Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/663

 628

The Green Bag

of obscurity from which few statesmen return, and the other, the most sinister figure of them all, is a prisoner in a Salonikan villa." Franz Ferdinand of Austria he calls "one of the most mysterious figures in the Europe of today. Forty-six years old, a student, a thinker, horticulture his only hobby, married morganatically to the Countess Sophie Chotek,. . . if he had not been born an archduke he would have been a Jesuit." Between Emperor William and Franz Ferdi nand of Hapsburg—"was ever a more illmated pair—lies the fate of Europe." Evidence. "Circumstantial Evidence." By Clark Bell, LL.D. 27 Medico-Legal Journal 56 (Sept.). A reprint of the recent symposium in the New York Herald on the question: "Would you, if you were on a jury, send a man to the electric chair on purely circumstantial evi dence" "Always lawyers have taken opposing yiews, one side arguing that circumstantial evidence is the best possible, the other that no man ever should be deprived of life on any testi mony that is not absolutely direct." Extradition. "De l'Extradition en Matiere De Crimes Soidisant Politiques." By S. G. Archibald. 36 Journal de Droit International Privi 1015. This is a note on the facts of the Rudowiiz case and is based on Professor Maxey's article in the April (1909) number of the Green Bag (21 G. B. 147). The author does not attempt to throw any light on the difficult question of the exact definition of a political crime:— "La difficulty inherente a toutes ces ques tions d'extradition consiste en la nature complexe de certains crimes politiques, et il est impossible de poser une regie que permettrait de determiner infailliblement si certains crimes sont en principe politiques, ou en principe d'ordre priveV' Government. "The Share of America in Civilization." By Joachim Nabuco. Ameri can Historical Review, v. 15, p. 54 (Oct.). "Certainly there are elements fundamen tally English in the American democracy, as there are others that are Graeco- Latin. One cannot break the chain that binds through history the evolution of an idea or of a sentiment, but the American democracy is genuinely new, a new design; the ancients did not produce it, nor would Europe have produced it. So you can claim it for America as a contribution to civilization, not because the republican government could be called a higher form of civilization than the mo narchical parliamentary government, but be cause by its competition and by the silent lesson of immigration, it has exercised the most beneficent influence on the evolution of the monarchical government in Europe. "'Security' or the Single Chamber?"

Editorial. Fortnightly Review, v. 86, p. 567 (Oct.). "The United States have a system so difficult to change that we might say that 'superfluous stability' is its chief defect. They have the written Constitution, the Senate, the Supreme Court, each of them exercising a strong check on financial policy. . . . No society except the United States has a greater series of guarantees against sweeping and adventurous change of any kind than the German Empire enjoys. . . . "The real constitutional question before this country is whether it shall adhere to the system based on the idea of social and national 'security' characteristic of the United States and Germany and France, or whether we shall adopt the system characteristic of Servia and San Domingo." "Ethics and Politics." By R. M. Maclver. International Journal of Ethics, v. 20, p. 72 (Oct.). This article, while not of any considerable scientific value, suggests a great number of points requiring to be handled with a method of rigorous analysis. The subject calls for greater precision of statement and directness of logic. The general drift of the article is indicated by the following extract:—"Just as economic science investigates one form of social activity, political science investigates and abstracts another. These various sciences give the basis of ethics, which must regard man in the total humanity into which the different social relationships enter. But since conduct is an expression of the whole character of a man, the sciences just mentioned can never be truly normative. Ethics alone stands out as the science of conduct, because it alone can look beyond the various particular spheres, and, regarding man as in his complete self-consciousness he presents the world of his activity to him self, can thus alone lay stress on motive, the inward and vital principle of action." See Interstate Commerce, Legislative Pow ers, Taxation, Waters. International Law. See Casablanca Case. Copyright, Declaration of London, Extra dition, Treaty Power. Interstate Commerce. "The President Re ports Progress." By Henry Beech Needham. Everybody's, v. 21, p 615 (Nov.). "Of the regulation of the great corporation in general, nothing had been accomplished. President Roosevelt had tried—had tried in vain; for Congress would not act on his recom mendations. Within less than five months. President Taft succeeded in this all-important matter. Through the exercise of the taxing power, the affairs of all corporations, intra state as well as interstate, are brought within the purview of the United States govern ment. . . . The measure, which is to the sole credit of President Taft, gives to the federal government an unprecedented power