That law was based upon a principle which the Supreme Court had indorsed for a hundred years, and the first deliverance of the Judges upon the act of 1893 was favorable to it.
That act was the outcome of the work of the Legislative department acting within the scope of its authority. The Executive department had sanctioned the act, and it had become LAW.
Had Cleveland boldly announced his purpose to execute that law, by virtue of his inherent power as Chief Executive, the Supreme Court would never have made the second decision, which was a national scandal.
By that decision the accumulated wealth of the millionaires is exempted from taxation—relieved of the duty of contributing to the support of the Government by whose unjust laws those millions were accumulated.
But let the people really get in power; let them really elect a President; let them place in authority another Andrew Jackson, who isn’t afraid to show his friendship for the common man and his animosity to the greedy corporation—then you will see the Supreme Court draw in its horns.
Federal Judges are human like the rest of us, and they know with considerable accuracy which side their bread is buttered on.
Get the right sort of man in the Executive Chair, get the right sort of men in Congress, create the right sort of public opinion, and I venture the prediction that the Federal Judiciary will not attempt the role of Dame Partington without meeting with the same luck.
I agree with Mr. Adams also that Senators should be elected by the direct vote of the people in each state, but he is perhaps in error when he says that the system of electing Senators by state legislatures is “the fountain head of the corruption of American politics.”
On the contrary, there never could have been a corrupt Senate until there was a corrupt Legislature. When New Jersey sent to the Senate a man like Jim Smith the Legislature of New Jersey had already become corrupt. When Pennsylvania sent to the Senate a man like Quay the Legislature of Pennsylvania had already become corrupt. Standard Oil had to buy the Ohio Legislature before Henry B. Payne became United States Senator.