Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/246

242

Seventhly, the popular suspicion that judicial decisions unduly favor the interests of corporate wealth is apparently increasing. The reasons are not far to seek. The road to a judgeship often lies through an attorneyship for some great corporation, and an unconscious if not a conscious bias is believed to follow a man when he ascends the bench. Association with the comfortable and well-to-do is thought to exert a similar influence. The indiscretion of certain prominent jurists in accepting Pullman and other railway passes, and in going on junkets as the guests of railway attorneys whose clients either have or some day may have cases in court naturally arouses suspicion. Active participation in politics by members of the bench, nepotism in the appointment of railway receivers and the distribution of other choice plums, the auctioning off of judicial nominations to the highest bidder, promotions to judgeships as a reward for services rendered political machines closely allied with corporate interests,—these and other infractions of the law of fair play have lessened the prestige of the courts. Fortunately, however, instances of corruption on the bench are still believed to be the exception and not the rule.

In the eighth place, the most common criticism of the courts does not concern their integrity, but "the comparative inflexibility of the judicial mind, a certain blindness to the changing social and economic order, an exaggerated veneration for ancient principles of law, established under conditions which no longer apply." Tradition and precedent are all well enough as guides in a stationary environment, but they lose much of their utility amid shifting conditions. It is worthy of note that some of the courts are less frequently the target of adverse criticism than others, and the Supreme Court probably least of all. More or less florid rhetoric is occasionally employed in denouncing the decisions of that body, but I do not recall any decision within a lifetime against which the taint of dishonor has been brought by any one entitled to belief. Moreover, partly because long years of service on the bench make for a public rather than a private point of view, and partly because climatic, geographical and economic conditions in the United States are more diverse than in any one state, the decisions of the Supreme Court are relatively flexible.

The legal precedents which have arisen amid rural conditions may prove a misfit in a large city. The reasons are apparent. The rural mind inclines to a minimum of public control. It is jealous of authority. It emphasizes the rights of the individual rather than the social interest. It explains the presence of Bills of Eights in the