  Next our courts and laws come in for review, Not to gain applause, but my course to pursue. Laws are rules as is taught in schools To guide civil conduct into the right, To redress wrongs and make us keep our plight. Deeds of a certain kind are called crimes; For the perpetration of which in historic times, Men have sought to punish their course to stay, Every one who does them in some kind of way. By the power of the state men may collate, All kinds of acts which by law they state To be offenses for one them to perpetrate. These acts in themselves, may be for our good When understood, yet by the statute they would Be crimes just the same, whether bad or good. The original idea of punishment probably grew out Of our natural impulse just to take a bout With any fellow who ever did us any dirt To see if him we could not also hurt A little more, or just as much as to us he did; Pull his tooth for our tooth, and his eye with the lid, For our eye he did black simply to pay him back. In a later day to give reasons for our laws Which by the wise were sought, we had to pause, So then we simply said, punish to stop crime. Now suppose that I could show that in no time, Did punishment ever even our crimes diminish, Much less did it ever bring them to a finish. Your eyes will open wide when I say to you; The stopping of crimes punishment will never do. Men will more chances take, your neck to break, Your goods to steal, and your girls to snake Off and defile, even if you are wide awake Against the whole complicated machinery of the law, Than they would by getting immediately into your claw; When with weapons good, you certainly would Make all respect your rights as you them understood. The plan indicated above could not all at once Be put into practice, for you’d be a dunce To turn loose so many who had never had any Training in the matter we set up as a crime. The way for you to do is to drop one at a time Of your statutory crimes punishable by fine, Mostly passed to give jobs to a certain class Of human vegetables who stalk about in brass. That you may cautiously follow up the scale In all its detail, and you’ll never fail To accomplish good in giving people their rights And in keeping them quiet and free from fights. By the penitentiaries you keep and your jails Where people sleep with vermin on rails; Waiting for trial before jury and judge. Weeks before they are allowed to budge, Makes them have against you such a grudge; That when they get loose, as they frequently do They go at their old tricks with energy anew To see how dastardly they can act in the crimes they do. In your hatcheries of crime, the bunch you have to feed Seems to be increasing with a gradual, steady speed. The time may come when the gang in the walls, May outnumber us when at their leader’s calls, They might break out with a united band, Overpower us, and devastate the land. So that whatever you do, make your crimes few; And those you do define, stand firmly to. The more laws you have the more it’ll take To handle all those who their behests break. “Laws are a necessary evil” was truly said By a great hero, now sleeping among the dead. So the less of this evil upon ourselves we fix The more good we can with our liberty mix. Those progressives of you who make such ado About our laws, and the courts in which you sue, Want to fill our statutes all the way through With every law and sumptuary regulation, On every subject in the whole creation, That, in their wrought up imagination, They can conceive of to make litigation; (Telling us that they comprehend the situation) They’d put on the books without investigation. You’d like to snake all this through, Thinking that nobody is watching you; But you had better try and hold yourself back; We are watching you, and I am now on your track. Now the courts are made the laws to enforce; It is their job, and you and I of course, Cannot dictate to them what laws to enforce. To criticise the courts as the newspapers do Might put us in contempt, the same as you In some cases where you had to keep out of view; Or run a lively race to keep yourself out of jail By hanging on to some big lawyer’s coat-tail. About your courts I will simply suggest That whatever might be done I deem it best Of the things we might do, get judges true, Learned and wise, and who do not know you Nor me, nor any of the folks that sue Their cases in court before them; The opinions they write with type or pen Will be free from the bias of men then. They will consider the laws, sort out the flaws In each case, and every litigated cause; So that the judgment they shall render Making you your supposed rights surrender Will be honest, no matter what we tender; Although you practically sink by their blunder Until in amazement you begin to wonder Whether your lawyer really did plunder Through all the books to get you from under The load that is imposed when your case is closed In the court of the judge you supposed Had sense enough not to be bulldozed.
|
|
