EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT ing that this disposition is growing. I firmly believe in its wisdom, and should not regret even constitutional amendments forbidding any such transfer." "The second is the permanence of judicial life." "There are some who consider this long tenure of judicial office as a sort of anachro nism in republican institutions; but the surest guaranty of the permanence of republican in stitutions is the stability of judicial office. "Coming closer to the specific question, it is urged that corporations by their wealth and power are potent in conventions and with executives, and thus have large, if not controlling, influence in the nomination or ap pointment of judges; that naturally they will seek to put in judicial position those friendly, and that thus gradually they will secure a dominance over judicial decisions, making them in harmony with their interests. It is well to look a matter like this squarely in the face and consider both the possibilities and dangers. It will be perceived that the question does not imply the gross form of pecuniary corruption, but only the insidious influence of accumulated wealth and power. It is useless to try to laugh the suggestion down as though it were outside the range of possibilities. But is there good foundation for the suspicion? "The considerations already noticed are against it. They tend to place judges be yond the range of outside influence. Let me also notice other matters which may relieve the fears of many. Corporations generally complain that the administration of the law in the courts is unfavorable to them. There is, in fact, whether well or ill founded, a pop ular prejudice against corporations, and that prejudice finds expression in the verdicts of juries, which, in doubtful matters, usually favor the individual and punish the corpora tion. But so far as the individual and the corporation have conflicting interests, the ad ministration of the law cannot favor each. If one is favored, the other is injured. When each complains, may it not well be because there is in fact no favoritism?" The restraint of public sentiment and the publicity of the press are helpful. Managers of corporations, moreover, are not consciously public enemies. All their interests are in the
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wellbeing of the republic. The great bulk of litigation is not between corporation and in dividuals, but between different corporations, and their safety lies in the integrity of judges. "But, after all, the surest guaranty is the growing earnestness of the demand for higher integrity in all official life. No one can com pare generation with generation without being conscious of a wonderful improvement. A few centuries ago a judicial decision meant favoritism. Still later it meant corruption, and the great Lord Bacon could only plead the custom of the times in extenuation of his misconduct. All that has passed away, and now judicial corruption is a thing almost un known. Nor is official integrity confined to judicial life. How very rare are the instances of failure! Think for one moment of the hun dreds of thousands in the employ of this gov ernment and only here and there does one prove false to his trust. We hear through the papers of every such instance and are sometimes alarmed thereby, but we seldom think of the hundreds of thousands of those who are true and of whom no mention is made. More and more is integrity in officia life the rule. And it is the rule because of the increasing integrity in personal life. Of ficials will never be better than the people for whom they act, and as personal integrity pre vails, so more and more will it become the characteristic of all official, and especially of all judicial, life." AN interesting discussion of "The Office of Expert Witness," by Professor M. J. Wade of the Iowa State University, appears in The Law Register of Nov. 23d and Nov. 3oth, (vol. 24, pp. 926 and 942), in which he deprecates the indiscriminating abuse of experts and urges an in telligent effort to correct acknowledged abuses. He lays a foundation for this reform by a plain statement of the importance of such wit nesses to a proper trial of difficult cases, and of the errors into which experts are prone to fall. In the first place their disagreements are no evidence of want of integrity. They are subject to the same limitations as lay wit nesses, "And after a man has sat for years in a court-room, and has heard in nearly every trial lay witnesses, whose integrity is unques tioned, directly contradict each other as to
