Pacific Mutual Inc. Co. v. Meldrim (Ga.), Ac- Paulson v. Jarvis (English), Liability of Mas- People v. Shwartz (Cal.), Appropriating Money Potorik v. State (N. Y.), Negligence-Proximate Prentiss v. Eisner (U. S. D. C.), Transfer Tax Not a Tax Which May be Deducted in Com- puting Federal Income Tax, R. D. 39. Reed v. Hollister (Cal.), Is One Who Drew Up Rex v. Vilma Isaacs (English), The Mens Rea Roy v. Kern (Mich.), Duty Owed to Invited Rubinson v. Rubinson (N. Y.), Annulling a Mar- St. Louis, Iron Mountain & So. Ry. Co. v. Wil- Schall v. Connors (U. S. S. C.), Unliquidated Seaboard Air Line Ry. Co. v. Oliver (U. S. C. Shaffer v. Carter (U. S. S. C.), Limitations on Power of a State to Tax Incomes of Non- Shea v. United States (U. S. C. C. A.), Additional Instructions to Juries After Disagreement, Urging Them to Reach a Result, R. D. 95. Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (U. (Cal.), Liability of Directors of Corpora- State Public U. Com. v. City of Quincy (Ill.), Stuart v. Clements (Ky.), Landlord and Ten- ant-Property in Manure, ann. case, 177. Sullivan v. City of Shreveport (U. s. S. C.), Validity of Ordinance Requiring Conductor and Motorman to Operate Cars, R. D. 169. Sutleff v. Sweetwater Co. (Cal.), Liability of the Owner of a Reservoir for Breaking Out Thomson Machine Co. v. Brown (N. J.), Injunc- Waldron v. The Director General (U. S. C. C. A.), Work for the Judicial Section to do, Warner V. Couchman (English), Construction of Phrase "Arising Out of the Employment" in Compensation Cases, Where the Action is (Mich.), Right of Insurance Company to Subrogation Where Insured's Loss Exceeds Wine v. United States (U. S. C. C. A.), Element Central Law Journal. ST. LOUIS, MO., JANUARY 2, 1920. THE CHIEF ISSUE FOR 1920-THE SUPREMACY OF LAW. When Judge Anderson of Indiana recently sentenced the president of the Kansas Coal Miners' Union for contempt for not calling off a strike as he had been commanded to do, he declared that it had become important in these days to determine whether any organization or any class of citizens are above the law. We have no intention to discuss the merits of the particular case; we wish merely to use it, and the remark of Judge Anderson, to call attention to what we regard as the most serious phase of the present unrest. No forward-looking citizen is alarmed at the multitude of proposals to change the law, no matter how radical or fantastical such proposals may be, for so long as citizens are content to achieve the realization of their dreams through the normal processes of legislation, there can be no serious. harm to the state, even from experiments in legislation which may later have to be discarded as impractical or unworkable. But when men with dreams are not content to wait upon the consent of the majority to put their dreams into effect but talk about putting down all opposition to their will by force or intimidation, there is reason. for every free American to set his jaw and square his shoulders and be prepared and vigilant to defend his dearly bought liberties. We do not wish to defend the so-called principle of "government by injunction." The writ of injunction is an ancient writ intended originally to grant relief where the common law was unable to do justice. Its issuance has always been carefully guarded by the courts and it has issued only where there was no other effective remedy. The demand of the labor unions that they shall be exempt from the compulsion of such a writ while all other persons shall remain subject to it is presumptuous in the extreme. A labor union can easily become as dangerous as a monopoly ever was, and the law cannot afford to dispense with its only effective remedy to deal with a situation which may threaten not only the rights of individual citizens but the very life of the nation itself. But whether there should or should not be restrictions placed upon the power of the court to issue the writ of injunction, the duty of every citizen is to respect the law and the order of the court enforcing the law until the law is changed. Any citizen who declares there are some laws that he will not respect, or that there are some officers of the law whose authority he will not recognize, is not a good citizen and should be promptly put in the category of enemies. to society. Let us be careful to put our finger on the real danger spot. It is not in Socialism nor any other platform for the reforms of society or government. It is not in attacks upon capital or upon officials or upon social organizations, or upon customs, or even upon the law itself. Everyone has the right to criticize existing institutions, customs and laws; everyone has the right to turn the spotlight of condemnation on public officials, and even judges are not exempt from such criticism. But the real danger is when men, members of a free society like the United States, refuse to accept the will of the majority and threaten to defy the law that they are unable to change through legal processes. The man who would destroy a society. in which he has equality of right with everyone else, because, forsooth, the majority of his fellow citizens will not accept his legislative proposals is either very ignorant of the essentials of a free government or he does not believe in a free government at all. Free societies have not discovered any better way to settle strife and differences of opinion in the state except by invoking the will of the majority. That will becomes for them the voice of the people, which is also, for the purpose of that government, the voice of God. Respect for law as representing the collective will is essential to the stability of every nation. No matter how citizens may differ on matters of policy and government, all must agree to abide by the result of the ballot; all must bow to the will of the majority until this will is changed by an appeal to the reason and conscience of the people. To attack the ballot box with a club is to strike down the most sacred right of a free manthe right to be his own sovereign. Men who attempt such a course are fit only to be ruled by an autocrat, since they are unfit to rule themselves. Respect for the courts is just as important as respect for the law, because the two are inseparable. The courts enforce the law in defense of the state and of the rights of the individual citizen, and no man would be safe or secure in his life, his liberty or his property, if the judgment of a court be not respected as the will of the nation to which every other will must submit. To resist the process of the court is therefore to defy society itself and set at naught the most important sanctions that guard the most cherished rights of free men. For 1920 the chief issue is the supremacy of law. We do not mean political issue 'because political parties could never divide on such an issue. We mean that it is an issue raised by foreign intermeddlers. in our affairs. A few men have thrown a lot of dust in the air and many people have become confused and cannot see clearly where their best interest lies. It is therefore the duty of the bar, not particularly to attack this or that reform as a political heresy, but to hold up to public scorn and condemnation the most terrible of all heresies the idea that a man can drive a dagger at the very heart of his government and then expect it to be able and willing to furnish him with that protection to his rights which he so vigorously demands. NOTES OF IMPORTANT DECISIONS. TIME CONSTITUTIONALITY OF WAR PROHIBITION.-There are many important implications in the recent decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries and Warehouse Co., sustaining the War Time Prohibition Act against constitutional objection. The chief implication is that important events which are the criteria of a change in legal conditions or obligations are not established by hearsay, or even the unofficial speeches of a President. The really important contention of the defendants in the Hamilton case was that the war was over, that peace had come de facto if not de jure, and that demobilization had been practically completed according to newspapers and even according to the admission of the President in vetoing the Volstead act. The term used to limit the operation of war time prohibition in point of time was the "conclusion of the war." A war is terminated by treaty and a treaty is effective only after it is ratified and until then we are technically if not actually at war. The "conclusion of the war” does not mean an armistice; it does not mean the date when a treaty of peace is signed; it means an absolute ending of the war by the ratification of a treaty of peace and the official proclamation of peace and of demobilization by the President. Only by such an official declaration, says the Court, can uncertainty be avoided. On this point the Court said: "Conclusion of the war' clearly did not mean cessation of hostilities, because the act was approved ten days after hostilities had ceased upon the signing of the armistice. Nor may we assume that Congress intended by the phrase to designate the date when the treaty of peace should be signed at Versailles or elsewhere by German and American representatives, since, by the Constitution, a treaty is only a proposal until approved by the Senate. * "It was expected that the 'conclusion of the war' would precede the termination of demobilization. Congress, therefore, provided that the time when the act ceased to be operative should be fixed by the President's ascertaining and proclaiming the date when demobilization had terminated. * "It is insisted that he has done so. The contention does violence to both the language and the evident purpose of the provision. When the President mentioned in his veto message the 'demobilization of the army and navy,' the words were doubtless used in a popular sense, just as he had declared to Congress, on the occasion of the signing of the armistice, "The war thus comes to an end.' "If he had believed on October 28, 1919, that demobilization had, in an exact sense, terminated, he would doubtless have issued then a proclamation to that effect, for he had manifested a strong conviction that restriction upon the sale of liquor should end. Only by such proclamation could the purpose of Congress be attained, and the serious consequences attending uncertainty be obviated." THE MENS REA IN FALSE PRETENSE CASES.-The English law journals are discussing a very novel point decided by the recent English case of Rex v. Vilma Isaacs (Times, Oct. 25th, 1919). The question was whether the intent in false pretenses cases must be an intent to defraud the prosecutor or whether an express intent to injure some third person other than the person from whom the goods are obtained would suffice to sustain the indictment. In this case a lady against whom a divorce nisi had been pronounced went to the prose cutors and obtained from them large quantities of jewelry and other goods. She obtained them by stating that she was the wife of the man from whom she had, in fact, just been divorced, and that he had distinguished relatives—a fact verbally true but essentially misleading. The false pretense alleged against her was that she falsely represented herself as entitled to pledge her husband's credit, a fact to her knowledge false, but which actually deceived the prosecutors; they did not know of the divorce. The defense raised, apart from the suggestion that her pretense was not false, but at least verbally true, was very curious. It was shown from the evidence that the accused had been actuated by spite against her husband, that she was about to go to America with the co-respondent, and that she desired to pile up debts against her husband before doing so, believing that his liability for his wife's debts extended to any goods obtained by her during wedlock. The court refused to allow the plea of the absence of criminal intent on the ground that the conduct of defendant was sufficient to raise a presumption of intent to defraud the owner of the goods. In commenting on this case the Solicitors Journal (Eng.) (Vol. 64, p. 47) says: "The plea was that, believing this erroneous doctrine, the lady desired to defraud her husband and not the tradesmen, whom she believed could secure payment by legal proceedings against her husband. In other words, there was 'no intent to defraud' the prosecutor, but only a third party: R. v. Jones, 1898, 1 Q. B. 118; R. v. Muirhead, 1 Cr. App. R. 189; R. v. Hunt, 13 Cr. App. R. 55. There is a good deal of authority in support of this view. But the Court of Criminal Appeal disposed of this ingenious plea by cutting, rather than untying, the Gordian knot. They held that the facts supported the view that the goods were obtained fraudulently with an intent to deceive the owners, who would not have parted with them but for the false pretense. Such deception, and the consequent acquisition of the goods without payment, constituted a fraud on the owner, whether or not they could ultimately have recovered against her husband. This is sound common sense. But it does not altogether settle the main issue--namely, whether a conviction is possible where there has been no fraud on the owner of the goods, if such a case can in fact exist." THE PLUMB PLAN FOR THE CONTROL OF THE RAILROADS.* The great interest in the Plumb plan being taken by the public is partly due to the concern the people feel regarding the solution of the railroad problem, which is the most important of our reconstruction problems. But it is significant that the interest shown in the Plumb plan is greater than that manifested in any other plan which has been proposed for the solution of the railroad problem. Undoubtedly this is because the public recognizes the fact that the implications of the Plumb plan are much broader than the railroad problem. The public more or less clearly sees that the Plumb plan is one important expression of a movement for the revolution of industry and government which is being promoted by leaders of radical thought and action in every civilized. *This article is by Hon. Samuel O. Dunn, Editor of the Railway Age, and one of the best informed men on railroad administration in the country. Mr. Dunn is also a lawyer and his discussion takes into account the legal principles involved in the problem.-Ed. country. The main object of these radical leaders is the destruction of so-called "capitalism," which is merely another word for the private ownership of property. They, like the socialists, would vest the ownership of all property in the public; but, unlike the socialists, they would turn the management of the various industries over to those employed in them. The Plumb plan is simply the application to the railroads of the soviet scheme of public ownership and employes' management. If it should be applied to the railroads there immediately would be a demand for its application to other larger industries. The United Mine Workers already have declared in favor of nationalization of the coal mines and the participation of the employes in their management. It is because the Plumb plan puts into concrete form the most radical current theories as to how property should be owned and managed that it is so important; and it is because the public sees that the adoption of the Plumb plan would be the beginning of a great revolution in industry and government that it is taking so much interest in it and also manifesting so much hostility to it. The Plumb plan contemplates, first, the acquisition of the railroads by the government, and then the turning of them over to the management of a board of directors one-third of whose members would be appointed by the President of the United States, one-third by the officers of the railroads and one-third by the employes. The advocates of the Plumb plan claim that by this means vast economies would be effected. The first of these economies would be a reduction of several hundred millions of dollars a year in the return which must be paid on railroad capital. They say, first, that the railroad companies claim the value of their properties is $20,000,000,000, and that the companies must be paid a return upon this amount of at least 6 or 61⁄2 per cent. We have never heard any spokesman of the railroads claim that, with the present investment, they should be allowed a return upon as much as $20,000,000,000. We have heard them claim a valuation of the properties would amount to this, but the railway companies never advocated, and do not now advocate, valuation as a basis for rate-making. Having asserted that the railways claim a return upon $20,000,000,000, Mr. Plumb and other advocates of his plan proceed to attack the capitalization and the "book cost" or property investment account of the railways upon the alleged ground that they have been watered to the extent of eight or ten billion dollars. They say that when the railroads are acquired under the Plumb plan all this water will be squeezed out and that a large saving will be made because no return will have to be paid upon it. We sometimes wonder if these gentleman really know what the net capitalization and the book cost of the railroads actually are. We will say nothing about the net capitalization because it is smaller than the book cost of the properties as reported to the Interstate Commerce Commission. The book cost of road and equipment as reported for 1916, the latest year for which the statistics have been compiled, was $17,526,000,000. Prior to 1907 this account on many roads undoubtedly was made higher or lower than the actual investment, since each company had up to that time kept its accounts as it thought best. Since 1907, however, all accounts have been kept as required by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Therefore it must be assumed that all additions made to the book cost of road and equipment since 1907 represent actual investment, dollar for dollar. If that account has been watered it must have been done before 1907. Now, in 1907 the railways reported a total cost of road and equipment of $13,030,000,000. If, as is alleged, the book cost has been watered to |