Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/634

 THE JURISPRUDENCE OF LAWLESSNESS

595

doubt. Fortunately the accused is usually- man against the soulless corporation and caught in possession of the stolen animal, the unfed laborer against the overfed capi and then the burden of proof is properly talist. Of course this is all wrong, for all imposed upon him. Be this as it may, the parties should be equal before the law, and evil results arising from the enforcement the scales of justice should be poised by a of this LAW VIII are not of sufficient im goddess blinded both to favor and to fear portance to merit further discussion here. But we all know that they are not so held, This exhausts our discussion on the Un and that this chaste goddess obeys LAWS written Law in its criminal phases. It was IX and X of our decalogue just as implicitly said at the beginning of this paper that it as common mortal men do. This is a ter also had its civil features of no less impor ribly weak spot in our system of jurispru tance than its criminal features. We are dence, and, if not corrected, bids fair to un now come to the discussion of its doctrine dermine it utterly. of civil rights, which is, in great part, em The same sentiment that makes juries dis bodied in Laws IX and X of our decalogue. regard the law in such cases is at the root of These laws are quite uniformly enforced the widespread, restless discontent with by juries everywhere in the United States. social conditions that pervades the entire They always give the natural person the land to-day. The indiscriminate agitation advantage of the corporation, and the latter against so-called trusts, the hatred of men must make out the strongest possible case of wealth, the agitation for public owner to escape an adverse verdict. In the case ship of railroads and the like, all find their of a suit for personal injury by an employee first cause in the protest of the people against against an employer, there is almost no the establishment of plutocracy in this coun escape at all for the employer. I am told try. This species of bastard aristocracy is that when the jury retires in such a case the the worst form of caste known to men. Its first, and about the only question discussed ultimate evolution results in a few vulgar is the quantum of damages, or, as they ex masters and a horde of overworked and un press it, "How much shall we give the poor derfed slaves. Should we be astonished, devil?" The human heart is naturally then, that freeborn Americans protest against sympathetic, and it is easy to be generous the establishment of an oligarchy of wealth at the expense of another, especially if that upon this sacred soil of ours, won from the other be rich or reputed so. Right here we wilderness, the wild beasts, and the savage find the sanction for these laws that smack by our great and gallant forefathers and so strongly of socialism. It is, as it were, since consecrated by the precious blood of the blind protest of the people against the the best and bravest of men. The ills of a state, "where wealth accum unequal distribution of wealth, against the hopelessness of the struggle of labor against ulates and men decay," are not cured by capital in this republic. The man in need simples. The men of our country have not of daily bread sees vast useless fortunes in yet begun to decay, but the day is not far the hands of individuals, corporations, and distant when they will unless wealth soon syndicates ever growing greater, while his ceases to accumulate at its present alarming struggle for the necessaries of life constantly rate. I fear we must dig down deep and grows harder and more desperate. When look far and wide before we can find remedy, the average man is called to decide between or prophylactic, effective to arrest a morbific the two we need not be surprised that he economic force of such giant strength as undertakes to restore the economic equilib finds expression in the ills that now afflict rium, as it were, to the extent of his power, us and promise to afflict us more. Disre and favors the living, breathing, suffering gard of law by the courts, arbitrary inter