One of the real causes for the discontent with the administration of justice in our state courts, and particularly in the larger cities, is that judges are nominated and elected not because of their legal ability and personal character, but because of their party affiliations or their supposed friendship or sympathy for or inclination to favor one class as against another. If the personnel of our Court of Appeals and Appellate Divisions has thus far been kept uniformly high and pure, it is because of the constant efforts of the bar. If labor organizations and the people at large will now cooperate with the bar, who in this matter are the proper leaders of public opinion, there will be infinitely less occasion for complaints of delay or incompetency or partiality in the administration of justice. The multiplication of incompetent judges means the multiplication of the causes of delay, new trials, denial or miscarriage of justice, expense, discontent and suspicion. The cure for these evils is with the people themselves, and it will be brought about only when they shall insist upon the nomination and election of lawyers of learning, character and independence. It must be plain to all who have studied the facts and reflected upon existing tendencies that during the past twenty years the amendments to the laws regulating nomination and election to public office have served to strengthen and perpetuate the control of political leaders and political machines. Many bills introduced and loudly acclaimed as reforms have in truth proved to be not reforms at all, but steps in the dark and backward. Some of our correspondents blame the courts for the "law's delay," yet there is no defect in our system for which competent judges are less responsible. In most instances of delay in civil cases, the blame belongs to the lawyers. Nothing has done more to bring the administration of justice into disrepute than the practice of adjourning cases term after term and year after year on excuses which sometimes are not well founded. There need be no unreasonable delay even in the city of New York, and would not be, if lawyers were ready to try their cases when they are first reached on the calendars. The judges are constantly complaining of the dilatoriness of the bar. Another cause of delay is the practice of bringing suits and taking appeals for the purpose of coercing settlements. A higher sense of professional responsibility ought to be cultivated, and there should be some severe penalty or professional ostracism for lawyers who abuse the process of the courts of justice and disregard the ethics of their profession.