ate, now and again, the administration of the judicial functions of the court, and make of them a delusion and a snare.

All the more dangerous, this latter element are almost always in all other respects, a very amiable and respectable class of people out of court and away from the judge. They are respectable business men, often prominent in society, but remarkably prominent in politics of the time and place. They are the perfectly legitimate offspring of political partisanship, and very often partisan as between themselves, in a jealous rivalry among themselves. We don't pretend to say to what extent this situation obtains in West Virginia, nor where all it carries on, but it is nevertheless very certain that it is on the job.

But how can you blame them? The whole show starts every judicial campaign well knowing that its political machinery is a "Wheel in a wheel," having in view the election of a judge of a certain particular kind of politics. Very particular, indeed, is it on that point. It will overlook other defects, that, never. People so far seem to have liked that sort of thing, because that is the sort of thing they liked. And there has been something very attractive about it. It has been a partisan living, and a partisan, dying grace. "The Holy Rollers Church" with all its sanctification, can't touch it.

Political parties are inevitable, very essential. Many honest men engage in politics and run for political offices. Many of them are honest when they get in office, and serve the public faithfully to the best of their ability. That far we can safely go in making statements about politicians, and political organizations, and no farther, in the way of eulogy, except to say that some of them become useful and distinguished statesmen who have left behind them a record and memory of works that will follow them, on, and on, for ages yet to come so long as time shall last.

But there are other partisans and politicians that are not of that stripe; nor is he better or worse, depending or conditioned on the kind of office he seeks, let it be what it may. What a politician does when not in office, he will do in office. What a political partisan candidate for judge does out of office, he will carry to the office when he becomes a judge, at least in too many instances to be tolerable. History is said to be moral philosophy

teaching by the lives and actions of men as exemplors. If, for instance, history has preserved to us in the life of a citizen, politician and statesman, if you allow, a great example of integrity and ability for useful and unselfish statesmanship, such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Lincoln, Madison, Jefferson, the Adamses, Hoar, Blaine, Tillman, Washington, Andrew Jackson, Garfield, Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Grant, and many others none of whom ever stooped to thimble-rigging methods, their examples for good is beyond computation, and furnishes to the world the test for popular government in America and good examples of unselfish service.

Now there are some things which are done in practical politics which may be more or less harmful according to the innocent credulity of the victims, that we might classify generally under name of "bunk" or "bunco." Some times it comes in the shape of a "Gold brick" or "confidence game.

Again politicians do things that are so low down in the object sought, that no exact definition for the act can be found in the dictionary, so that when it is pulled off, they call it “politics,' just plain unadulterated "politics."

In 1800, honest John Jay, a Federalist, was Governor of the State of New York. In that year, Thomas Jefferson was a candidate for President. The Legislatures of the states chose the presidential electors at that time, and the Democrats had elected a majority of the members of the New York Legislature, in April, to take off June the first following. In other words the people of New York had said by their votes that the electors of the State of New York should vote for Thomas Jefferson for President.

It so happened that Alexander Hamilton did not love Jefferson as David and Jonathan loved each other, no, not by a jug full. The Federalists at that time had been rapidly losing ground, a last effort was to be made to renew their prestige. The Federalist Legislature, still in office was to go out June the first, 1800, and something must be done. So Hamilton wrote honest John Jay, Governor, a letter urgently importuning him to call the Federalist Legislature in extra session for the purpose of choosing Federalist presidential electors. That was just plain "politics.' Political usurpation. Hamilton had become a dangerous dema

gogue. If he had succeeded, the country would have been on the verge of civil war. But honest John Jay wrote on the back of Hamilton's letter: "Asking me to do for purely partisan and political purposes that which I do not think would be proper for me to do." without more, and sent it back to Hamilton. That was patriotism and statesmanship of a high order in its Sunday clothes. It was plain, simple honesty of high order that was bound to create a chastening influence upon any man so favored as to stand in the presence of Governor Jay.

At the beginning of the Mexican war, General Zachary Taylor was ordered to the Mexican border on the Rio Grande to protect the border. General Arista ordered him to be gone. With 2,000 men he defeated General Arista at Palo Alta with an army of 6,000, followed him to Resaca de la Palma, and again defeated him and drove him across the Rio Grande. With 5,000 men he engaged General Ampudia at Monterey with an army of 10,000 men where Ampudia surrendered with the honors of war. Then something else happened. It would not do to let General Taylor open and end the Mexican war before breakfast. General Winfield Scott was commander in chief. He was a Whig, as was General Taylor, and had his eye on the presidency. He was on his way down the Mississippi with an army bound for Vera Cruz, in pomp and circumstance. "Old Rough and Ready," was becoming a dangerous rival, not as a candidate, but in the public mind. The Democrats did not fear General Scott, but like him they were distressed at the success of General Taylor. So in collusion with General Scott, they took 2,000 of the best fighting soldiers from General Taylor and sent them to General Scott at Vera Cruz. General Scott would have resigned instantly if a left handed compliment like that had been handed him, but General Taylor kept on at his knitting, dumfounded as he was at such treatment. The Mexican army was then entrenched at Buena Vista with 21,000 men. General Taylor assaulted his position with an army of 5,000 mostly raw recruits, and came off with a victory not theretofore surpassed in American military annals.

The taking of 2,000 men of General Taylor's army and sending them to General Scott at Vera Cruz was not an exercise of either prudent or legitimate military authority. It was the mere

filching and kidnapping of a patriotic army, both dangerous and disgusting for its baseness, for purely partisan political ends. And so, the act not being otherwise defined in the dictionary, the odium of it, for lack of anything else so odious, is just labeled, "Politics." But, it may be asked, What has that sort of thing got to do with judgeships in a political partisan judiciary? Judges, it may be said, have nothing to do with military affairs. But, do not judges engage in politics? Did not a distinguished American judge openly anathamatize our acquisition and rule over the Philippine Islands, and declare that he would wash his hands of the whole business about the time it was in the act of being accomplished? And did he not later surrender all his scruples on that question, by the acceptance of the appointment of Governor General of the Philippine Islands? All roads lead to Rome: Things of hideous Mien, men first hate, then love, and then embrace.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SINS OF OMISSION, AND COMMISSION,
OF A

PARTISAN JUDICIARY IN PRACTICE

Thus far the effort has been to lay before the reader some of the characteristics of politics and partisanship; The low morale and ethics of political organizations; the selfishness and intrigue that banishes the better conceptions of human nature, for personal and political ends, offered for the purpose of an argument, in part, to show why the judiciary should be taken out of politics, because of the things which partisanship does in the making of a judge. To show that what is done in a green tree, will be done in a dry; to show that where a candidate takes to wife a woman out of Ashbod or Moab, he may not be able to speak in the native idium of a court of justice, when he comes to the bench.

In succeeding chapters an effort will be made to show that judges of our present partisan judiciary, while attempting to function as a court of justice, wears the harness, and are driven by whip and spur in the hands of their political masters, elder Statesmen, partisan members of the bar, sycophants and other hangers on who are members of his political household, and that neither political party is free from the contamination; that because of it our courts of justice are losing their prestige that obtained fifty years ago; that litigants do not have justice without sale, denial or delay, and that among other things the great divergence of legal opinion between judges of our circuit courts and out court of appeals, is due largely to partisan judiciary, albeit the court of appeals judges are nominated and elected in the same way. It too, should be taken out of politics.

How are we to know the extent to which a partisan judiciary throws out of gear the orderly processes of court procedure? At