fusing to obey the mandates of corporations, returned to private life.

I shall show that many judges are obsessed with the notion that they are high priests of the temple and sincerely believe all criticism of courts unholy and heretical. I shall show that many of them are political henchmen with whom the matter of public morals has become a cynic jest; that many of them belive, with Mr. Baer, that the resources of the earth are the trusteeship of a favored few; and that they have pared and twisted the law for the protection of this class.

I shall show that the law, as at present administered, has outlived its usefulness; that because of its interminable delays and absurd technicalities the business man is discarding it in the settlement of disputes and setting up tribunals of his own.

I shall prove that it is becoming more and more difficult for the poor and uninfluential litigant, even if his claim be just, to get a decision against a large corporation.

I shall show that the day of the independent lawyer is past-that the influence of corporation lawyers over courts has demoralized the profession.

I shall show that every attempt to investigate the courts has been mysteriously hushed.

Fifty

And because this is true, I shall show how all these corrupt decisions, creeping gradually into the law, have become part and parcel of it; and in some communities, held up as the sole rule of conduct, have poisoned the entire judicial system. per cent., if not more, of our government by law to-day is government by judicial decision. Every judge of our higher courts who writes an opinion has that opinion printed at public expense, and lawyers are supposed to read, and laymen to follow, it. He lays down law that becomes a part of our very life.

I do not expect to have the commendation of the profession. Some are deaf to the voice of conscience, and some are fearful of the power of the courts.

They fulfil the words of Luke: "Woe unto you, lawyers, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered."

Let me illustrate the situation by a glance at certain cases in recent judicial history, choosing first that prosperous and well-taught commonwealth, the state of Washington. The Supreme Court reports of that state are widely and constantly used

in the citation of decisions in an immense body of litigation throughout the Northwest.

M. J. Gordon was the Chief Justice of the state of Washington. While on the bench Gordon wrote many opinions that grossly favored the railroads and other corporations. Lawyers elsewhere, who read these opinions as they were published in the Washington reports, were deceived into the belief that they were honest opinions with legal values behind them.

One of these decisions was this: A law passed by the legislature provided that when the death of a person was caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another, "his heirs or personal representative"-that is, the heirs or personal representative of the person so killed-might maintain an action for damages against the person causing the death. Now, the heirs of a person are those who by law inherit from the deceased. The personal representative is the executor or administrator, appointed by the will, as in the case of the executor, or appointed by the court, as in the case of the administrator. Lawyers and judges may differ as to who are heirs; it is impossible to differ honestly as to the meaning

in law of the words "personal representative," as they were intended in this law. The personal representative stands in the dead man's shoes.

Blacklist for Married Men.

In the face of this statute, Chief Justice Gordon decided that no one but the widow and children of a deceased person. could recover damages for his death. The dead man might have been the sole support of a widowed mother, or of an invalid sister, but such relatives were without redress. This decision gave immunity from damages for the death of a person, no matter how criminally responsible the employer or other person or corporation might be, provided the deceased had been a single man. To be a married man, under this decision, was to be blacklisted and refused employment by the railroads and industrial concerns. The decision blow at the home, the very foundation of all government.

was a

There was a man named W. A. Harris who had some household goods wrecked in transit on the Great Northern Railway between Somers, Montana, and Spokane, Washington. Harris sued the railroad company for eleven hundred dollars, the value of the goods. He recovered judgment in the lower court at Spokane. The case was appealed by the railroad company to the Supreme Court of the state, which, by a vote of four to three, sustained the judgment.

Most courts of last resort have a practice known as a motion for a rehearing. After a case has been decided by the higher courts, counsel may move to reopen it on the ground that the court committed an error of law or misapprehended some vital fact in the case. In this instance the Great Northern had paid Harris's judgment, and this fact, of itself, put the case practically out of jurisdiction of the court. Nevertheless, a rehearing was sought.

Neither Gordon, who was the attorney for the railroad, nor the railroad company,

cared for the eleven hundred dollars. But they did want the law as announced by the Supreme Court changed to favor the railroad in future cases, for the decisions of the Supreme Court are controlling on the trial courts. So Gordon spoke to Milo A. Root, one of the judges, and his close friend; and Root, who had written the opinion in the case, consented to change his vote and grant a rehearing. Root afterward said he did not know at this time that Harris's judgment had been paid. Gordon said he did.

Root sent a copy of the second opinion to Gordon before it was filed in court. Gordon, thinking the corrected opinion had been filed, was annoyed because it did not state the law as he wanted it, and he wrote Root to that effect. Root answered that the opinion had not yet been handed down, and urged Gordon to meet him in Seattle. At this conference, Root told Gordon to prepare the opinion himself.

Gordon prepared the opinion, and sent it by mail to W. R. Begg, chief counsel of the Great Northern at St. Paul, telling Begg he had prepared it himself, and asked Begg, if the opinion was satisfactory, to telegraph the single word "satisfactory." In his letter, Gordon told Begg that the opinion would be "of utmost value to us in future cases of like import," and that it "was especially important in a case of considerable magnitude which is set for trial on the 9th that we get the law on this question settled in advance." Begg telegraphed "Satisfactory."

The opinion was then sent by Gordon to Root, and, with the change of one immaterial word (the word "rate" was changed to "basis"), appears in the Supreme Court reports of the state of Washington, and may be found in volume 96 of the Pacific Reporter, at page 224, exactly as Gordon wrote it and as Begg vised it.

In the course of time, rumor said that Gordon was short in his attorneyship accounts some eighty thousand dollars and that he had been threatened by his employers with prosecution. He had gone off for rest and quiet, leaving in possession of his attorneys certain correspondence and documents which showed according to these rumors, that Gordon had carried on a systematic traffic in judicial decisions with judges of the highest courts. These rumors came simultaneously from different sources to the ears of two judges of the State Supreme Court. A demand was made on the

full court that a committee of the State Bar Association be appointed to investigate these charges. There are those lawyers in Washington who say that this was the now wellknown political ruse of putting a stop to ugly charges by having them whitewashed. If this was true, the scheme, instead of addling the egg, hatched a monster.

Root protested that this course in allowing Gordon to write the opinion was merely "an indiscretion of friendship."

Such documents as the investigating committee secured were reluctantly given up by Gordon's attorneys. When these lawyers were questioned concerning statements made by Gordon regarding certain large amounts of money said to have been paid by him for decisions rendered ($20,000 in a tax case and $18,000 in a railway company's case)-statements which had been made by one of the attorneys to other witnesses-they neither denied nor affirmed, claiming their professional privilege as attorneys for Gordon, and refusing to answer. One of Gordon's attorneys told a brother lawyer, who testified, that the Great Northern had supplied Gordon with large sums of money for judicial corruption, and could not prosecute Gordon without itself becoming involved.

A grand jury was convened in Spokane on March 18, 1909, and made its report the following October, bringing in eight indictments against Gordon. It reported that though Gordon had embezzled at least seventy thousand dollars from the company, and had in addition given worthless checks amounting to over fifty-eight thousand dollars in payment of claims owed by the railroad company, an arrangement had been entered into by the company whereby it was agreed that Gordon should not be prosecuted. This "arrangement" was clearly evident in the refusal to furnish evidence.

The grand jury endeavored to serve subpoenas on two railroad officials in Washington and on the former stenographer of Gordon, but failed because these witnesses left the state and thus evaded the

jurisdiction of the grand jury. In their report the grand jury declared that these individuals were kept beyond the border of the state through the influence of the Great Northern Railway Company. One of the two railroad officials, while the grand jury was in session, temporarily transacted the business of the road in British Columbia, and the other in Idaho.

On the night of June 3, 1909, a subpoena was served on James J. Hill, the real head of the Great Northern, as he was passing through Spokane on his way East. Mr. Hill's bust had been unveiled at the Seattle Exposition, and he had gone to Seattle to be present on the occasion. Mr. Hill appeared before the grand jury and stated that he had no personal knowledge on the subject of Gordon's alleged shortage or on the subject of Gordon's or the Company's alleged dealings with Judge Milo A. Root. He pledged his word under oath that he would arrange for a meeting of his board of directors immediately upon his arrival at St. Paul, and would personally urge them to grant the request of the grand jury for the desired documents. on Mr. Hill's arrival in St. Paul his directors refused to comply with the request.

Up

Gordon was acquitted under each of the eight indictments brought against him in Spokane-not acquitted after a trial, for because of the refusal of the Great Northern Railway Company to furnish evidence against him, the prosecuting attorney announced that he was unable to proceed. Evidently in order to give Gordon a clean bill of health, a jury was impaneled in each According to the minutes of the court, "the prosecuting attorney not introducing any evidence, the jury, upon the suggestion of the defendant, was instructed to return a verdict of not guilty, and a verdict of not guilty was thereupon rendered by the jury."

case.

The court in its judgment also decreed "that the said defendant, M. J. Gordon, is not guilty of the crime charged in the indictment." Gordon was thus doubly shrived, and resumed the practise of his

profession at Tacoma. Root is still practising law at Seattle.

To make a case showing that it behooves us to begin a judicial housecleaning, it is not necessary to prove that Gordon paid money to a judge or to judges of the Supreme Court of the state of Washington for their decisions. These articles will show some astounding cases of the deflection of justice where, I believe, nothing more than political or social influence has controlled-the most dangerous because the most insidious form of bribery. "Why should a saddle of mutton blind you, or a

turbot and lobster sauce shut your mouth forever?" wrote Thackeray. But we know by sad experience that these are often the only instruments of corporation bribery in the case of judges,

So much for the state of Washington, and its courts, which I shall show to be typical rather than individual, in the instances they furnish of malpractice and corruption. I shall prove, by the selection of states here and there throughout the Union, that it is a national housecleaning of the judiciary we need-and that we need it now.

HE sor of the house lay at the call of death.

It was the evening of the fourth day of the sickness, the room was hot, and the watchers were weary.

The boy turned his head from side to side and moaned; he had moaned, but had not spoken, for three days.

At last the father could bear the pain of this sight no longer, so he went out into the garden to breathe in the fresh air.

And Death, who was waiting in the garden, came to meet him.

"Who are you?" asked the father, knowing well to whom he was speaking.

"Thou knowest," Death replied. "Art thou ready?"

"Ready?" the father asked, the sweat breaking out on his forehead.

"I must take a life from this house," said Death,

"Then take me," the father replied, "and leave my son, for I have watched him grow up straight as an arrow and as true. I have guarded him as the apple of my eye; he is my only son. I have set his face in the right way, and he shall walk cleanly. Take me, Death!"

Death stretched out his hand and said, "Come!"

Then the father felt the surge of lifeblood in his veins, and suddenly was conscious of his great strength and his firmness, for he was still a man in the prime of life.

He looked about him and saw the loved sights of his native place, the trees by the church, now wrapped in the mystery of twi

light; the square tower of the church cutting cleanly against the sky. Below him the river rolled, lapping the banks softly, all gray in the half-light, and by the river a fold of sheep.

All these things stirred his heart; until now he had not realized so much that he was alive as that he was living.

Still Death held out his hand.

The father struggled with his thoughts, but, as he hesitated, he grew weaker and the desire for life grew more strong.

Here, at his feet, was the garder he had planted; near by, the fields in which he had toiled. The flowers were folding themselves to sleep; it was very still, so still that every living sound came the more clearly to him. A long way off the shriek of an engine-whistle sounded; he knew the train it betokened, the town to which it went-was he never to go there again?

What was he to do? There was no answer to his inward prayer in all nature.

Birds shifted in the trees and rustled the leaves into life-everything breathed the magic of life to him, the life he was called upon to give up.

One of his horses kicked in the stable, and he made an involuntary movement in that direction-there was so much to do. Then his dog barked, and the sound cut him like a knife.

"Art thou ready?" said Death. "No, no, I cannot come!" the father said, in a broken voice.

Then he turned and went back into the house with a bowed head.