ing to the Commonwealth Pier contracts, and involving issues of fraud; but the court denied the request for a jury trial, and the case will be heard by one judge, or master in chancery. THERE SHOULD EXIST SUCH A RIGHT, and criticism of the long line of judges and their arguments against such a right, based upon the provisions of the state constitutions relating thereto, belong to the ancient. past. Sufficient it is to suggest that the state constitutions be amended so as to grant the right of trial by jury in ALL CAUSES AND CLASSES OF LITIGATION, to which obedience would be insured by the existence of the recall principle to be applied to the judiciary.*

*Const. of Mass., Part I, Sect. XV: Const. of Wash. Art. 1, Sect. 21.

So also, ought the right of trial by jury in DIVORCE actions to be secured and safeguarded by the fundamental law. When the judiciary When the judiciary think that it is more competent than a jury of the litigants' twelve fellow citizens to weigh the facts and circumstances of an equity or a divorce trial and render a verdict thereon, it is certainly necessary to criticize the judiciary and to regulate both its power and opinion, although its opinion may be buttressed by the statute law. Any other view means concentrated monarchy. I say this because the present judicial custom of conducting such trials without the right of jury trial rests upon precedents established by several generations of judges who were not amenable to the recall principle.

Morover, who can say that the promulgation in the year 1842 by the Massachusetts Supreme Court of that unjust "fellow-servant rule" of law to the effect that an employee cannot recover damages for injuries received while in the service of his employer, if the injury occurred through a fellow employee's negligence,-would not have been modified or annulled

These questions are very pertinent, for the average citizen has never been convinced of the justice of this rule. and it has always been abhorrent to him, because any industry, maintained by the labor of men, should provide money as re-imbursement for any injury received during the employment.

After seventy-five long years, this rule has been modified by the adoption of the Workmen's Insurance Act in both states, but it is now operative in cases not within the Insurance Act. And where are the thousands of men and their families whose injuries were not compensated for by the employer because of this rule of judge-made law?

If provisions for the recall or discharge of judges were now in operation in Massachusetts, would the Supreme Court on November 13, 1915, have dared to interpret a law of 1914 as it did in the case of Commonwealth vs Boston & Maine Railroad?

On November 13, 1915, in the case of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs the Boston & Maine Railroad, the Supreme Judicial Court decided that a 1914 statute providing that baggage-men, crossing-tenders and the like, shall not be employed for more than nine hours' work in ten hours' time, the additional hour to be allowed as a lay-off, in effect prohibits labor for more than nine hours in each day, and as such, is unconstitutional. The incident is a good illustration of the advantage of life tenure of office and the security of that judicial court from discharge or recall on account of altering the obvious significance of a legislative act.

Such facts and decisions as alluded to in this article cannot support an argument for an appointive judiciary for life, as is the situation in Massachusetts, or for recall laws which exempt the judiciary from their operation, as is the situation in Washington State.

Some see the necessity of watchfulness over the actions of the judiciary and of bringing recalcitrant judges upon the carpet by the method of impeachment, and claim such a procedure is adequate. But all impeachment trials are held by and controlled by a state or federal legislature, which patently are amenable to strong political influences. Usually, I would not expect, from observation, an average case of impeachment of a judge to be decided upon its merits, so strong is the political and personal factor involved. In flagrant cases of abuse of the judicial power by an unwarrantable decision against the meaning of a statute, which would amount to an insurmountable hindrance to the execution of the laws, it is believed a governor of a state may declare "martial law," as the executive entrusted with the execution of the laws, and under the military power conferred upon him order the court to take the statute law as it finds it and obey it under penalty of military imprisonment. But surer, fairer, and more effective than either impeachment or martial law is the power resting in the voters of a state to recall any judge who is not satisfactorily performing the duties of his office. Let the people decide these matters. They are less to be governed by the influence of the political boss than the legislature, and it would be a grand education, fitting them to be the interested managers of their own political affairs. And the mere possession of this power, even without its use, must necessarily exercise a wholesome effect upon the judiciary, just as an elected judiciary insures

the speedier adoption of broad legal principles and their application to the needs of modern life than under the appointive method. I say from experience, and the narrative of facts and decisions here made ought to be convincing, that even in Washington State, where its supreme court judges are elected for six-year terms by the people, there is a patent necessity for the existence of the power of recall with adequate means for the conveyance of information to the people.

The efficiency of the recall appeals to the citizen with more power when he has seen it in operation and registers in his own mind what it may accomplish.

Let us here glance at an example of the actual operation of the recall and its effect upon a civil officer, at mayor of a large city, which will be of service to illustrate its operation and probable effect upon a judicial officer, a justice of the Supreme Court in any State.

In Seattle, during the first administration of Mayor Gill in 1911 there existed open gambling houses and a "red-light" district which shocked public sentiment. Some of its citizens thought that the mayor's chief of police, Wappenstein, was becoming enriched rapidly out of graft squeezed from the law breakers, although the custom had probably been in vogue for a quarter of a century. The public demanded of the mayor the retirement of the chief of police. The mayor refused the demand after a full consideration. Then the citizens appointed a committee which took charge of the circulation of a recall petition against the mayor. More than ten per cent. of the citizens' signatures were obtained which secured a special election to determine the will of the people. The mayor's name and the name of a new candidate were placed upon the ballot with explanatory head lines. At the election, Mayor Gill was discharged from office

and the new man elected in his place. Wappenstein later was indicted and convicted of "extortion" and sent to the penitentiary.

As to the result on civic affairs, it must be noted that the "red light" district was entirely abolished and erased from the map of the city, and open gambling was suppressed. A year later Ex-Mayor Gill presented himself for re-election and was defeated. In 1914 he again sought the office, saying that he wished to square himself because of his two boys and an excellent wife; and made his campaign upon a platform and promises of law and order and claiming that he knew nothing of Wappenstein's graft. This time he was elected and he appointed as his chief of police the most prominent-reform-member of the city council, Griffith, a worker and a lawyer, who "made good" and continued the work of civic reformation.

Three months prior to Mayor Gill recall, the women of the State were granted the right of suffrage. They held the balance of power and must largely be given the credit for the result of the recall election. So that the power of the recall is of little use unless there are enough good citizens to use it effectively.

It must be admitted that Mayor Gill exercised too much independence in office and made a mistake about his chief of police; and his independence which was hostile to the interests of the city which he served, would have continued with its hostile conditions to the end of his term or for more than a year of his two-year term, had not the voters of Seattle the right to discharge or recall him. Anyone with fair eyes may see that his recall was of distinct benefit to the city, and it sort of reformed Gill.

This is an illustration of the same sort of abuse of independence often exercised by the judiciary. The judge refuses to obey a statute or write a fair decision in which all the facts are stated and fails to do justice in other particulars. But without the power and exercise of the recall these conditions of independence will continue within the judiciary, the independence which Ex-President Taft admires and does not wish interfered with.

The Constitution and the Statutes, the jury, and the Judiciary are distinct means toward the important end of democratic government. The Judicitage of the people in any one of the ary must not usurp the precious heriother three. But this usurpation has been and is today alarmingly prevalent on the part of the Judiciary, and some lawyers are protesting almost in vain. The remedy rests with the PEOPLE BY THE RIGHT TO USE THE POWER OF RECALL. The power, in one aspect, is merely a judicial regulator to obtain more obedient, careful and progressive, judicial service for those persons who are unfortunate enough to be unable to settle their differences in business affairs out of court, and equally a means toward the same end for those who are accused of crimes and misdemeanors.

In another aspect, if these objects cannot be obtained in any particular instance, the power must be utilized to discharge the judicial incumbent and elect his successor, and so on "ad infinitum," to the end that this may be a government "of the people, for the people and by the people."