The Man in Court Part 12

The efficient administration of these co-operative Corporations being demonstrated by their financial success, makes it unnecessary to dwell upon the details of their intensely developed organization.

Existing as they do upon so broad a comprehension of the whole commercial and social structures, it is little wonder that they have proven their value to the community. Their highly specialized departments of Issues, Investigation, Statutory Law, Records, Determination and Results correspond in a measure to the former method of procedure in the extinct courts of law and equity. Times have indeed changed.

The a.n.a.logy between the present methods and the antiquated and conventionalized customs of those c.u.mbersome and inadequate inst.i.tutions is not difficult to find. The department of Issues, for example, corresponds to what was known as the pleadings in an action.

These were formerly bits of paper governed as to form by inflexible rules, instead of the efficient method by which under the trained managers of able minds the matters in dispute, either of fact or law, are now narrowed down to exact points of difference. Naturally the methods of their managers being untrammelled by outside rules and they being men of wide experience and tact, the work of this department is not as difficult as at the first commencement of Judicial Corporations was antic.i.p.ated.

The departments of Investigation and Experts correspond with the former division of court trials known as evidence and testimony. Any explanation would be futile of this branch of a forgotten formalism.

The ancient rules of evidence and court procedure could only be understood by contemporaries and an extensive research has failed to disclose very clear concepts even by them. The modern methods of the departments governing the ascertainment of facts, either through the experience of the departmental employees or the efficient work of trained investigators, have naturally been much aided by the invention of the Viviphone making all communication adequate and easy.

The departments of Statutory Law and Records even yet retain certain characteristics of a period when judicial officers and clerks represented to the public mind the embodiment of what was known as "Red Tape," a true colloquialism descriptive of the att.i.tude of official conservatism. These departments being governed according to the latest bibliographical methods are of merely supplemental value as reference. The Simplification and National Unification of Federal and State statutes has, of course, added greatly to the facility of this branch of the business.

The Determination and Result departments at first were thought to be of primary importance. Corresponding as they did in their functions to the former exclusively judicial qualities of the courts and the final judgments thereof, the exaggerated import previously given to those functions pre-supposed an equal necessity in this subdivision of the management of the corporation. This proved to be incorrect. It was found that after a careful framing and narrowing of the matter in dispute by the Issues department, and a thorough and careful sifting of facts by the Expert and Investigation departments, the dispute gradually, if not wholly, disappeared. Men of the highest character and calibre being employed at large salaries as heads of these departments, have given adequate satisfaction, as has been proved by the prosperity of the Corporations. The recompense of the heads of these various departments, requiring as it does men of the greatest commercial understanding, is said to be in some instances fabulous.

In the early quarter of the present century and indeed in the latter part of the nineteenth, the undercurrents of many movements were already stirring the surface of the placid stream in which for so many centuries had been flowing the course of justice. Those curious relics of a medieval, age, the law courts, still at so recent a date, retained many of the forms, characteristics, and usages of a time when knights fought in plate armor and indulged in the mimicry of battle, urged on by the glamor of chivalry. The very terms and the legal phraseology of the period implied the jousts, tournaments, and ordeal by battle of a romantic and self-deceptive age.

The universal world war that resulted in such an immense change of social and economic values contributed naturally to the destruction and abandonment of old forms and structures. Yet even before the war and the economic revolution that followed so quickly thereafter, the tendencies toward a more sane treatment of the question had already begun.

Like the extinct cla.s.s of so-called physicians and doctors, who have now been amalgamated by the Public and Private Health Corporations, what was known as the legal profession or men known as lawyers and judges, had been gradually losing their characteristics as a cla.s.s and had been step by step merging into men of business.

One of the earliest changes was the disappearance of the lawyers known as the real estate lawyer. Up to about 1890 there still remained members of the legal profession who made a livelihood out of the examination of the t.i.tles to real property. The obvious advantages of a comprehensive t.i.tle examination plant by large corporations known as t.i.tle Insurance companies soon eliminated this particular subdivision.

The next important change arrived in a curious manner under the cry for what was then known as Social Justice--a vague term which was then advocated by many so-called "reformers" and ignorantly opposed by the capitalist cla.s.s, without any very clear understanding of what was meant. So little was realized of the economic and efficiency values of insurance against chance, that the beginning of the movement was opposed. The movement resulted in certain obvious changes which looking back upon them seemed inevitable and natural. This was what was known as universal Employers' Liability laws. The principle soon extending itself to all cla.s.ses of accidents, resulted in the pa.s.sage of legislation which had been foreshadowed by the tremendous growth of Casualty and Accident Insurance companies. Beginning at first with laws holding the employer liable for accident, and afterward resulting in the insurance of labor, it was gradually extended to accidents of every nature, including injury from travel on common carriers and the ordinary vicissitudes of life.

The result of State insurance against negligence and injuries of every kind was that all claims for injuries were adjusted by the State and the lawyers who lived by pursuing the neglect or misfortunes of others, gradually became extinct. A certain distinguished and conspicuous type was known by the term "ambulance chasers"--the exact derivation of the term not being now, in 1947, entirely clear but probably being related to some antiquated legal custom of succoring the wounded--very soon disappeared.

The cases that arose from all commercial disputes became less numerous as the more candid and intelligent dealings of the economic world awoke better and more honest business standards. But long before the disappearance of what was known as the commercial lawyer, there are evidences that the former courts of law, even before their entire abandonment, had fallen into a partial desuetude. Apparently disputes of large magnitude never reached the courts. And the legal standards enunciated by the courts were so entirely unrelated to the standards on which the actual commerce of the world was conducted, that resort was but little had to the arbitrament of the law of procedure in court.

The entire change of personal and domestic relations and the greater freedom from the inst.i.tutionalism of semi-civilized communities, _e.g._, the abandonment of all restriction on divorce, naturally did away with the cla.s.s of litigation that appeared in certain courts of law dealing with marital or personal grievances.

In regard to what were known as criminal lawyers and criminal courts, the different att.i.tude which the public formerly had toward unfortunate sufferers makes the existence of such a cla.s.s or such inst.i.tutions almost unbelievable. As it is now inconceivable that we should throw into unsanitary jails men and women who are mentally or socially diseased, so is it hard to realize that during the unintelligent period of which we are speaking, nay for many centuries, there existed people who lived upon their misfortunes.

Naturally with the disappearance of litigation and lawyers the public no longer tolerated the existence of the judges or courts. For a few years they retained a hold upon the imagination of a small portion of citizens who entertained a sentimental regard for the State inst.i.tutions of a civilization founded upon the unsound teachings of eighteenth-century doctrinaires.

The period of the abandonment of the old courts corresponded with the extraordinary development for what was called "moving pictures"; those pale, lifeless presentations without color, speech, or substance, at which the people of a benighted age gathered for amus.e.m.e.nt or entertainment! It requires imagination to conceive that people were unfamiliar with the ease of communicating with any place on the globe and reproducing exactly in form, color, and speech by turning on a switch. The observer of that age must have been shocked and surprised to find the solemn courthouses turned into what was known as moving-picture palaces or as community centers for dancing and social entertainments.

The change of cla.s.s which the lawyers had gradually been undergoing to simple men of affairs was not so abrupt as that for the judicial officers, who were far removed from actual life. Various expedients were attempted by which they could be preserved as a cla.s.s. Their former occupation being gone and the idea of pensioning not being satisfactory, as there remained a large number of younger men on the bench who might be of some value to the community, a system of court cafes was evolved. Even to-day it is fast disappearing and for the benefit of future generations it may be well to describe the last remnant of an inst.i.tution that held its position in the social order for so long.

Human nature being always substantially the same, it was thought that its demands for the dramatic action and stress of battle should have some outlet. It was not thought wise to entirely abolish the arenas for legal disputes, although the present Judicial Corporations with their excellently organized departments were already rapidly destroying all litigation. It was felt that perhaps humanity demanded the bringing together of the two disputants so that they personally might oppose their claims to one another.

It now seems incredible, in view of the absolute simplicity of communication by Viviphone, that this should be thought necessary. The need for romantic expression seemed to demand the opportunity for personal presentment. The social workers who established these cafe courts, did not realize that with the growth of a more intelligent public point of view, the question of abstract justice was little more than an application of customs and social standards to particular facts; and that with the fall of the ideas of justice in the abstract, there also fell the appurtenances of justice.

It may here be noted that the learned treatise of Professor Humperdinck upon the recent discovery of certain statutes found among the ruins of the Great New York Explosion is mistaken. The figure which he described among others of the woman blind-folded and with an arm extended as though holding something, does not represent as he calls it, "The poor blind girl begging," but a figure of the G.o.ddess of Justice holding the scales, who was so long worshiped.

The growth of the court cafes was made possible by the amelioration in the climate of New England effected through the alteration in the course of the Gulf Stream. The inhabitants became accustomed to spend more time in the open air so that the courts became popular. Existing as places for the display of eccentricities and the airing of personal grievances, they soon became extremely frequented as places of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Whenever any litigant felt that there was any matter in dispute which needed adjustment by some outside agency, he invited the other party to come to the court. The judges occupied the position of proprietors, _maitres d'hotel_, and waiters, whose business it was to make the courts as attractive as possible. As their salaries depended upon the amount of receipts and the courts were run upon a partnership basis in which all shared the profits, the aim of the judges was to draw as large amount of custom as possible.

The surroundings were in every way desirable. In the open air, under spreading trees with the sunlight filtering through the leaves upon the well-kept lawns, were spread tables covered with delicious fruits and every delicacy that the human mind could devise in the way of culinary delights. Rare wines, exotic flowers were constantly supplied in profuse display. Luxurious divans and reposeful seats were interspersed about. The most modern as well as the most famous musicians furnished exquisite music, while flitting about in neat white ap.r.o.ns partially concealed by their gently swishing gowns of black, the attentive justices anxiously tried to add to the pleasure and comfort of their customers.

With such temptations as these there was little wonder that the opposing party accepted the invitation to attend court. Witnesses and spectators crowded about, both on account of the novelty of the inst.i.tution and the opportunity for refreshment and amus.e.m.e.nt. The aim of the judges was to incite the disputants to continue their disputes instead of trying to pacify them.

The more vociferous they grew, the more noisy and pa.s.sionate they became, the better the crowds were held who came to observe the performance. It was upon this clientele and the sale to them of viands and comestibles during the dispute that the profits of the judges depended. So long as there was a serious and energetic struggle the spectators remained at the adjacent tables and trade was brisk.

Whenever, however, the litigants came to a full realization of the absurdity of their position, either by the continued laughter of the spectators at the public airing of their private wrongs with which the public had nothing to do, or becoming tired of mere words and came to diminish the ardor of their combat, the crowd would begin to dwindle away. The judges quick to understand the loss of trade after vainly trying to induce the litigants to new efforts, would gently and suggestively push under their hands a pair of dice boxes or a pack of cards and the dispute would sometimes end upon the throw of a die or the turn of a card.

The reason that these court cafes have not long remained in vogue, was that all actual litigants soon became so sophisticated as they realized the enormity of the position and how unreasonable their conduct seemed to the average man. Public sentiment was naturally against such a waste of time and real performers became scarce.

Several of the courts were detected in hiring false litigants as actors so as to draw the crowds. The performance not being genuine soon lost its interest. The patrons left them and many courts became bankrupt. So like their predecessors, those light-minded courts have practically ended.

THE END