tion upon, this intricate
subject I have reached the conviction that, though Mr. Roosevelt may
have erred in the remedy which he has suggested, he is right in the
principle which he has advanced, and in my next chapter I propose to
give the evidence and explain the reasons which constrain me to believe
that American society must continue to degenerate until confusion
supervenes, if our courts shall remain semi-political chambers.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Charles River Bridge _v_. Warren Bridge, II Peters, 608, 609.

[2] Fitchburg R.R. _v_. Gage, 12 Gray 393, and innumerable cases
following it.

[3] See the decisions of the Commerce Court on the Long and Short-Haul
Clause. Atchison, T.&S.F. By. _v_. United States, 191 Federal Rep. 856.

[4] Darcy _v_. Allein, 11 Rep. 84.

[5] 68 Pa. 173.

CHAPTER II

THE LIMITATIONS OF THE JUDICIAL FUNCTION

Taking the human race collectively, its ideal of a court of justice has
been the omniscient and inexorable judgment seat of God. Individually,
on the contrary, they have dearly loved favor. Hence the doctrine of the
Intercession of the Saints, which many devout persons have sincerely
believed could be bought by them for money. The whole development of
civilization may be followed in the oscillation of any given society
between these two extremes, the many always striving to so restrain the
judiciary that it shall be unable to work the will of the favored few.
On the whole, success in attaining to ideal justice has not been quite
commensurate with the time and effort devoted to solving the problem,
but, until our constitutional experiment was tried in America, I think
it had been pretty generally admitted that the first prerequisite to
success was that judges should be removed from political influences.
For the main difficulty has been that every dominant class, as it has
arisen, has done its best to use the machinery of justice for its own
benefit.

No argument ever has convinced like a parable, and a very famous story
in the Bible will illustrate the great truth, which is the first lesson
that a primitive people learns, that unless the judge can be separated
from the sovereign, and be strictly limited in the performance of his
functions by a recognized code of procedure, the public, as against the
dominant class, has, in substance, no civil rights. The kings of Israel
were judges of last resort. Solomon earned his reputation for wisdom in
the cause in which two mother