The Tired Mother. A Poem

The Tired Mother (Selected)

They were talking of the glory of the land beyond the skies, Of the light and of the gladness to be found in paradise, Of the flowers ever blooming, of the never-ceasing songs, Of the wand'rings through the golden streets of happy, white-robed throngs; And said father, leaning cozily back in his easy chair, (Father always was a master-hand for comfort everywhere): "What a joyful thing 'twould be to know that when this life is o'er One would straightway hear a welcome from the blessed, shining shore!" And Isabel, our eldest girl, glanced upward from the reed She was painting on a water jug, and murmured: "Yes, indeed." And Marian, the next in age, a moment dropped her book, '

And, "Yes. indeed!" repeated with a most ecstatic look; But mother, gray-haired mother, who had come to sweep the room With a patient smile on her thin lips, leaned lightly on her broom- Poor mother! no one ever thought how much she had to do— And said: "I hope it is not wrong not to agree with you, But seems to me that when I die, before I join the blest, I'd like just for a little while to lie in my grave and rest." — Harper's.

The Recall of Judges BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER

This subject is one which just now is made a political conten- tion among the great political parties of the United States. It is not from a partisan standpoint that I approach the subject in this article it is rather historical and legal. ; There is perhaps no phase of the political development of our country more interesting, from the standpoint of the historical, than that which relates to the proposed right of the people to turn a judge out of office after he has been duly elected and qualified. It may be said at the outset that in no country in the world have the judges such far-reaching and absolute powers as those exercised by the judiciary of the United States. Let us see briefly how this has come about. We adopted a Constitution and put it in writing. The avowed purpose of that Constitution was to protect the people in funda- mental rights against the encroachment and against the dangers of popular government, for popular government has its dangers. When Congress, therefore, passed a law, the question sometimes arose whether it was in violation of constitutional rights. If such a law did violate the Constitution it was evident that no part of our government was so well qualified to declare it unconstitutional as the judiciary. On the other hand, it was a very delicate matter for one body of men, especially the judiciary, to turn down the • legislature, a more numerous and altogether more imporant body

in the government of our country. That is what the judiciary practically had to do whenever it declared a law unconstitutional. As such a power, however, was experimental, in the early history of our country, the judges exercised such a power in great mod- eration and with great reservation. They said, then, that the court would not declare a law unconstitutional unless it were so palpably in violation of the fundamental law that no two reason- able men could have diverse opinions on that subject. In other words, the court said, if we had been legislators we would consider the law unconstitutional but, as there is some doubt on the ques- ;

tion, we will give the legislature, or Congress, the benefit of that doubt and not pronounce against the validity of an act of Congress. In time the judges became less modest in the assertion of their powers, and judges took the bench who did not always make that fine discretion in favor of congressional enactments. The result was that if the judges considered the preponderance of rea- son or the argument against the constitutionality of the law, they