LES DISAGREEABLES
Paine, Robert F.
Les Disagreeables - - By Robert F. Paine THE MAJORITY of American editors is of opinion that the resignation of Federal Judge English, six days before date of his trial in the Senate, is "a...
...Let us drop, cover, up the disagreeable details when they concern a party in position to outrage the Constitution from preamble to Nineteenth amendment...
...I don't get the difference between this English case and a suppositious instance wherein John Doe, indicted by the grand jury for, say, bootlegging, delivers to the prosecuting attorney a letter stating that he has destroyed all of his bottles, and retired from the bootlegging business...
...One can hardly help visioning an almighty increase of bootleggers under such a precedent...
...What is the usefulness of a federal judge...
...But, it is easy to agree that it is a "disagreeable affair," and of "national importance...
...The writer is obsolete enough, as an editor, to believe that, for the good of the country and of all those to whom the fundamental rights of popular government are still precious, English should not be permitted to resign and that the details of his "disagreeable affair," as developed by trial before the Senate, should get their "spread" before public...
...Les Disagreeables - - - By Robert F. Paine THE MAJORITY of American editors is of opinion that the resignation of Federal Judge English, six days before date of his trial in the Senate, is "a good ending of a disagreeable affair which had assumed national importance," or words to similar effect...
...and is permitted to go unpunished...
...Judge English gives as his reason for resigning that, while he is innocent, his "usefulness as a judge has been seriously impaired by his impeachment...
...When a fundamental right is to be supressed, there is always the usefulness of a federal court...
...the primate of hungary has forbidden the formation of girls' guides among his flock on the grounds that such organizations pursue masculine aims and "are opposed to the very soul of the girl...
...No question about a Congressional vote of 302 to 62 impairing the usefulness of a federal judge...
...Probably stupid, as both editor and 100 per cent...
...An old fashioned idea, very likely...
...We have some shrieking exhibits of it, in people in jail for exercising the right of free speech, editors imprisoned and fined for contempt without trial by jury, a free newspaper under cow, here and there, and jail doors standing wide open for free American workmen who Would persuade their fellows to act against inhuman working conditions and inadequate wages...
...Yours truly has been waiting to discover what the consensus of editorial opinion was in this matter of national importance and is distressed to once again find himself most decidedly in the minority...
...In April, after a long hearing, the House impeached (indicted) Judge English, by a vote of 302 to 62...
...This, if it would not require so much of the space to be devoted to Aimee, Hall-Mills etc., as to impair the effects of the latter...
...He resigns, the disagreeable matter is dropped and there is "a good ending...
...The adulterous details of a Drussey Lane affair may be much more agreeable than details which would punish a party wrongfully using the great, unlimited, not to say unconstitutionally un rped, powers of a federal judge...
...But, the question in the ordinary brain, such as the writer's, is as to whether there shall be adequate punishment for a federal judge, a bootlegger, a bandit, or any other charged with "high misdemeanors," even if the accused does lay down his tools—resign "for the good of the service," as you might put it...
...Let us have all the disagreeable details when Smith is caught out in the dark with Jones' wife...
...American citizen, the writer does not grasp the good in such ending...
Vol. 18 • December 1926 • No. 12
