character. It also, in case of a nomination for re-election,
places a judge on the bench in the disagreeable position of being
a candidate for popular favor at the polls and an object of
public criticism by the political press.

In 1902 a justice of the Supreme Court of Michigan was nominated
for re-election. There was an opposing candidate, some of whose
friends published a statement that in the nine years during which
the justice had already served he had written opinions in 68
railroad and street railway cases of which 51 were in favor of
the companies. He was re-elected, but some time afterwards this
fact was reprinted in a local periodical accompanied by the
remark that "we must conclude that either the railroad and
railway companies--4 to 1--had exceptionally good cases from the
standpoint of law and justice or his Honor's mind was somewhat
warped in their favor.... You can't expurge mental prejudice
from judicial opinions any more than you can from the reasonings
of theologians and atheists.... To imagine a justice deciding a
case against his personal interests is too great a stretch of
imagination for us to appreciate."

A less brutal but more dangerous attack, made in 1903 by a
religious newspaper, illustrates the same evil. The Supreme
Court of Nebraska has decided that under their Constitution the
Bible cannot be used in the public schools. It was, of course, a
pure question of the construction of a law, for the policy of
which the court had no responsibility. The newspaper in
question[Footnote: The Boston _Congregationalist_ of Oct. 3,
1903.] which, though published in the East, had some circulation
in that State, printed this paragraph: