Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 18, 1912

To Control the Courts

IN the Appeal to Reason of May 20, 1911, we find the following most significant paragraph:—

The fight at the polls this fall will center around the adoption of the initiative and referendum and the recall amendments to the Constitution. Under the provisions of the recall amendment, the judges of the supreme court of California can be retired! These are the men who will decide the fate of the kidnapped iron-workers! Don’t you see what it means, comrades, to have in the hands of an intelligent, organized, militant working class the political power to recall the present capitalist judges, and put on the bench our own men? Was there ever such an opportunity for effective work?—No, not since socialism first raised its crimson banner on the shores of Morgan’s country! The election for governor and State officers of California does not occur until 1914. But with the recall at our command, we can and will put our own men in office, without waiting for a regular election!

Such an open and bold declaration by a class, of its intent to capture and control the judges of the courts, we do not remember ever to have seen in print before. Such a declaration as this makes it evident at once that what is desired is not a vindication of truth or a fair and impartial trial; but instead there is a set purpose to put upon the bench of California, and for that matter upon the bench of every State in the Union, men who will do the bidding of a class, and be under the thumb of that class, to render such decisions as it may demand. If the people of this country need an argument to prove that system’s unworthiness of public recognition, it is furnished by the above-quoted paragraph.