Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1894 — Gresham as a Judge. [ARTICLE]

Gresham as a Judge.

Cincinnati Tribune. It is well understood by a groat many lawyers that Secretary Gresham was not a strong man on the bench, and that his decisions have been overruled with humiliating frequency. It was chiefly on account of his meager ability as a judge that President Harrison declined to put Mr. Gresham on the Supreme Bench. He did not think him a fit man for the place. The lawyers in Congress are laughing over the predicament Secretary Gresham finds himself in. A Washington dispatch says: “In a very short time the Supreme Court has overruled nine of the decisions rendered when the Secretary of State was a Circuit Court judge in the Seventh judicial district. “Each term of the Court held during the last year has resulted in decisions overruling eases brought up on appeal from decisions of Judge Alresham. The first term of the Supreme Court last fall Had before it four appeals from decisions of the Seventh Circuit Court made when Judge Gresham presided. Every one of thpse decisions was reversed by the Supreme Court. The cases were those of the Lake Shore Railway Company vs. Prentiss, Humphreys vs. Perry, Wade vs. The Springfield & Chicago Railroad Company; and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company vs. Hoyt. At the second term of the court there was only one case '•+Trfrrnr"-kr--OH— -appeal- ~f min—ludgo Gresham’s decision, and that was reversed. The last term of the court, which closed on Saturday, had another case before it, being an appeal from Judge Gresham’s decision, and this was the most important case of all’ and it was also overruled. “Henee the record is clear. Every case brought to the Supreme Court in the last throe terms on appeal from the decisions of Judge Gresham has been overruled. There is no doubt whatever that when people get aajbpportunitv to pass on the decisions of Secretary Gresham they will be reversed with still greater unanimity. It is doubtful if the Secretary’s decision in the Hawaiian matter and his decision in the Samoan matter would be sustained bv one voter in a hundred thousand in the United States. I( Mr. Gresham is not a grea judge, nor a great diplomats, nor i great statesman, nor a great Demo crat. nor a great Republican. wherein does his greatness as a public man ! lie?