and truthful comment and criticism, which should be binding when we speak of anybody, should be especially binding when we speak of them.  On an average they stand above any other servants of the community, and the greatest judges have reached the high level held by those few greatest patriots whom the whole country delights to honor.  But we must face the fact that there are wise and unwise judges, just as there are wise and unwise executives and legislators.  When a president or a governor behaves improperly or unwisely, the remedy is easy, for his term is short; the same is true with the legislator, although not to the same degree, for he is one of many who belong to some given legislative body, and it is therefore less easy to fix his personal responsibility and hold him accountable therefor.  With a judge, who, being human, is also likely to err, but whose tenure is for life, there is no similar way of holding him to responsibility.  Under ordinary conditions the only forms of pressure to which he is in any way amenable are public opinion and the action of his fellow judges.  It is the last which is most immediately effective, and to which we should look for the reform of abuses.  Any remedy applied from without is fraught with risk.  It is far better, from every standpoint, that the remedy should come from within.  In no other nation in the world do the courts wield such vast and far-reaching power as in the United States.  All that is necessary is that the courts as a whole should exercise this power with the farsighted wisdom already shown by those judges who scan the future while they act in the present.  Let them exercise this great power not only honestly and bravely, but with wise insight into the needs and fixed purposes of the people, so that they may do justice and work equity, so that they may protect all persons in their rights, and yet break down the barriers of privilege, which is the foe of right.

Forests.

If there is any one duty which more than another we owe it to our children and our children’s children to perform at once, it is to save the forests of this country, for they constitute the first and most important element in the conservation of the natural resources of the country.  There are of course two kinds of natural resources, One is the kind which can only be used as part of a process of exhaustion; this is true of mines, natural oil and gas wells, and the like.  The other, and of course ultimately by far the most important, includes the resources which can be improved in the process of wise use; the soil, the rivers, and the forests come under this head.  Any really civilized nation will so use all of these three great national assets that the nation will have their benefit in the future.  Just as a farmer, after all his life making his living from his farm, will, if he is an expert farmer, leave it as an asset of increased value to his son, so we should leave our national domain to our children, increased in value and not