Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/638

 598

The Green Bag

commerce and the fares and rates therein, the latter must prevail because that which is not supreme must yield to that which is supreme."

the interstate commerce clause as has been supposed to have occurred. Not long ago a Southern state official who went West to attend the meeting

It is difﬁcult to imagine what there

of Attomeys-General was amazed to hear Westerners talking state rights with

was in this decision to excite the ire of the Governors of twenty-ﬁve states. Throughout Judge Sanborn recognized the right of the states to regulate com merce purely of an intra-state character. Can the Governors have read the deci sion? Governor Harman, in fact, con

an utter lack of moderation. While he was himself a ﬁrm believer in state rights in the sense in which that term is generally understood by conservative Southern Democrats, he felt a duty to rest upon him, the representative of a

fessed that he had not heard of it before he attended the Conference. Governor

state that had poured out her blood for the sake of Calhounism, to remind his

Aldrich of Nebraska showed his lack of ability to take an unprejudiced view of the matter, by his intemperate denunci

associates from the Vest that their doctrine of state rights was of an en tirely different brand than that with which he was familiar. The action of the House of Governors,

ation of those minor federal judges who are “trying to tyrannize state govern

Governor Hadley of Missouri while of itselfdramatic rather than argu has long agitated too assiduously this mentative, and offering no criticisms of issue of state regulation of rates to be the law which may be seriously weighed, in a position to speak with authority. ‘ may nevertheless be a surface indica ments."

Of the other Governors the majority voted on political party lines, affecting disdain for the centralizing tendencies of

the Administration, which are supposed even to impair the independence of the Supreme Court. It was a singular situation, conducive to the triumph of overzealous partisanship, and crowned

with a sensational exploit. While it is scarcely to be supposed

that the House of Governors would have passed such an important vote without having the text of Judge Sanborn's opinion before them, we are inclined to

the belief that their action is to be explained only on the theory that the majority of those present had taken no pains to study it. We ﬁnd nothing in

Judge Sanborn’s decision opposed to the doctrine already laid down by the late Mr. Justice Harlan in the Western

tion of the direction in which a certain current of public opinion may have been moving since the doctrine of state burdens on interstate commerce was ﬁrst declared. The National Associa

tion of Railway Commissioners, meeting at Nashington, D. C., Oct. 12, approved the action taken by the Governors at

Spring Lake, and adopted a resolution providing that no injunction should be granted by a United States court to stay the enforcement of any order

“made by a commission authorized by state laws to regulate or control common carriers or other public service corpora

tions.” It is possible, therefore, that the Supreme Court will be induced, by a more powerful pressure of local inter ests than has yet shown itself among

Union and Pullman cases (30 Sup. Ct.

the populations of the several states, to introduce some new qualiﬁcations into its view of the scope of the commerce

Rep. 190, 232), or marking any such advance in “broadening" the scope of

clause. But any such modification is sure to be slight, as our Supreme Court