Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/240

236 which the public is confessedly the final arbiter. Moreover, since judicial interpretation frequently either enlarges or contracts the meaning of statutes and constitutions, the courts can hardly hope to escape without criticism. And where the courts occasionally declare legislative acts unconstitutional, as they do in the United States, popular criticism is almost inevitable. There is as little reason to expect the courts to escape unscathed by the sharp wing of criticism as to expect the soldier on the firing line in time of battle to escape the risks to which he is unavoidably exposed. It is useless to try to taboo the tendency of the popular mind to criticize the judiciary. The only recourse for either party to the controversy is to assume that the other is possessed of a rational nature and to try to contradict error with truth. In the oft-quoted words of Ex-President Taft:

These observations are especially true in a country where the springs of authority are supposed to reside in and to issue from the people. In a country where the divine right of kings is in vogue, there is a certain consistency in placing popular criticism of the courts under the ban, but such action is incongruous in a country committed to the idea of popular rule. The courts are ordained and established by man to promote the ends of justice, and since the creature can not be greater than its creator it is within the realm of the possible for the people to abridge the power of the courts and to reconstitute them on a different basis. The constitution leaves the establishment of courts inferior to the Supreme Court to the discretion of Congress. The original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is specifically limited to cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and cases in which a state is a party, and its appellate jurisdiction is subject to such exceptions and such regulations as Congress shall make. In providing for its own amendment, moreover, the constitution makes no exception of the judicial system for which it provided, but frankly admits that in this as well as in other respects it may become outgrown and require modification. Certain current writers appear to think that the framers of the constitution uttered the last word of wisdom upon the judiciary. The framers themselves did not entertain this delusion. The last Republican platform recognizes that all is not well with the courts, and accordingly favors legislation to the end of preventing "long delays and