Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1886 — Bad Lawyers Good Judges. [ARTICLE]

Bad Lawyers Good Judges.

“Yes,” said the old fellow who had been beaten for Superior Court Judge at the last election; “ves, bad lawyers always make good Judges. Most bad lawyers are given to conscience and honesty.” “Well—Judge ” “That’s all right. I’m a bad lawyer. That’s why I wanted to be a Judge. It saves you a lot of trouble and teaches you your business when other lawyers fill you up with facts and figures of the law. A good lawyer can never be trusted on the bench. He’s always liable to give a decision against the cleverest lawyer in the case, just to show his smartness. A bad lawyer on the bench doesn’t take law so much as justice into consideration, and no defendant or plaintiff ever yet was injured by a common-sense decision. It is a fallacy of our great republican form of government that the voice of the people spoken through the ballot-box purifies the men elected, and that the election of a lawyer to the bench destroys all the weakness of human nature that he may have had before. In the divine government purification precedes election. In the human government election precedes purification. I don’t believe a lawyer's any more honest when they make him a Judge than he was before. They call him a lawyer until he becomes a Judge, then lie is spoken of as a dist'nguished jurist.”— Han Francisco Chronicle. “Nothing should be done hastily,” cries one who wants to be considered a philosopher; but a man has only to get hold of a hot poker to realize that the philosopher io wrong. He—“ And now, Sarah, what kind of an engagement ring shall I get you?” She —“colid gold, I guess, Henry. I’m so tired of wearing imitation gold for engagements. ” *.14 • • •