TOPICS OF TEE DAY.
THE IDAHO IDAHO TRIAL. THE importance, the very great importance, of the murder trial in Idaho is not much affected by the acquittal of the accused man Haywood. It seems to observers at this distance, who have been greatly shocked by the testimony of the informer Orchard, im- probable that the prisoner was innocent ; but we rather think an English jury would have returned the same verdict. The charge—the instigation of the murder of Governor Steunenberg—was not brought home to the accused secretary of the Western Miners' Federation by any direct evidence except that of the bravo Orchard, who was said by himself to have been the actual murderer, and his character was so infamous as to make his testimony when unsupported nearly worthless. In a tone of studied indifference this man confessed to some thirty grave crimes, including one huge massacre of innocent men, and the jury were justified in distrusting the story of a witness who, by his own account, had for years been steeped to the lips in crime. If, in fact, they gave the accused secretary of the Federa- tion the benefit of the doubt, which is our reading of the verdict from the not very luminous telegraphic reports, they, as most Englishmen would think, were right. The governing body of the Miners' Federation nia.y be the worst of criminals, but they are none the less entitled, not only to a fair trial, but to a fair trial according to the laws of the country to which they belong, and those laws require evidence stronger than a balance of probabilities. Nevertheless, the trial has been most distressing to those who, like ourselves, watch in the United States the daily progress of the greatest democratic experiment ever tried.
That which makes the Idaho trial so depressing is the extent to which it reveals the depth of the chasm now visible between the rich and the poor, between employers and employed. They ought in America, where on the theory all are equal and no one can wilfully oppress, to be on terms of kindly, regard; but they obviously hate one another to such an extent that tolerance is lost in prejudice, and society is shattered by what Carlyle called "preternatural suspicion." At this moment one half the people of the United States believe that Haywood, the accused secretary of the Miners, was acquitted in defiance of evidence because be was a foe of the capitalists, while the other half are certain that he was only accused because the capitalists were determined to break up the Trade-Unions, and bribed witnesses to poison by accusations of crime the general body of opinion. So keen is this division of feeling that immediately after the verdict representative Anarchists wrote to the President exulting in the trial as a victory for themselves, and Mr. Roosevelt quietly published their letter without comment as proof positive of public danger. He evidently believed, and was justified in the belief, that all respectable men would understand why he submitted the letter to their eyes, and would sympathise with him in his bitter scorn of the writers. Haywood was defended by his counsel as the victim of " vulture " capitalists, and when lie was acquitted, before leaving the Court, he thanked each juryman individually, behaving, in appearance at least, as a soldier might who appreciated the conduct of a "forlorn hope" and could not be content with a general approval. The struggle, in truth, has all the bitterness of a civil war ; and though in that war the terrorists cannot win, for in the last resort the freeholders are the masters of the Union, and the freeholders desire order, still the fact that the contest should have risen to such a height in the model Republic is most depressing for all who retain their hopes in the future of humanity.
It is almost as depressing to see how despondent the best Americans are as to the possibility of finally reform- ing the great force to which they must look for the pre- vention of the actual war in which, if that force cannot be created, this bitterness must end. The root of the mischief, they cannot but perceive, is the imperfection of the system through which they distribute justice. If the Courts could be implicitly trusted, the Anarchists, the extreme Socialists, the Labour Associations, and the syndicates of capitalists, all alike; would gradually be compelled to carry on their struggles subject to the full restraints of law as devised and interpreted by civilised mankind. There can be no necessity for armed violence when the law is at once just and irresistible. Law itself is as just in America as in Britain, but in the Republic it is not irresistible. So many influences of corruption, of terrorism, and of class prejudice are allowed to deflect what ought to be the immutable and serene justice of the Courts that their pacifying effect, and the confidence of the people in their action, are alike destroyed. It is distrust in the Courts which makes the hatred of the millionaires for the workmen so bitter and the fear of them among employes so extravagant, distrust in the Courts which induces the toilers to combine for purposes of menace, distrust in the Courts which renders verdicts worthless as instruments for preserving or creating peace. Something of that distrust may be unjust, for there must be scores of honest Judges within the Uuion, and thousands of men who, once sworn as jurymen, would no more suppress or betray their own consciences than the best of British Judges would. But allowing for that injustice, it is clear that in a great portion of the United States the judicial system fails, while it is not clear that the people, though they acknowledge the failure, will con- sent to any radical reform. They will not raise their Judges above pecuniary temptation, they will not confine the jury-box to the classes least likely to be corrupted, and they will not accelerate the system of trial till opportunities either of corruption or of terror are reduced to a minimum. Nor, apparently, will they make crime by a combination much more penal than crime by an individual. These,. however, are but suggestions, and the Americans, who are a sagacious people, could if they chose devise much more effective plans. They do not devise them, and in that failure is a cause of hopelessness, even among those who, like ourselves, reckon themselves as devoted to the Western as to the Eastern branch of Our race. It is as possible to get Courts beyond suspicion of postponing justice to personal considerations as to get regi- ments beyond suspicion of cowardice ; and in neglecting to get them universally the people of the States neglect to secure the first necessity of, and the best guarantee for, a successful civilisation. They have secured them in the Supreme Court, but they should secure them in the remotest district of their wildest State.
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