REASON and necessity require the appointment of a sufficient number of judges to handle the business of the federal courts. These additional judges should be of a type and age which would warrant us in believing that they would vigorously attack their dockets, rather than permit their dockets to overwhelm them.
The cost of additional personnel should not deter us. It must be borne in mind that the expense of maintaining the judicial system constitutes hardly three-tenths of one percent of the cost of maintaining the federal establishment. While the estimates for the current fiscal year aggregate over $23,000,000 for the maintenance of the legislative branch of the government, and over $2,100,000,000 for the permanent agencies of the executive branch, the estimated cost of maintaining the judiciary is only about $6,500,000. An increase in the judicial personnel, which I earnestly recommend, would result in a hardly perceptible percentage of increase in the total annual budget.
This result should not be achieved, however, merely by creating new judicial positions in specific circuits or districts. The reform should be effectuated on the basis of a consistent system which would revitalize our whole judicial structure and assure the activity of judges at places where the accumulation of business is greatest. As congestion is a varying factor and cannot be foreseen, the system should be flexible and should permit the temporary assignment of judges to points where they appear to be most needed.
-209-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Selected Papers of Homer Cummings, Attorney General of the United States, 1933-1939.
Contributors: Carl Brent Swisher - Editor, Homer S. Cummings - Author.
Publisher: C. Scribner's Sons.
Place of publication: New York.
Publication year: 1939.
Page number: 209.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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