Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/268

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT

CURRENT

LEGAL

243

LITERATURE

This dtpartmtnt is designed to call attention to the articles in all the leading legalperiodicals of the preceding month and to new law boots sent usfor review. Conducted by William C. Gray, of Fall River, Mass. The San Francisco schools and Japan stand out prominently in the legal literature of the past month. Several of the leading articles discuss at length. questions of constitutional and international law and interpretation of treaties suggested by Japan's protest, especi ally the very important and unsettled matter of the extent of the treaty-making power of our federal government. The student of comparative jurisprudence will find much to in terest in the article on the Japanese family in The Law Quarterly Review from the pen of Munroe Smith, with its introductory sketch of the legal history of the island kingdom of the Pacific. The other articles of the month noted below offer a wide range of choice for the seeker of legal reading. AUTOMOBILES. "The Regulation of Motor Cars at Home and Abroad," by Edward Manson, Journal of the Society of Compara tive Legislation (No. 16, p. 333). BANKRUPTCY. " Conflict of Laws With in the Empire: Bankruptcy and Company Winding-up," by Harrison Moore, Journal of Society of Comparative Legislation (No. 16, P- 384). BIOGRAPHY. " Thomas Mclntyre Cooley," by Jerome C. Knowlton. March Michigan Law Review (V. v, p. 309). BIOGRAPHY. " Lord Chancellor Erskine," by J. A. Lovat-Fraser, in Juridical Review (V. xviii, p. 357). CONFLICT OF LAWS (see Equity). CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. " The State Tax on Illinois Central Gross Receipts and the Commerce Power of Congress," by Henry B. Schofield, February Illinois Law Review (V. i, p. 440). CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. Frederick J. Stimson in the North American Review (V. clxxxiv, p. 508), briefly discusses " The Consti tution and Popular Liberty," and calls atten tion to the fact that our government is not only a democracy, but it is a " republic." "It is the function of a democratic govern ment to enforce the will of the majority, but it is the function of a constitutional govern ment also to protect the minority, even the individual, against the majority, against even the executive or a legislature transcending its

admitted powers." The author believes we are inclined to forget the importance of these restraints, and should hesitate to assume that any of them has grown obsolete. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. Chief Justice Walter Clark of North Carolina, in the Feb ruary Arena (V. xxxvii, p. 141), takes a very different attitude from Mr. Stimpson in an article entitled " Constitutional Changes De manded to Bulwark Democratic Government." He advocates calling a constitutional conven tion to make the following amendments: 1. Election of senators, judges, and post masters by the people. 2. The electoral vote of each state to be divided pro rata, according to popular vote therein for each candidate. 3. Term of President six years and inel igible for reelection. 4. Repeal or modification of the fourteenth amendment. 5. Each Congress to expire at the election of its successor. He insists that the Constitution is not democratic and was made under reactionary influences; that conditions of society have so changed that it is impossible that a constitu tion should be fully adapted both to condi tions now and to conditions then. He even goes so far as to say that " an instrument so framed, adopted with such difficulty, and rati fied after such efforts and by such narrow margins, could not have been a fair and full expression of the consent of the governed."