TRIAL BY JURY DENIED TO THE FILIPINOS.
Article VI. of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States provides that “in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” etc. The people of this republic are very tenacious about this constitutional right, so much so that, traditionally, at least, it has come to be deemed, not only inalienable, but virtually inherent. So the decision of the Federal Supreme Court that the right of jury trial does not apply to people living in the Philippine Islands strikes many people living in this country as somewhat unrepublican. Doubt as to the wisdom and justice of the decision is largely increased by the fact that four of the nine judges of the court strongly dissent from the opinion, which only holds by a majority of one. In delivering the opinion of the majority, Justice Day said that the government of the Philippines had been expressly left by the treaty of Paris in the hands of Congress, and Congress, because of the incapacity of the people of the islands, had purposely withheld the right of trial by jury. It is further claimed that there is guaranteed to the Filipinos the right of the accused to be heard by himself and counsel; to have a speedy and public trial; to meet his witnesses face to face; and that no person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense without due process of law, or shall be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense. From this statement of fact the opinion of the majority of the court says, “It can not be successfully maintained that this system does not give an adequate and efficient method to preserve the rights of the accused.” Such an argument might just as reasonably apply to the home land as to distant possessions. If the omission of the right to a jury trial can give a system adequate to preserve the rights of an accused person in such a country as the Philippines, why not in the confessedly more enlightened home land? But our forefathers, with past experience before their eyes, did not see it in that light; and the people in this country would be loath to accept the proposition for themselves. It would be, admittedly, a going back on recognized fundamental principles. This departure from constitutional provision, if it be necessary in our republican province, has been made necessary by the popular ambition for territorial expansion, and national aggrandizement, even at the expense of other nations. It was popular clamor that brought on war with Spain, which in turn caused the conquest of the Philippines as a vicissitude of war, and their permanent holding as an imaginary consequent necessity. So, if this precedent should lead to further assumptions that the people’s rights can be adequately preserved by setting aside constitutional guarantees, and that the Supreme Court is the proper authority for eliminating9such guarantees, the people will only have themselves to blame. We may not know specifically how further abridgements of constitutional rights may be deemed expedient, and be secured in like manner even in the home land, but we know from experience that the prevailing military spirit is cultivating that imperial tendency that must inevitably result in further encroachment on republican principles. Therefore it is certain that pretexts will arise calling for further digression from the principles upon which this government was founded, and upon which it attained its subsequent power, and that the present decision of the Supreme Court will be hailed as a convenient precedent. And it will be made to appear that the situation demands such measures, but the situation itself will be the result of previous departures from fundamental principles. This conclusion is clear in the light of the history of the past; in the light of our own national tendency during the past two decades; and especially in the light of prophecy, which shows that this republic will set up, or become, an image of the Roman church-and-state system. The justices of the court who dissented from the opinion of the majority were Fuller (chief justice), Harlan, Peckham, and Brewer. As showing that the innovation is not a mere party measure, we note the fact that both the Republican and Democratic parties are represented in both the majority and minority opinions. Justice Harlan presented a most vigorous opposition to the opinion of the majority, saying that “the conclusion reached by the court is so obviously forbidden by the Constitution that I can not regard the judgment of this court otherwise than as an amendment to the Constitution by judicial action, when another mode of amendment is expressly provided for in that instrument.” As specimen press criticisms of the decision, we present two, one favorable and one adverse:— The Boston Transcript says: “The establishment of the system of jury trials before the mass of the Philippine people have as much as heard of it, might be productive of anything but justice. Several of the tribes that make up the Filipino people are in a condition to-day not very different from that of our ancestors in the pre-jury days, not because they are all more or less savages, but because they have been accustomed to other methods where they have advanced far enough to leave to courts the settlement of differences. . . . The Filipinos, being a people of marked natural intelligence, with the progress of American ideas, they may before very long be capable of understanding the jury system, its ends and purposes. At present, and for some time to come, the Philippine Government must feel the influence of war, and we must maintain the status of a garrison which defers the application of the laws and customs of the home country until such time as they can be introduced with the least friction, and the clearest apprehension of their meaning. If we try to Americanize everything, we shall Americanize very little.” On the other hand, the Pittsburg Post says: “This decision is one which may well cause the people of the United States most serious cogitation. It certainly must open their eyes to the fact that we are ruling our island possessions with a most imperial sway, and that not their native inhabitants, but our own American-born citizens, temporarily resident in them, are equally its victims. If there is one thing above another that we have been proud of, it has been the trial by jury, and yet here we have the highest court of the nation denying it to men who are as much citizens of this country as are any of those who have resided in the United States proper continuously since their birth.”