---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Harper’s
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 16
number: 5
published: 1913-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Harper’s, "The Tired Mother. A Poem," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 5 (March 1913): 432–433.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1605unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera1605unse
start_page: 432
end_page: 433
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1605unse
  publication_year: 1913
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1913, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Tired Mother. A Poem

<!-- page:432 -->

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.

<!-- page:433 -->

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