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Show Jlltcn Brooks Parker. (Chicago Tribune.) Parker's personality, if there were need of driving driv-ing it homo to one word, would bc-t be enfolded in the world stability. He was born a New York farmer in the Hudson river region. Jie remains a Xew York farmer in the Hudson river region. His estate at Esopus is none the less a farm because it happens to be called by the estately name of Rosemont.' Parker owns two farms besides Rosemont. He is what his fathers were before him, a practical cultivator of ground and a practical breeder ' of animals. When he stands in .-his farm - clothes among his Red Poll bulls, his Shropshire sheep, and his Poland China pigs, this chief judge of the state of New York is one of the finest living illustrations, of the stability of temperament which keeps some men rooted securelv in their ancestral environment. The same fundamental characteristic can be observed ob-served in Parker's work as a judge. He has been a judge since 188.). Before 1885 he had taken an active personal part in local politics. Since 18S5 he has never strayed from the bench to the hustings. hust-ings. He has regarded himself as the agent of the state of Xew York for the settlement of legal controversies con-troversies and for the. maintenance of the science 'of jurisprudence. From, this high vocation he has never been drawn away by any counter call of political poli-tical exigency or of personal ambition. The serene se-rene and tin vexed impartiality of the law could be intrusted to no more unwavering hands. To stab'iity in inherited instincts and to stability stab-ility in cho. ?n duty Parker adds a stability 'even in daily personal habits. On arising he dresses for his morning ride. On returning from his ride he dresses for the Court of Appeals. On returning from the Court of Appeals he dresses for dinner. His triple sartorial equipment, the amazement of the special correspondent, is as precise in its details de-tails as it is inevitable in its sequence. Parker, for better or for worse, is no roving comet seeking change and adventure through the corners of the universe. He is one of the most respectable of planets circling on schedule time around a fixed ' orbit. Yet he seems to have enough distinction of temper to attract interest. He was not much more than a boy when he was elected clerk of a hoard of supervisors. He was only 26 when he was elected surrogate .of Ulster county. He-was only 33 when he was re-elected surrogate on a ''Democratic,-ticket which brought success to him alon?. He Was only 31 when he became .chairman pi the state commit- ... ( tee in the campaign which made David B. Hill 1 governor. I With Hill's election his active political life ceased. At the close of the campaign the man whom he helped into the state-house helped him info the judiciary. From 1885 to the present time Parker has been a judge. Also,he has been a jurist. jur-ist. He has drawn so far away from politics that his decisions are developments in jurisprudence and not incidents in party warfare. Nevertheless his political strength has remained unattenuated. In 1897 he was nominated by . the Democrats for lhe office of chief judge of the Court of Appeals, the highest judicial office in Xew York. In 18ft McKinley had carried New-York New-York state by i38,O00. Parker annihilated this majority and created a counter majority of 00,(h')0. He is the only Democrat who has been eb.'ted to a state office in New York since 1SJVJ. Parker's immovable stability on the bench has been open to only one doubt. In the ease of the law which provided for the payment of "the prevailing pre-vailing rate of wages" in municipal contracts, in the cu.9 of the law which provided for the regulation regula-tion of child labor, in the case of the l.iw which limited the number of hours during which bakers might work, and in other cases of similar import. Parker has held that such laws were valid, and that in putting them on the statute book the" state had not exceeded its constitutional powers. The impression im-pression left on some mind is that Parker is temperamentally tem-peramentally inclined to the passage of laws for the relief of labor. If his decisions on labor be compared, however, with his decisions on other huvj that hi've nothing to do with tabor, it will be found that his refusal to declare labor laws union v'.ifutional has its b'asis not in economic but in strictly legal predilections. Parker seems never to declare a law 'unconstitutional 'unconstitu-tional if he can help it. Ho is not one of those judicial formalists wlo find their chief happiness in denouncing a law on insurance because ;t conflicts con-flicts with a constitutional amendment on slavery. It is doubtful, therefore, if either labor or caprtal. will be able to say that Parker, in the whole course of his judicial career, has been actuated consciously or unconsciously by any opinions other than those of a student of the history of law. It was simply because of his disinclination to allow the legislature legisla-ture to be continually cramped by the judiciary that Parker upheld the constitutionality of the labor la-bor laws of New York. As a citizen, and a jurist, Alton R. Parker has been upright, clean minded, and honorable.' The Democratic party has done, well in presenting to the country a candidate of such personal rectitude. |