Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/64

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT in an article on "Corporations in the District of Columbia," by Fred. Dennett in the Wash ington Law Reporter of November 25th (vol. xxxii, p. 758), considering the right of a cor poration organized under the Code when sued in a state court to remove to a Federal Court. A citizen of the District has no such right. Is the corporation a citizen of the District? Since corporate existence can be created only by a sovereign power through its legislative body, "if there exists no sovereign power in the District of Columbia acting through a legislative body to create, there can be no citi zenship of the corporations under discussion." The author contends that "Congress cannot bestow the power on the District." The right of a territory to create a corporation is bestowed under the authority "to invest a territory with general legislative powers." "The clause of the constitution giving this constructive authority is much more general in its terms than that which provides for the control of the seat of government, and which lodges exclusive authority thereover in the Congress of the United States; under it gen eral legislative authority cannot be delegated to its local government. "It is held that the District of Columbia, be ing a distinct political society, may be classed as a State according to the definition of writers on general law, but that it does not come under the term 'State' as referred to in the Constitution of the United States." The political status of the District is that of a municipal corporation; this, in the United States has not the power to create a corpora tion. Congress, however, is a legislative body having constitutional power to pass laws gov erning the District of Columbia. "Has it such a separable dual authority that it can be construed to have the power to divorce itself of its Federal character, when acting on legislative matters concerning the District of Columbia, and act on these occa sions merely as a District legislature, thus im parting a sovereign character to the District?" The author holds that it has not, that the District has not of itself the power to create a corporation and that it cannot be delegated to it, that the Acts of Congress relating to it are of national authority though of limited appli cation. Hence any corporation organized un

S3

der the Code is organized under the laws of the United States. It has been settled that the Federal Courts have jurisdiction of a cause to which a national bank is a party since the law under which it was organized was neces sarily put in issue. Corporations of the Dis trict have, therefore, the right of removal, if the law under which they are organized is constitutional. Though Congress would not have power to enact a general corporation law, under the power to legislate for the Dis trict, it may authorize the organization of corporations "to do business therein, the power remaining in the various States to rec ognize such corporations or not when attempt ing to do business outside."

ANOTHER article of present interest by Ditlew M. Frederiksen in the Michigan Law Review for December (Vol. iii., p. 119) dis cusses "The Old Common Law and the New Trusts" from a point of view somewhat dif ferent from that of many recent students of this important topic. Like them he finds analogous situations under early English eco nomic conditions, and collects voluminous in stances of ancient regulations of all industries in the days when free competition was the exception. He finds something more far-reaching; than the law of "public callings" in "the laws against forestalling, regrating, and en grossing" which in modern times have been "overshadowed " by the laws against combina tions and agreements in restraint of trade. In reality they furnish a safer means of regulat ing the trusts as combinations and conspiracies are hard to prove, and the injunctions for bidding them are, if possible, still harder to enforce. ' ' Most of the present anti-trust laws can hardly be called intelligent. People are there forbidden to combine and ordered to compete. Ordinary acts of leading citizens are called crimes, and are from the nature of things left unpunished. We have developed and are harp ing upon the criminal laws against combina tions, and conspiracies, and have overlooked the old civil laws regulating prices and profits. If the rates themselves of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern were always reasonable and proper, it would not matter who held their