Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/224

 was about the most ill-prepared man for such a job in the town. Naturally I had turned to Tom Johnson, who had a tremendous reputation as an executive; even his worst enemy, as the saying is, would not deny his wonderful executive ability. I went to him in a sort of despair, and he laughed and leaned over and whispered

But perhaps after all I should not tell. It was spoken in confidence. And it is ungenerous and unkind to destroy the cherished illusions of the world, almost as unkind, I was about to say, as it is difficult, since there is nothing the world so cherishes and hugs to its sad old withered bosom as it does its illusions. It may be that they are entirely necessary to it, it may be that it could not get along without them. What would this nation have done, after all, if it had not been for executive ability and the judicial temperament? The judicial temperament consists, of course, in nothing more than the calm assurance which enables one to put off till to-morrow problems that should be decided to-day, for if allowed to go long enough problems will solve themselves, just as letters unanswered long enough despatch their own replies.

I had deduced that generalization for myself long ago, while waiting for judges to hand down opinions, and then in decisions reading the well-known formula: "The court does not find it necessary to pass on this particular point at this time." Why, I applied one time to the Supreme Court, on a Wednesday morning, for a stay of execution on behalf of a man who was to be burned alive in our