Salt Lake Telegram | 1902-07-30 | Page 4 | Contempt for Courts.

CONTEMPT FOR CO COURTS If School Superintendent Johnson of Piute county county coun coun- ty can show the distinction between his bis opinion of law courts and aDd the opinion of law courts we ye fe shall be glad io to publish it So far as his hs published pub pub- expression iori of opinion goes it is a distinction without a difference I have a contempt for law courts Mr Johnson says sarH their chief object seems t to be to r refute rute justice And d yet unless this same sameh Mr Mi h Johnson has bas been shamefully recreant to his duty as us an elector the law Jaw courts are arc the product of the exercise of his and his fellow citizens citizens' suffrage rights In a representative government where the majority rules rules rules-or or at least can rule there rule there should be no complaint of the character of our rulers We Te cannot expect the stream to be purer than the fountain foun bun tam tain head If the body politic is corrupt ignorant or negligent the courts are likely to be he so too There was once a Massachusetts magish magistrate te who when the citizens complained of the bad char character of a certain townsman proceeded to put the whole town I II I in jail declaring n that they each and all were bible ible individually and collectively cly for the character and misdeeds of the culprit who had bad been born and bred among them The who murder their fellow-beings fellow because the they r are not satisfied with the courts are the most irrational in of or beings They have havethe havethe the remedy in their own hands bands if they choose to apply apply ap ap- ply it But the spirit t of them needs to be satisfied d by lawlessness Respect for the law is too tame for them Contempt of the law la lais is s better So is it with Mr Johnson of f Piute count county Instead of sneering at rat the representatives es of justice would he lie not do better to sneer at himself and his bis fell fellow electors who o O made the bench