Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/133

 Review of Periodicals

AMONG all the current magazines there is no article more brilliant or more carefully prepared than Pro fessor John H. Wigmore's crushing reply in the Illinois Law Review to the arraignment of the legal profession in Professor Muensterberg's book "On the Witness Stand." An article that should be read by every one interested in theoretical politics and jurisprudence is Mr. James Bryce's recent address as president of the American Political Science Association, printed in the American Political Science Review. Sir Frederick Pollock, in the January Law Quarterly Review, gives a most illumi nating account of the working of the committee system in its manifold phases, in English government and society. When one approaches problems of more direct concern to our American nation, there is no more timely article, pos sibly, than Congressman A. P. Gardner's paper on "The Rules of the House of Representatives," which is printed in the February North American Review. Admiralty. "Maritime Salvage and Char tered Freight, A Rejoinder." By H. Birch Sharpe. 25 Law Quarterly Review 70 (Jan.). Australia. See Procedure. Bill of Rights. "The Decay of Present Rights and Guarantees." By Richard Evelyn Byrd. 18 Yale Law Journal 252 (Feb.). This paper reviews decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the following cases: Mitchell v. Clark, 110 U. S. 633, justify ing a statute making obedience to an order of the President during the Civil War a de fense to any action or prosecution for acts committed under such an order; the case of Ju Toy, 198 U. S. 253, marking what the author terms "the advance of administrative usurpation," the decision being that the finding of the immigration officials who ordered

deportation was conclusive; the case of Miller v. Horton, 152 Mass. 540, where the Supreme Court on the contrary reviewed a decision of state commissioners; Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U. S. 197, in which the Court held that Mankichi was not entitled to the constitu tional guarantee of jury trial, this case over ruling, according to the author, Webster v. Reid (11 Howard 437), American Publishing Co. y. Fisher (166 U. S. 464), Springfield v. Thomas (166 U. S. 707), and Thompson v. Utah (170 U. S. 243), all of which decided that the constitutional right of jury trial applied to all territories; Trono v. United States, 199 U. S. 521, denying the benefit of the jeopardy clause to an inhabitant of the Philippines; Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 222, holding that the tariff provisions of the Con stitution did not apply to Porto Rico; Dorr v. United States, 195 U. S. 138, following the reasoning of the Mankichi case. From his review of these cases, the author concludes:— "If the Constitution can only be carried into territories of the United States by an Act of Congress, then the Constitution has no other sanction than the Act itself, and it is carried not as the Constitution, but as the will of Congress. "Therefore, an Act of Congress can repeal the rights which the Act created, and the people of such territories can only have a legislative recognition for such rights as they are allowed to possess, and these rights may be taken away by the same power that gave them "In five years we have seen Constitutional guarantees for a hundred years deemed impregnable, crumble in the hands of the Court. We are told that the writ of habeas corpus, the right to trial by jury, the exemp tion from prosecution for a felony save by the presentment or indictment of a grand jury, the mandate for uniform tariffs and excises are not of the essence of rights, but in their application to be controlled by policy and convenience. "It cannot be denied that these insular decisions have opened the door wide to the doctrine of amendment by interpretation, and that since these decisions it cannot be said that the Constitution is inviolate in its written provisions. . ." Blockade. "Holland v. Venezuela." See Editorial note. 34 Law Magazine and Review 208 (Feb.). "The Dutch action in Venezuela does not