Trial By Jury

Edmund Burke once said that the highest function oí' governaient is the í election oí' tvvclve good men for every jury, and all dowií through the successive progession of Anglo Saxon liberties the principie of trial by jury has been pri.ed as the mosi sacred bulwark oL popular rights. Our forefathers recognized this when they provided in the constitution that no man shall be deprived oï life. liberty or property without due process of law Büt there has grown, up of late years, a practice by the federal courts that is not contemplated by the constitution - a practice that not only usurps the rightful functions of the legislative braach of government, but arbitrarily dispenses with the right to trial by jury, and this is called government by injunction. Under this practice the courts have exercised not only their proper functions of passing upon the rights of litigants before the law, but have from time to time made law meet the exïgeneies of some particular case, and this became at once a legislation executive, judge and jury, responsiblé only to tlie caprice of the court itself. The machinery of government has been invoked for the conduct of private business. The great corporation that flna3 it difficult to manage its affairs applies to the court for a [receiver. The receiver thus appointed is an executive officer of the court and through this officer the court at once assumes the responsibility of managing large business interests, running railroads and operating faetones. Did the framers of the constitution intend that federal courts should become commercial agents ? The receiver, through the authority of the court to punish for contempt, is clotted with an arbitrary authority over the employees of the business under his control from which there is no appeal but to the mercy of the court. Disobedienee to the most trivial decree of this autocrat, ofïenses for which no justice of the peace would issue a warrant and no pólice officer would take cognizance, render the offender liable to be seized, taken before the court whose dignity he is presumed to have offended, and summarily punish ed at the sole discretion of the judge. So far has this perversión of regularly constituted authority been carried that not long since a western railroad company sought to restrain its employees from leaving its service by a peremptory order from a federal court. The English people have,ífught civil wars over usurpations of póViular rights less significant and far-reachingthan these. If we are to hand down the blessings of civil liberty to our posterity we must guard well the great principies upon which those liberties are founded and by which they are secured, and each encroachment upon them must be vigorously contested. The Chicago platform calis attention to these evils and promises by pure constitutional methodsto give redress. For this it is denounced by those coiporalions who profit by this abuse of authority, as opposed to law and order. But this is not true. The Chicago platform stands for the bighest ideal of law and order. It stands for law that protects all alike, the humblest citizen and the powerful magnate. It places the civil liberty of the people above all other considerations. It is in defense of those liberties that it proposes to extend to every citizen bis constitutional right to a trial by a jury of his peers. It regards the rigbts of a private citizen as of equal importance to a just government. It regards the infringement of the liberties of tbe humblest one among us a greater blow to the prosperity of our institutions than the greatest injustice that may be done a great corporation. If this government is instituted solely for the purpose of protecting these eorporations in the aggrandizement of wealttí then the Chicago platform may perhaps be justly termed as unpatriotic, but if it is, as we have been taught to believe, instituted for the purpose of protecting the people in the pursuit of life and the pursuit of happiness, then the Chicago platform from start to finish is the most patriotic public document that has been issued since Jefferson wrote the declaration of independence. The courts are but the creatures of the people established for the purpose of dispensing justice according to lines laid down by the people themselves. The judges are but men and not infallible. The people at the ballot box constitute the highest tribunal the court of last resort in this country, and shall they be called unpatriotic if they say with their ballots that the courts have exceeded the authority granted them? Will they be in favor of anarchy if they ref use to yield to a single person the functions of prosecutor, judge and jury? Will they be recorded as against law and order if they refuse to surrender to the arbitrary discretiou of the courts the most sacred traditions of civil liberty? To say so is to affirm that the American people have unwittingly placed over themselves an irresponsible authority. To say that we have no right to criticise our courts and demand their reform is to say that we have surrendered the essential principies of free instituions and that popular government is but a hollow mockery. Will you by your ballots say that the American people acknowledge any human authority superior tp thé sovereign will of the people? Republicans, is it to advance the cause of protection that Mark Hanna is spending rooney to win votes forthe gold democratie ticket? Democrats, is it for those principies which you have in the past considered essential to good governinent, that the gold democrats are raking McKinley's chestnuts out of the fire? The attention of every voter, who has a mortgage on his home, is called to the point being made by goldites that, if Bryan is defeated, every mortgage that becomes due and is re. newed and every new mortgage will be made payable in gold. The present law, which bearsupon its face evideiice of having been enacted for this purpose, makes it possible to discrimínate against silver and'makes it possible to demand gold by simply putting a gold clause in the mortgage. Free silver will do away with this discrimination against the commou people. If you desire to pay that mortgage in gold, vote for the gold standard. If you think any lawful-money of the United States, either gold, silver or paper money, is as good forthe money lender as it is for yourself , vote the free silver