ITEMS OF INTEREST March 4, 1911 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Not for years have so many far-reaching principles relating to interstate commerce been decided by the supreme court of the United States as were established last week. Among the questions decided were these: That the passenger has no right to buy tickets with services, advertising, releases, or property, not can the railroad company buy services, advertising, releases, or property with transportation; that a state law regulating the size of crews on trains within the state is not an obstruction to interstate commerce, but is enacted rather in aid of interstate commerce, and may be passed by a state for the public safety; that the supreme court will review the validity of an order of the interstate commerce commission, even though the two-year limitation on the life of the order has expired; that a railway system may not escape regulation as an instrument of interstate commerce because one of its constituent parts is a wharfage company, and its domination power over the wharfage company rests in the fact that it is a holding company; that the interstate commerce commission does not possess the power to reduce a rate as "unjust and unreasonable" merely because the rate is inequitable under some circumstances, as in cases where railroads induce shippers to enter a field by offering rates so low as to be unremunerative, and later increase the rates; the court also held constitutional a state statute providing that no contract of relief, benefit, or insurance should be a bar to the right of a railroad employe engaged in the operation of a railroad to sue the employer for damages resulting from injuries received in the course of his employment.

The National Economic League has decided by a poll of its eight hundred members in all parts of the United States that the answer to this question, What are the subjects of greatest public importance in the United States, is: First, direct legislation, including primary nominations, the election of United States senators by the people, and the initiative, referendum, and recall; second, the inefficiency and delay of the courts in administering justice. From a preliminary ballot of fifty-four subjects, eleven were chosen by a process of elimination. Those considered of the greatest importance to be taken up by the league this year besides the two already named are as follows, in the order of their importance: and control of corporations, centralization of power in the federal Government, conservation of national resources, the tariff, the public school system in relation to physical, intellectual, civic, moral, and vocational training; efficiency and economy in federal, state, and municipal administration; corporation influence in politics; taxation; relations between employers and workmen. The council of the league represents equally, in proportion to population, every state in the Union. In its mombership are presidents of universities, professors of political economy, judges, lawyers, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, etc. The intention has been to make it inclusive, so far as possible, of all classes, interests, and opinions.

"Modern American lawyers have made a fetish of procedure and have created a mass of artifiial rules which in some states present as great an obstacle to reaching the judgment-seat as did the common law rules of pleading before the English judicature form acts," said Attorney-General Wickersham at the dedication dedication of the new law department building of Georgetown University. He said it was the privilege of young men now entering the profession to contribute in the work of clearing away this mass of worse than useless machinery, and of substituting a few simple regulations. "To the effective accomplishment of such reform," said Mr. Wickersham, "an accvrate knowledge of conditions and requirement is indispensable. More harm is done by ill-considered reforms than by a continuance of existing evils. It is always important, too, that changes in law or procedure shall be developed along lines of established and well recognized principles, rather than across the grain, as it were, with no continuity between the new regualtion and the old."

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