Review of Periodicals Sherman Anti-Trust Act. See Interstate Commerce, Monopolies. Stare Decisis. "A Plea for Straight Think ing Concerning the Enforcement of Laws as They Exist." By John S. Sheppard, Jr. 22 Harvard Law Review 427 (Apr.). "The logical course is to accept the situa tion and work toward our goal along the path apparently marked out for us. Let us realize that the agreed rule is to be the rule under any and all circumstances, and that the exact application of it, even where it works what seems to us injustice in a given case, is the course best adapted to the attain ment of our ideal because it will drive us to such a modification or restatement of the rule as will embody in it the elements neces sary to accomplish the justice we seek in all cases. The course of some judges, in seek ing to stretch the rule so as to prevent what they regard as an unjust result in any given case, is thus, in the long run, most injurious: it precludes exact knowledge of what the rule is; if the rule is inartincially or inade quately formulated, it retards the process of reformation. It has produced more injustice than all the 'hard cases' since the world began, because of the confusion and uncer tainty it has injected into our system. The sagacious person, seeking antecedently to make his conduct conform to the rule, is unable to do so because he cannot ascertain what the rule is. As a result, despite all his care and desire to act properly, he is adjudged to have contravened the rule. Surely, no injustice is equal to this!" Status. "Race Distinctions in American Law." By Gilbert Thomas Stephenson. 43 American Law Review 205 (Mar.-Apr.). The second of a series of articles (see 21 Green Bag 123), on the race problem in the South. This article describes at length laws before 1865 which discriminated against the black race. These laws "are interesting to the student of that period of American history, as having furnished an argument for the radical regime of reconstruction which Thaddeus Stephens and his supporters inaugurated and advanced." Indians. "The Indian Before the Law." By Prof. Isaac Franklin Russell, D. C. L., LL. D. 18 Yale Law Journal 328 (Mar.). "As to personal status, the Indian is not, in general, a citizen of the United States by birth, because not born, in the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, subject to the jurisdiction thereof. But Indians may be naturalized, individually or collectively, by treaty or by statute. Every Indian in the Indian Territory is a citizen by statute. So, too, is he, if he has received an allotment of lands in severalty pursuant to statute. In such cases he may vote, serve as a juror, testify as a witness in court, and sue and be sued. . . . Our national policy continues to
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be that of 'a benevolent guardian, engaged in raising a race of human beings from bar barism to civilization. '" See also Aliens. Taylor's Science of Jurisprudence. The somewhat too conspicuous indebtedness of this work to predecessors is now notorious, and a typical attitude is expressed by an editorial in 13 Law Notes 5 (Apr.):— "It cannot well be questioned that a very strong case has been made out against Dr. Taylor. Unless he can establish the pro priety of borrowing without citation or quota tion marks from the writings of others, piecing the excerps together, and offering the product to the public as an original work, he will find some difficulty in justifying himself in the eyes of the legal profession. No wonder we all thought it a mighty fine book." One reviewer, however, goes further than the generality of critics, and would not find the volume praiseworthy even if it repre sented wholly the results of Dr. Taylor's own labors. To quote from 9 Columbia Law Re view 369 (Apr.) :— "Our quarrel with the author is not so much that he has put forth as his own the work of other and, may we add, better men, but that he has made such bad work of his borrowings. Surely Muirhead and Sohm and Bryce and the rest were entitled to have their contributions to Mr. Taylor's literary fame combined to some purpose. The work is announced on the title page as 'A Treatise in which the growth of positive law is un folded by the nistorical method and its ele ments classified and defined by the analytical.' But there is in fact no unfolding of the growth of positive law and nothing that deserves to be called a classification of its elements. The several parts and chapters of the work are disjecta membra, without relation to one another and without organic unity." Torrens System. "The Torrens System of Land Registration." By J. A. Harzfield. 9 Phi Delta Phi Quarterly Brief 22 (Mar.). Reprinted by courtesy of The Kansas Lawyer. Trademarks. "Comments on Modern Law of Unfair Trade." By Edward S. Rogers. 3 Illinois Law Review 551 (Apr.). Discusses a wide range of trademark cases with extremely full citations and quotations from English as well as American decisions. "This is the present state of the law, that every trader has a property in the good-will of his business, that he has the right to the exclusive benefit of this good-will, that therefore he has the exclusive right to sell his goods as his own, and that no one has any right by any means to sell as his, other goods than his. In short that no one has any right to sell his goods as the goods of another. This principle is perfectly general and without exception. The means by which the end is accomplished do not matter, whether in the
