Judges Like This One Are Destroying Faith in Courts, Says J.M. Baer

J.M. BAER, THE CONGRESSMAN-CARTOONIST

Expect Respect for Such Court? Knockers Are Not Destroying Faith in Courts—It’s the Judges Themselves

By J.M. Baer, The Congressman-Cartoonist

Don Chafin is probably the best known sheriff since the sheriff of Nottingham back in the days of Robin Hood. Don is the sheriff of Logan County, West Virginia, where they rob ‘em good.

One of the principal industries of Logan county is running people out of it. Next comes mining.

Any miner who sports a union card is promptly sought out by Don Chafin and his friends for their attentions. They run him out of the county and tell him never to come back “no more.” Naturally, the union miners don’t like this.

Being naïve persons, they thought they might get justice through the courts, so they brought action to have something done about Chafin and his gang. The miners got more than justice. They got plenty.

The court got very dignified when it received this case. And at last it evolved an opinion that deserves to rank with the judicial masterpieces of all time.

It decided that Don Chafin was clearly in the wrong in running union men out of Logan County. He had no authority to do so, as sheriff. In fact, in doing so he had committed acts that were quite incompatible with his duties as sheriff. Therefore, since as sheriff it was quite clear that he could not lawfully do the acts complained of, he was not acting as sheriff when he did them, but as a private citizen. And the court could not prevent him in doing what he liked as a private citizen.

This is a decision that is going to add tremendously to the respect in which the courts are held by organized labor and by decent men—not merely progressives but even hard-boiled reactionaries, if they possess a rudimentary sense of fairness. However, reactionaries ordinarily don’t possess that. As a court decision it is unique. As a bit of reasoning, it matches up with the geometrical proof that one plus one equals one.

From the Charlotte Herald, July 6, 1923. John Miller Baer (1886-1970) was a U.S. Representative from North Dakota. After he failed to be re-elected in 1920, he went back to his career as a cartoonist and journalist. The photo is from the Library of Congress.