put Louis D. Brandeis on the United States Supreme Court...
...That opinion withstood the acid test in the Supreme Court...
...Just before retiring Mr...
...Under his administration the Compensation Act has proven to be the most successful of Wisconsin's ventures in the field of applied democracy...
...He drafted an opinion awarding compensation to the boy...
...A boy employed in a factory through a prank was caught in a machine and lost his arm...
...Charles H. Crownhart is an outstanding exception to this rule...
...That is the usual way the Hog Island patriot for perquisites has of show...
...He did not attempt to play class against class for his own advantage...
...He was active to bring employer and employed together and aided and encouraged them to work out their problems together in a spirit of fairness and tolerance which resulted in a better understanding of the divergent views of these classes...
...Debt Due to Workmen...
...Next morning Mr...
...He will not be snared by technicalities or circumscribed by precedent...
...Shortly after his birth, his father, Napoleon Crownhart, heeding the call of country, enlisted and served three years...
...It was no child's play...
...A claim was made for compensation...
...Is Wisconsin again to blaze the way...
...It required vision and great courage to brush aside the errors of all preceding years and against the most powerful interests in this time bulwarked custom, fortified by court rulings compel industry in this state to carry the burden of the injured workman...
...He brought home to all that in the administration of the new law Wisconsin had but one object and that was to do justice and to serve its citizens...
...Students of the liberal movement in all sections of the country are watching this judicial contest...
...There is no place where a man is so well known as among his home folks...
...Such in outline is the history of this great man...
...In Superior he was closely identified wit\ every movement for the betterment of the citj and especially of the conditions of the laboring men...
...Yet, after weeks of study of the facts and consideration of the law the commission could see no way to justify a finding that the boy's injury was received 'in the course of his employment.' "Several weeks^ after the investigation of this case Charles Crownhart, then Chairman of the Commission and I one night occupied the samo room at a Milwaukee hotel...
...When he had accumulated sufficient to pay his way he attended the University Law School and graduated in 1889...
...He was President of the Douglas County Bar Association one term and of the Normal School Regents one term...
...Crownhart was named as the head of the commission created to administer the law...
...He desired to find a way to bring the case under the provisions of the law, with such reasoning as would compel the attention of the court...
...It springs from the service he has rendered to that city, its immediate vicinity and to the whole state...
...From this state started the great movement for democratization of our governments, of cities, state and nation...
...Deep Lesson for State...
...Its affection is deep-rooted...
...Crownhart spoke of the case of this boy...
...HE MADE the employers accept the principle that the Compensation Act created a debt, due to the injured workman...
...This incident is a vivid picture of the Crownhart method of grappling with a great problem...
...Under the decision in that case not only did that boy receive compensation, but a precedent was established invaluable to the child workers of this state and country...
...His uesire was to do justice to them...
...His impartiality and his ability early won support of the law...
...Ho attended the common schools and for a tims tho River Falls Normal School...
...The Insurance Companies would not accept this theory of the law...
...He stood for justice to labor and justice to employer...
...These Insurance companies were powerful enough to defeat his reappointment...
...Hog Island Patriot Speaking on the floor of the senate of the United States March 12, Senator Vardaman made the following observation: "One of the Hog Island men, Mr...
...He changed the old order, he brought about the new order in industry without a serious rupture...
...From this state started the great movement for democratization of our governments, cities state and nation...
...During all the years he worked upon the farm he acquired in the hard school of experience, wide knowledge and keen appreciation of the outlook upon life of the man who labors...
...He was deeply concerned and expressed his opinion that the law was intended to cover the case but he feared the courts would upset the action of the Commission...
...Under the old dispensation emphasis was placed upon property and its rights, now the demand is that human rights be paramount...
...ing his consuming love of country...
...It demonstrates that there was at tho head of the Industrial Commission at that time, no narrow lawyer viewing the great industrial problems of the State through the smoked glasses of century old precedent...
...Crownhart consented to be a candidate...
...This debt must be paid in full...
...After practicing his profession a short time at Ellsworth, he removed to Superior and practiced there until 1911...
...Familiar with the humanizing influence Crownhart has exerted directly in Wisconsin and indirectly in other states thorough acceptance of the precedents which he established here...
...It will elect a Supreme Court Justice April 2nd...
...New ideas had to be taught, new methods had to be applied to business...
...He wa3 District Attorney of Douglas County 1901 to 1905...
...He did not look for the primrose path,—the easier way...
...It requires no great imagination to project a mental picture of this man in high position, head of a great commission, sought after by the manufacturers, the great employers of labor, who with a multitude of duties demanding time and attention and who, for weeks waking or sleeping could carry with him the woe of that poor friendless and unfortunate factory victim...
...It is the type demanded by the new order...
...He knew the intent of the law was to do justice to man...
...IN 1911 when Wisconsin, following in the main his advice and because of the work which he did with the legislature enacted the Compensation law, Mr...
...BECK'S story carries with it a lesson of the deepest meaning which should be heeded by Wisconsin...
...His was the task of bringing the employers and the workmen of this state into a new relationship, the one with the other...
...Heads Industrial Board...
...These men knew and reposed confidence in him...
...For four years, day and night he applied himself to this great work...
...That history has an especial interest to Wisconsin at this time...
...Wisconsin elects its ju-iciary in non-partisan elections...
...It is a comparatively easy matter to frame a statute to upset an existing order, it is difficult to administer such a statute to the satisfaction of every interest affected...
...Charles H. Crown-heart, former head of the Wisconsin industrial commission, is being backed by all classes for the position...
...Familiar with the humanizing influence he is looked upon as one of the men who can aid in bringing the courts of this country into step with modern and social progress...
...to Pierce county in a "Prairie Schooner" the Crownhart family hewed a home out of its virgin forests...
...He was successful in bringing Wisconsin employers to a realization of the fact that what is good for the workmen is good for the employer...
...But Crownhart had the vision and the courage...
...There he grew to manhood...
...The old order was changing...
...He did the seemingly impossible and workmen, employers and courts, the whole community pays tribute to him as a man of great initiative, great vision and wonderful tact...
...lie had not abandoned hope but was clearly at a loss to justify legally an award to the boy...
...Crownheart's election as a supreme court justice will be accepted by students everywhere as the first real movement to bring the courts of this country into step with modern industrial and social progress...
...Later he taught school...
...Going STUDENTS of the liberal movement of all sections of the country are watching the Wisconsin judicial contest...
...He was no cold unfeeling judge...
...The precedents of a century old system obstructed the road...
Vol. 10 • March 1918 • No. 3
