Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/121

On Power to Increase Supreme Court 115 inhabitants of Oregon shall exceed 100,000, and provided fur- ther that the number of judges shall never exceed seven/' The proceedings as reported do not indicate any further discussion of article VII., creating the judicial department. It must be borne in mind that the debates in the convention were somewhat influenced by the bitterness of partisan controversy. Logan and Dryer, of Multnomah, were the leaders of that minority representing the Whig influence, while Williams, Kelly, Smith, Grover, Deady and Boise were the leaders of the Democratic party. Mr. Dryer was the editor of the Weekly Oregonian, then and now a great newspaper, and at that time published and owned by Thos. J. Dryer, Henry L. Pittock, and E. Treat Gunn. In the issue of the Weekly Ore- gonian of October 10, 1857, Dryer editorially says : "The swaggering, self-conceited, consequential manner in which Lane, Williams, Kelly, Smith, Grover, Lovejoy, Deady, and their pliant followers, assume the adoption of the constitu- tion as a fixed fact is enough, without reference to their past history, to satisfy any mind of their confidence in being able to gull the people with any measure they please. The people, by the adoption of this constitution, would completely tie up their own hands and shackle their right of self-government. They cannot change, amend or alter the constitution for years. The future legislatures are completely stultified and powerless by the provisions of this constitution. Some counties have been crucified, and others rewarded in consequence of their party complexion. * * * The judiciary system is a com- plete monarchy, a one-man power, dangerous to the rights and liberties of the people." It may be suggested that in the light of more than fifty years' experience under this constitution the objections urged by Mr. Dryer seem to have been inspired by the times in which he wrote. I have cited these quotations from the report of the proceedings of the constitutional convention, as accurately reported by Mr. Malone for the Oregonian, and from the jour- nal of the constitutional convention as published by authority