CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

AMENDMENT OF LAWS RELATING TO THE JUDICIARY.

MAY 16, 1918.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. STEELE, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the

following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 12001.]

The Committee on the Judiciary, having had under consideration the bill (H. R. 12001) to amend an act entitled "An act to codify, revise, and amend the laws relating to the judiciary, approved March 3, 1911," report the same to the House with the recommendation that the bill do pass.

The first two sections of the bill attempt to fix the compensation of district and circuit judges. Their present compensation is fixed at $6,000 per annum for the former and $7,000 per annum for the latter, by act of February 12, 1903, chapter 547. The compensation mentioned was subsequently incorporated in sections 2 and 118 of the Judicial Code, approved March 3, 1911. It was not until the passage of the act of 1903 that the flat salary plan of paying district and circuit judges was inaugurated. An examination of the early legislation upon this subject shows that the salaries in the several judicial districts varied from 1789 to 1903 continuously. In 1830 a general act was passed providing for the compensation of the district judges in the several districts. Under this act the salaries varied quite materially. In 1855, another general act was passed proceeding on exactly the same basis, namely, a variation of salaries in the different districts. The same thing was done in 1866 and again in the Revised Statutes of 1873.

The salaries of the judges of the districts of Massachusetts, northern, southern, and eastern districts of New York, eastern and western districts of Pennsylvania, northern district of Illinois and New Jersey, and the districts of Ohio have only been increased $2,000 in the last half century. In 1857 the salaries of the judges in these districts were fixed at $4,000 per annum and apparently remained at that figure until 1903, when the general increase to $6,000 was made. In

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the meantime in the New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey districts the salaries of the State judges have increased considerably more than 100 per cent. In Pennsylvania the judges of the supreme court receive $13,000 per annum and of the superior court $12,000 per annum. That State, with a population of about 8,000,000, is paying its judges more than the United States is paying its judiciary for administering justice to more than 100,000,000 people. The common pleas judges of Pennsylvania are compensated on the basis of population. The State judges of the courts of the southern district of New York, having concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal courts, receive a salary of $12,000 per annum.

This situation, which is not confined to the States mentioned, attracts to the State bench men of the highest talent and frequently operates to the detriment of the Federal bench.

With the great increase in Federal activities in recent years the work and responsibility of Federal judges have correspondingly increased. To them our people are frequently compelled to trust their lives, their fortunes, and their honor. All right-thinking people will agree that the public is entitled to judicial service of the highest order and that judges should receive sufficient compensation to at least pay their fair living expenses. In order to render the most efficient service they should be adequately paid and freed from all worries of a financial character. Manifestly, in fixing an adequate compensation the cost of living must be considered. In the recent consideration of pension legislation by Congress and of an act to increase the compensation of postal employees it was shown that the purchasing value of a dollar to-day is about one-half what it was prior to the European war. Congress should at least be as fair to the judiciary, a coordinate branch of the Government, as it is to inferior officers and employees.

In statements submitted to the committee, in the consideration of this bill, it was shown that in recent years a number of able and efficient judges were compelled to leave the bench because their salaries were insufficient to maintain their families. Many judges remain upon the bench at great financial sacrifice, simply because of their devotion to their judicial duties and the honor of their judicial position. In large centers of population, however, any man fitted for the Federal bench could make many times the salary at private practice. The ideal principle of compensation would be to make it proportionate to the service rendered. To apply this principle, however, to the various judicial districts throughout the United States would be quite impossible. It was concluded, therefore, to fix a minimum compensation and make any compensation beyond the minimum dependent upon the population of the judicial district. This method has worked satisfactorily in a number of States. Increase in population usually results in an increased volume of litigation, and taking into account the variations that must necessarily occur in the different districts, it was thought to afford a fairer basis for compensation than any other method that could be adopted. The bill therefore fixes the minimum compensation of district judges at $6,500, and an increase at the rate of $500 for each half million of population in the district in excess of the first 500,000, with a maximum compensation of $10,000 a year. Circuit judges to receive a salary of $1,000 in excess of those paid to district judges, with the

same provisions for an increase up to a maximum of $11,000 per year.

Representatives of the Judiciary appeared before the committee and approved of the principle of making population the basis of compensation. In a statement submitted to the committee they set forth their reasons for such approval, as follows:

The present salary of district judges is uniform throughout the country, taking note neither of the variation in the amount of work cast upon the shoulders of the respective judges nor of the vast difference in the cost of living in the different districts.

In fact, the system is now so arranged that the judges of the districts having the least work to do may receive, in fact, what amounts to additional compensation over those judges whose districts are so crowded with work that they are compelled to stay at home. For instance, the judges of the metropolitan districts, as the southern district of New York, or Chicago or Boston, for example, perform their duties almost exclusively in those cities, respectively. Considering New York City, the judges there maintain themselves upon a salary of $6,000. Their work is assisted by two provisions of law, first, by the general act providing that their senior circuit judge may assign district judges in the same circuit to hold court outside of their respective districts, and second, by the act of October, 1913, which gives the Chief Justice of the United States authority to designate any district judge from any part of the country to hold court in New York City. By virtue of the general provision alluded to, the judges of the country districts of the second circuit are frequently at work in New York City. Take, for illustration, the judge of the Vermont district. He is able to, and does in fact, spend a great deal of time in New York City, or in Brooklyn, and, to a lesser extent, the judges of the northern district of New York and Connecticut do the same. The same situation obtains in Boston, where the local judge is assisted extensively by the judges from Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, and in Chicago, where judges from the two rural Illinois districts and from the western districts of Wisconsin hold court extensively. Each of these visiting judges receives the same salary as the local judges, but, in addition, holding court away from his home, he is maintained at the Government's expense, his traveling expenses and all the expenses of his maintenance up to the sum of $10 per day being borne by the Government under section 259, Judicial Code. This is equivalent in some cases to a substantial increase in salary by way of relieving the judge of expense of personal maintenance, but it is something which the judge of a big district rarely gets.

There is no entirely satisfactory criterion by which may be arranged varying compensations according to the responsibilities and burdens cast upon the judges of the several districts, for the reason that there is a great lack of uniformity in the character and amount of business brought to the attention of the courts. Most of the districts have no admiralty business at all; in others this is a substantial item. Respecting crime, comparisons are practically impossible; the number of indictments found does not even indicate crudely the volume of business. In the moonshine districts, a grand jury may turn out a hundred or more indictments, most of which are disposed of by pleas, and in no case does a jury trial exceed a day or two in time, while in the metropolitan districts one fraud case, or a conspiracy case, or an interstate commerce case under the act of February, 1913, these being the most conspicuous lines of criminal activity in the heavy districts, may consume two or six weeks in trial. The same may be said of civil cases to which the Government is a party. When the number of cases brought is considered, they likewise have little value as indicating the burden they cast upon the various courts. A great majority of these cases are disposed of by compromise and adjustment. This is especially true of internal revenue cases, where compromise by the approval of the Treasury Department is directly provided for by law, and it is very seldom that an hour of service case, for instance, is the subject of a trial or lengthy consideration by the court, and, as the reports of the Attorney General prove, the same may be said to be the fact with reference to such offenses as those under the land laws, and cases under other civil legislation of the same general character. The litigation before the district courts which most closely approximates uniformity throughout the country, and which is most nearly indicative of the importance of the various courts as to amount of work actually done, is in bankruptcy and in ordinary civil causes. The number of these cases, with the amount of assets administered in the first case and judgments rendered in the second, most nearly, but still roughly, indicate the extent of the courts' duties in the various districts, the laws clothing the court with jurisdiction in each instance being uniform in character and the activities productive of litigation being of uniform operation throughout the country.

It is suggested that the most reasonable method of arranging a variation in compensation according to the importance of the duty and the nature of the court's work is according to population of the several districts. This plan has been tried in some of the States respecting State judges with some success, notably in Ohio, where there is a nisi prius judge in each county, the salary beginning with a fixed amount in the smaller counties, and increasing to the maximum in the large counties according to variation in population.

This criterion, however, is not absolute. Of necessity, it produces some inconsistencies, but not sufficient to affect it as the most reliable guide, for its application will go far to correct, what must occur to everybody, a manifest injustice and, wherever there appears on the statistics a seeming discrimination, when the apparent volume of work seems to entitle one district to be in a higher class or another district to be in a class lower than its business statistics would indicate, in such instances another important factor of consideration operates in some degree as a corrective and that is the cost of living. Generally speaking, in the districts having the largest population are located courts where the cost of living is the highest, because they are the districts in which the metropolitan centers occur, wherein of necessity the courts sit and the judges must reside.

SCHEDULE OF SALARIES PAYABLE UNDER THE BILL; TABULATION OF DISTRICTS INCLUDED IN VARIOUS CLASSES; AND TOTAL ANNUAL INCREASE OF SALARIES UNDER THE BILL.

TABULATION OF DISTRICTS.

Class 1: Southern district of Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, northern of Florida, southern of Florida, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, eastern of Washington, Wyoming.

Class 2: Middle of Alabama, eastern of Arkansas, western of Arkansas, southern of California (two judges), Colorado, eastern of Louisiana, western of Louisiana, Maine, northern of Mississippi, North Dakota, eastern of Oklahoma, western of Oklahoma, Oregon (two judges), Rhode Island, eastern of South Carolina, western of South Carolina, South Dakota, eastern of Tennessee, middle of Tennessee, western of Tennessee, southern of Texas, western of Washington (two judges), northern of West Virginia, southern of West Virginia.

Class 3: Northern of Alabama, northern of California (two judges), Connecticut, northern of Georgia, southern of Georgia, eastern of Illinois, southern of Illinois, northern of Iowa, southern of Iowa, eastern of Kentucky, western of Kentucky, Maryland, western of Michigan, southern of Mississippi, Nebraska (two judges), eastern of North Carolina, western of North Carolina, northern of Texas, eastern of Texas, western of Texas, eastern of Virginia, western of Virginia, eastern of Wisconsin, western of Wisconsin.

Class 4: Kansas, eastern of Michigan, eastern of Missouri, western of Missouri, northern of New York, western of New York, middle of Pennsylvania.

Class 5: Minnesota, eastern of New York, northern of Ohio, southern of Ohio. Class 6: Eastern of Pennsylvania, western of Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Jersey. Class 7: Northern of Illinois, Massachusetts.

Class 8: Southern district of New York.

Schedule of salaries payable under bill, with minimum for district judges of $6,500, maximum of $10,000, and increase at the rate of $500 per 500,000 of population, and showing total annual increase.