Speech #580088598

Reports). reported from the circuit court of Massachusetts. involved a construction of the statute that was as simple and as plain�.as the English language. it seems to me. could have made it. It provided that the clerks of court should turn into the public treasury all of their fees above a certain sum of money. The clerk held that the $3 each for naturalization papers was not a fee within the meaning of the statute. It went on and on and was considered by the departments here and payments made under it just exactly as was done in the Swayne case. and the Supreme C.ourt of the United States. without spending any more time upon the subject. said that the contemporaneous rulings of the departments and the contemporaneous appropriations by Congress and the contemporaneous rulings of the courts settled the construction of the statute. and the statute stands today unrepealed. unamended. and in full force. and it was that law. that decision. laid down by the highest court in the United States or in the world. under which Judge Swayne acted. and if he is to be impeached here these gentlemen. these purifiers of the bar and the bench and the country. ought to. proceed at once to assail the United States judge for the district of Massachusetts and the United States Supreme Court. United States v.