counties to subscribe stock to railroads, in Iowa, has often been before the courts. The decisions have been numerous, but not unanimous or uniform. At no time has the supreme court of the state by unanimous decision held that the power existed; but on several occasions the court has united in deciding that the power did not exist, the constitutionality of such right depending entirely upon who were elected judges. Thus the fundamental law, which can only be changed by amendment in the manner provided, has been held to permit or forbid public aid in building railroads, as suited the peculiar views of the men who had been elected judges. What was constitutional one day was unconstitutional the next. The decision of the men who happened to occupy seats upon the supreme bench, has been the supreme law, and not the constitution. On the question of voting local aid to railroads the supreme court decided that the act of the legislature authorizing such aid was unconstitutional. In one year from that time the same supreme court, three judges concurring, decided that the law was constitutional, the reason of this variance being that in the interim two judges had retired from the bench and two new ones been elected in their place. Here, again, the will of the men who happened to be elected changed the meaning of the constitution. The same curious history has been enacted in many other states. When men who are interested in railroads, or who desire that the public should aid in their construction, occupy seats on the bench of the supreme court, the constitution is construed to allow such aid, and where the judges are opposed to the allowance of such aid, they decide the constitution does not authorize, but forbids it. In each case the fundamental law is interpreted to suit the peculiar views of the judges who occupy the bench, until it has ceased to have any binding effect. With this state of facts, known to all men, it is not strange that the people now demand pledges from men who aspire to judicial station. When state constitutions are made to mean anything or nothing, as suits the men whose duty it is to interpret them, and when laws are pronounced constitutional or unconstitutional, as caprice or the interests of corporations may prompt, "nature's first law, self-preservation," demands that those who aspire to become judges of courts should be controlled by the constitution rather than by their personal views as to what it should be; and that they should be fully committed and pledged to abstain from judicial constructions of the constitution which abridge the rights of the people and increase the power of corporations. While the decisions of the state courts have tended to abridge the rights of the people and increase the already too great power of corporations; while they have, in fact, decided that, under the constitution, a citizen can be compelled to bestow a part of what he possesses upon railroad corporations without an equivalent, the