If we shall adopt as a part of our system the recall of judges, it will mean that the judge setting in the trial court shall be invited to consider the effect a decision that he may render may have not alone upon the jury, or upon the merits of the case, or upon the man accused of crime, but upon the multitude sitting in the court room as spectators and upon the public scattered throughout his district. The judges of the Supreme Court will be invited to consider not only the question of whether or not the lower court pursued a course that was in harmony with the constitution, with law, with justice, but rather the effect of sustaining or refusing to sustain the action of the lower court upon public sentiment.
But someone says the men who are chosen as judges either to preside over the trial court or the supreme courts of our land should be men who could not be moved by personal considerations. My friends, if that is true, and I believe for the most part, it is true, then all argument must fall that would sustain the recall of judges, because the very argument that says that courts, in spite of the fact that they are human institutions, will stand against temptation of personal character, argues more forcibly that they will stand far the right with the question at trial not one of personal consideration, but of determining right and wrong between individuals who may come before them. Then do I believe that it should be possible for a judge to be removed from office? Most assuredly I do. 