MATHEW J. KANE, Chief Justice Oklahoma Supreme Court. The subject of this sketch was born in 1863 in Niagara county, New York, and grew to manhood in that state. He graduated from Georgetown University in 1887 and in the following year came west and engaged in the practice of law at Wichita. He was an original 89er" and located at Kingfisher and continued the practice of his profession. Throughout the stirring period of Territorial days he took an active part in the councils of his party and the strenuous public life of the time and was elected as a member of the constitutional convention from Kingfisher county when statehood arrived. In the deliberations of that historic body, he was one of the recognized leaders, loved and honored for his stalwart Democracy and his unflinching loyalty to the highest ideals of American government. In the campaign for the adoption of the constitution he was chosen as a member of the Supreme Court from the Third District and was re-elected by an increased vote in 1910. He was elected Chief justice by the court in 1909 and has been twice re-elected to that honorable and exalted position. His present term expires in January, 1917 and at this time it appears that he will be the unanimous choice of his party to succeed himself. In addition to his splendid legal equipment and fine judicial poise, he has qualities of heart and mind that have endeared him to his colleagues and associates and that grapples to him with hooks of steel a host of personal friends and admirers in every part of the state. The exalted dignity of Chief Justice of the State's highest court has not chilled his natural love for the common realities of life nor warped the democratic tendencies of his mind and to his friends the simple dignity of an American citizen that surrounds him on all occasions in his proudest distinction and highest honor. Vol. XIV OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA., SEPTEMBER, 1915 No. 3 OKLAHOMA LAW JOURNAL banker or statesman will want to do without it. Published by OKLAHOMA LAW JOURNAL PUB. CO. 13-15 West Main Street, Oklahoma City, Okla. CHAS. F. BARRETT, Editor and Business Manager. Subscription: $2.00 per year Entered at Oklahoma City Post Office as Second Class Mail Matter, under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879 TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OP PORTUNITY. On January 1, 1916, the price of the LAW JOURNAL by the year will be advanced to three dollars and it is our purpose to give our readers a magazine well worth that price. During the month of October, we will make the following special inducement to both old and new subscribers: Old subscribers in arrearages who pay up the past due accounts at the two dollar rate and two dollars to renew their subscription will be credited to January 1st. 1917. Old subscribers, not in arrears, who renew now for one year, will have their subscriptions extended for one full year by payment of two dollars. New subscribers, beginning with the October number, will receive the three remaining months of this year free and a full year's subscription from January 1st, 1916 to January 1st, 1917 for two dollars. Take advantage of these offers NOW for they cover but a brief period and there will be no cut in price after January first. Arrangements are being rapidly completed to make the Oklahoma Law Journal a credit to the State and to its publishers and no lawyer, court official, The lawyers of the state will find future issues of the JOURNAL invaluable since its pages will contain in addition to the addresses of the courts the syllabi of all cases decided by the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Commission and Criminal Court of Appeals. Future issues will also contain an intelligent synopsis of the decisions and addresses of the Corporation Commission, the State Industrial Commission, State Insurance Board, State Banking Board and other departments of state having authority to make rules and regulations for the conduct and regulation of business or public affairs. The article by W. M. Franklin, clerk of the Supreme Court, on another page is a sincere and earnest presentation of the arguments advanced by many leading attorneys of the state against the Act of 1915 which prescribes an increase in the "docket fee" for appeals to the Supreme Court. Mr. Franklin's position as clerk of that court, gives him superior facilities for observing the practical effects of the law and while his conclusions will not be accepted as final by the supporters of that provision in the statutes and will no doubt be challenged with equal sincerity and vigor by its proponents, his arraignment of the law is entitled to earnest and careful considetation and should arouse such discussion that the next legislature will have an opportunity to be fully informed on the subject and be ready to amend, repeal or uphold it in acordance with the public mill. We want articles from district and county judges, county attorneys and lawyers of every political faith on the subject of the proposed amendments to the constitution providing for the abolition of county courts and a reduction in the number of jurors necessary in certain cases. These amendments are of more than ordinary importance to the people of the state and the laity have a right to look to the lawyers for convincing arguments and the production of facts supporting or opposing the adoption of either or both the amendments. Hereafter the Law Journal will contain a monthly resume of the orders and decisions of the corporation commission, the state banking board, the state insurance board, the state industrial commission and other state boards. It will carry the syllabi and articles of all the branches of the appellate courts except where the decisions or orders relate to dismissal of the case for a failure to perfect the appeal under the rules of the court and it will contain a monthly summary of the opinions of the attorney general's department on all matters affecting the public service. These features are of general interest to all but they are of specific interest to the lawyer of general practice and to county and city officials and officers of corporations engaged in business in Oklahoma. Current Federal decisions affecting the interests of Oklahoma and her citizens will also be recalled in the pages of the Journal in succeeding issues. IN MEMORIAM WILLIAM HENRY LEE CAMPBELL. The following tribute is from the pen of Judge Thomas H. Doyle, presiding judge of the Oklahoma Criminal Court of Appeals and will be found among the preliminary pages of value 11 of the Oklahoma Criminal Reports, just off the press. "Hon. W. H. L. Campbell, clerk of the Appellate Courts of Oklahoma from their organization until his death, which occurred as the result of an accident November 12, 1914, was born at Snow Creek, North Carolina, November 18, 1864. His early education was completed at the State University, Chapel Hill, N. C. He was admitted to the practice of law in his native state in 1888. Two years later he moved to Texas, located at Rockwall and was elected county attorney of Rock wall county. In 1895 he removed to the Indian territory, and was appointed master in chancery by Judge C. B. Kilgore of the southern district of the Indian territory. For several years prior to his election as clerk, at the first state election, he was engaged in the practice of law at Ada. He was married twice; the first time at Ardmore, in 1897, to Miss Elizabeth Bonner, who departed this life the same year; the second time, in 1910, to Mrs. Willie B. Sherwood of Chickasha. In religion he was a Presbyterian; fraternally he was a mason, member of the Shrine, and an Elk. He was buried in Fairlawn cemetery, Oklahoma City. "They brought him home and laid him down to rest, amid the scenes and friends that he loved best." Besides a host of friends, he left a devoted wife to mourn his passing and his demise was lamented by the whole legal profession. The bar at Ada on the occasion of his decease passed appropriate resolutions, wherein they paid just tribute to his memory. The members of this Court by this memorial wish to express their sorrow at his untimely end, and pay a tribute of love and respect to his memory; and as a former officer of this Court, it is fitting that we record here our affectionate remembrance and high regard for W. H. L. Campbell as a Christian gentleman, a true friend and a faithful and efficient official. "He has crossed over the river and rests beneath the shade of the trees." May he rest in peace. The October number of the Journal will be out on time and many interesting articles have been promised for that issue. There are so many matters of importance to discuss in Oklahoma and so many men and women competent to discuss them that the columns of the Law Journal have no license to be dull to the men and women who are interested in good laws and good government. The Journal will not discriminate in a partisan way in the publication of articles that are deemed worthy of a place in its columns. The Preservation of Our Constitutional Guarantees Criticism may be either constructive or destructive. Constructive criticism conscientiously examines into the faults and excellencies of a subject, not for the purpose of exciting prejudice, but for the purpose of correcting evils, if any there be, and amplifying existing and dormant excellencies. Such criticism is cool, logical, unbiased and deliberate. Such criticism is always welcomed by the real friends of any institution, for they recognize that it is largely by such criticism that institutional progress is made. Destructive criticism, upon the other hand, is a vicious attack upon the very existence of an institution, and seeks its destruction regardless of consequences; usually appeals to the passions, and not to convictions; is radical, not conservative; and is ofttimes prompted by lust for wealth or political power. When Rome reverenced her governmental institutions and traditions, when her statesmen and thinkers worked most thoughtfully and conscientiously to perfect Roman institutions but held fast to the Roman eagle and all that it meant, Rome was rapidly ascending to the hey day of her glory and power, in governnent, in intelligence, and in morals. This was the time when a Roman citizen was proud of the fact that he was a Roman. This was the period of her constructive criticism. But when her statesmen and thinkers began to attack the very existence of her governmental institutions, when traditions and governmental axioms accumulated by the thought and experience of centuries were put at naught, then the star of Rome impetuously descended to its western setting. Bryce in his American Commonwealth, writing in 1888, one year after the celebration of the centenary of the Constitutional Convention, after speaking of the Constitution in praising terms, said that the reverence for it "is itself one of the most wholesome and hopeful elements in the character of the American people." I do not believe that at the present time Bryce would find these elements of wholesomeness and hope. There was a time when the Constitution was praised as the palladium of our liberties; it was praised because of its nice distribution of the legislative, executive, and judicial powers. But it seems that the modern doctrine is that the system of checks and balances exists for the purpose of thwarting the will of the people. At the present time the most popular utterance one can make is denunciation and villification of our national Constitution, and more particularly of its balance wheel, the Supreme Court of the United States. A few Athenians became tired of hearing Aristides called "The Just," and united in a movement to ostrasize him. Some of our citizens evidently have become tired of hearing the Constitution praised and reverenced by so many millions of free people, and have determined upon its destruction. Ranting politicians and demagogues are directing their energies in arousing the passions and prejudices of the masses, in stirring up class hatred, in expounding sophistries of government. "The rich are growing richer and the poor poorer," they say, "and therefore we should have the recall of a judge who supports that ignominious document, the Constitution of the United States." This is about the kind of a syllogism they employ. They have no hesitation in changing the laws of thought in their bold attempt to destroy the Constitution. With them, any means will justify the end. If a writer wishes to write a book on government, he chooses to follow the same line of criticism. Otherwise his book would net little or no royalty. Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws." Hamilton's "Federalist," and Woodrow Wilson's "The State," are dust covered and shelf worn, but Myer's "History of the United States quently quoted in the press and on the Supreme Court" is being read and elɔplatform. I am almost persuaded to be lieved that if I were a candidate for some high office, and wanted the job to such an extent as to subjugate my convictions to my lust for power, I would adopt a platform the underlying principle of which would be, "After us, the deluge." In the American commonwealth we find it said that “The American Constitution is no exception to the rule that everything which has power to win the obedience and respect of men must have its roots deep in the past; and that the more slowly every institution has grown, so much the more enduring it is likely to prove. There is little in the Constitution that is absolutely new. There is much that is as old as Magna Charta" (vol. 1, 6. 29). Yet there are not lacking those who would have us believe that the Constitution was a scheme conceived by the aristocrats of 1787, and enacted into the basic law of this nation for the furtherance of their own selfish interests; that it was not formed for the protection and general welfare of the proletariate or the whole people, but for the elite; that the government thereby established is aristocratic, and not democratic. In fact this argument is so often advanced by the enemies of the Constitution that it might be termed the major premise of their political phil osophy. But whether the dominant spirit of that convention was aristocratic or democratic, the fact of the matter is that the Constitution in its essence was the result of the political history of the Anglo-Saxon race. The framers of the Constitution had inherited from their mother land the entire fabric of Anglo-Saxon political philosophy. The Magna Charta, The Petition of Rights, The Bill of Rights, The Habeas Corpus Act, and every document and principle incorporated into the English unwritten Constitution, they claimed as their own. It was because of the fact they were not treated as English citizens, because of the fact that the provincial government provided by their mother country and under which they were living was destruction of their unalienable rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and because of the fact that when accused of crime they were not accorded the right of triai by a jury of their peers, but were transported beyond the seas, there to be tried among strangers, in short, it was because of the fact that England denied to the colonists the political traditions of England that caused them to declare their independence. Prior to the convention of 1787, each of these colonies had established a government of its own, based up Anglo-Saxon political traditions and assuring its citizens the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and in addition the combined thirteen colonies had formed a union known as "The United States of America" by means of the Articles' of Confederation. The individual state governments were fairly successful, but the Union, for reasons known to every school boy, was not. In this Constitutional Convention, the individual state Constitutions, the Articles of Confederation, and the political traditions of the race, were the materials, and the Constitution was the result. The substance of the Constitution, therefore, was not the scheme or machination of unscrupulous or selfish men, but was the embodiment of a nation's political philosophy. members of the Constitutional Convention simply gave form to the already existing subsatnce. The Nor is it true that the Constitutional Convention was dominated by the aristocracy. Far from it, the leading spirit was unquestionably a Democrat, and was no less a Democrat than James Madison. Hamilton is usually spoken of as the preeminent man of the Convention. This is not true. Hamilton was perhaps the strongest man intellectually in the Convention, and perhaps suggested a more logical and consistent plan of government than that finally embodied in the Constitution, but Hamilton was out of touch with the situation because of the very fact that he was aristocratic rather than democratic, and his views were too radical to be acceptable to the Convention. Within his own delegation (New York) he was outvoted, and before the Convention was half over his two col leagues had withdrawn and he was deprived of his vote, whereupon he went to New York and returned to the Convention only occasionally, taking very little part in the remaining sessions. But Madison, the Democrat, was regarded throughout the Convention as the leader of those who favored a strong national government: he evidently had the best grasp of the situation. A careful and consistent study of the records of the Convention, as compiled by Max Farrand will disclose the fact that Madison's plans and ideas invariably prevailed and were largely incorporated into the Constitution. Hamilton has been given credit for being the leading spirit of the Convention because of his having proposed |