414
THE GREEN BAG
give credit to every judgment which was valid in another state, where it was rendered. If because of lack of jurisdiction of the court the judgment was not binding in another state, it was equally void where it was rendered; for no court can create obligations by acting outside its jurisdiction." "If Mr. Justice White is right in requiring domicile of the libellant for jurisdiction, he is wrong in regarding jurisdiction over the libellee as essential. If he is right in saying the decree is valid in Connecticut, he is wrong in saying it is not binding in New York. His reasoning is certainly novel, and it is certainly wrong; can his conclusion nevertheless be supported? Is the decision right, that some jurisdiction over the person of the libellee is requisite?" "The object of the majority was a praise worthy one: to make objectionable divorces less easy to obtain. But in pursuit of that object they have made a decision which will have an opposite effect. For it gives an easy road to divorce where the parties are agreed in desiring it, since the libellee by appearing and suffering default can render the proceed ings valid, and it thus assists collusive divorces. On the other hand, it makes it impossible to secure a divorce that will everywhere be rec ognized in the one case where all persons admit that a divorce should be granted, that is, where the wife elopes with an adulterer. For if she goes to another state, and the injured husband obtains a divorce in her absence, the state of her new domicile need give no credit to the divorce unless it finds that the fault is with her; and as her husband is not present, and she therefore has the entire control over the evidence, she will be able to convince the court of her own innocence and her husband's fault. "The decision then is opposed to reason, to authority, and to morality; but it will stand until the question is raised again. As Mr. Justice Holmes said in his dissenting opinion, civilization will not come to an end mean while." CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Juries). "The Right of Jury Trial in the Dependencies," by James Wilford Garner in the May American Law Review (V. xl, p. 340), discusses a series
of recent cases involving questions of due pro cess of law in the outlying possessions of the United States which have held that trial by jury in criminal cases according to the prin ciples of the common law is not a fundamental right but a matter which concerns merely a method of procedure. The author regards this as a change of front and believes that in a line of decisions running through a period of fifty years, the Supreme Court had sus tained the applicability of the jury causes to the dependencies and had recognized no dis tinction between fully organized territories and those under the direct government of Con gress.
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CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Jurisprudence). In the Central Law Journal (V. Ixii, p. 377)! under the title of " The Individualism of the Constitution," Andrew Alexander Bruce calls attention to an important phase of constitu tional law which has but recently begun to be appreciated. He shows that the history of English and American law has been a conflict between the right of the individual to do as he pleases with property and opportunity and the right of society as an organization. The individualism of the Anglo-Saxon as of the modern commercialist was not the non-resist ance of the anarchist but a self-assertive, ac quisitive kind. The individualism of Bentham was ethical and aimed at the removal of restric tions on free action of the individual when not necessary for procuring like freedom on the part of his neighbors. The modern collectiv ism recognizes that the individual often needs legislative help to enable him to compete on terms of even seeming equality with others. In dealing with constitutional questions some of the most important of which depend upon the court's conception of these economic prin ciples he believes that our American judges have failed to live up to the modern accepted economic theory. "They have as a rule hesitated and have refused their sanction merely because they have clung to the belief in the actual existence of an equality of contractual ability and oppor tunity in the industrial world, and have, there fore, not seen the necessity for legislative in terference. Thus far it would seem the ma jority of the American courts have evinced a
