500
The Green Bag
committee was divided on the question of whether judges ought to be elected
by the people for a single term of twenty-one years, or appointed to office as a means of removing the bench from political influence. The committee was asked to reconsider the question and this year by a vote of 4 to 3 agreed that
instead of being elected all the judges ought to be appointed. As to how this should be done the committee disagreed. Former Governor Andrew J. Monta gue of Virginia made the annual address, in which he advocated “A More Effec tive Cabinet" for the President of the
United States. He thought it would be advantageous for members of the cabi net to have the right to appear upon the floor of Congress, answer interrogatories and speak in defense of the policies of their several departments, although they might not have the right to vote. The Cabinet as at present consti tuted, the speaker said, was at best an extra-constitutional body, “but the Con
stitution at least permits and encourages
Minister.
The conclusion seems inevi
table from a proper construction of this Constitutional clause, together with the
manifest necessities of government that the performance of such delegated func tions by a Cabinet Minister is not only not a violation of the mandatory pro~ vision, but a plain consummation of the provision." Mr. Montague contended that the plan would cause the Cabinet to become not only an educational factor of tran scendant influence, but a great power for discovering, unifying and express ing the popular will, and besides tend to greatly elevate the character, ability and dignity of the membership of the
Cabinet. It would make of Cabinet members originators, formulators and expounders of policies.
Judge Ralston offered a paper on “The Delay in the Execution of Murderers."
From a summary of statistics he had gathered, he concluded that the delay was not in the trial nor in the action of
a Cabinet as such, and necessity has
the Supreme Court on the appeal, but
evolved and usage has confirmed it, and
while it may differ from similar agencies
arose, in Philadelphia county, largely in the disposal of motions for new trials.
in other legislative governments, never
The principal delay, however, was be
theless, its adaptability to submit in the
tween sentence and execution, due to the intervention of the Board of Par dons in wrongly seeking to pass upon the question of actual guilt. The paper of John Marshall Gest, Judge of the Orphans’ Court, on "The
person of its members on the floor of the House of Congress bills and measures of the President, accompanied with ap propriate explanation, and to respond
to inquiries and interpellations respect ing their
several departments under
Congressional indubitable.
regulation
now seems
“Indeed, of what purpose is the Con
stitutional duty of the President to recommend measures unless they be accompanied or followed by appropriate exposition. Custom the world over for bids such exposition by the executive in person, but custom the world over Sanctions such exposition by a Cabinet
Law and Lawyers of Honoré de Balzac," was an admirable summary of the liter ary qualities of the great novelist, lumi
nously expressed with that charm and originality of style for which Mr. Gest is well known, and also described a large
number of the legal plots and legal characters in the “Comédie Humaine." Mr. Gest said that Balzac's works were
crammed full of knowledge of the law, and that it would be impossible to treat
