p. 10 | Courts a Disgrace

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 13, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 19.

Courts a Disgrace

SOMETIMES when a Socialist paper like “Appeal to Reason,” or some other of kindred sentiments, declares that there is corruption in the courts of the United States, it is taken with great allowance, and oftentimes utterly discountenanced; but when an ex-president, a lawyer, a judge of commanding influence, like William H. Taft, tells us this in an address to the Yale Law School students, it would seem as tho all ought to listen. And yet that is just what he does tell us. He said, April 10: “I have had the feeling that some day the Socialists might direct their attacks on the unequal and unjust administration of the law. The failure to administer criminal law with certainty, the failure to apply the law, aids those criminals who so often escape punishment for crimes for which they deserve imprisonment. The existing condition of things in this regard is a disgrace to the civilization of this country, and should be remedied.” Then he tells us that he thinks that the members of the bar can help these matters, and says: “In the civil courts there are many and frequent delays in the application of the law by which the wealthy litigants gain an advantage. This can not be said to be an equal administration of justice.” He also tells us that something should be done to reduce the cost of litigation, that the “court room is no place to gamble with the law.”

And this very condition of things is just what the prophecy has foretold us in the Word.