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The Green Bag
Johnson's counsel, Evarts, Curtis, Stanbery, Nelson, and Groesbeck, advised with him at every stage of the trial, and Johnson managed his own case. A result of the trial was that the counset gained a great respect for their client, Evarts becoming his Attorney-General. "Anecdotes of Andrew Johnson." By Ben jamin C. Truman, secretary to the President. Century, v. 85, p. 435 (Jan.). Judicial Power to Annul Statutes. "The New Constitution of Ohio — Power of Courts to Review Acts of the Legislatures." By Everett I'. Wheeler. 75 Central Law Journal 437 (Dec. 13). "This brief story of legislative corruption and usurpation might be greatly extended. No one who studied it can seriously urge that the power of the courts to deal with unconstitutional legislation should be limited. The fundamental fallacy of the prophets of this new dispensation lies in the assumption that the legislature is the people and that a temporary majority is infallble. The legislature is but one agency which may or may not correctly represent the will the people." See Legal Evolution. Judiciary Organization. See Courts. Labor. "The American Federation of Labor." By Jay Newton Baker. 22 Yale Law Journal 73 (Dec). "There is nothing better settled than the fact that a combination between individuals to do something which any of them or all of them, acting separately, can innocently do, introduces a new element which makes it a grave danger to the public and the law and has been con ducted repeatedly. The organization believes fully and argues that 'An individual has the right to trade with another or not, as he sees fit, and what is true of one individual is true of another and true of any number; they can indi vidually withdraw their patronage or refute to trade with another and refuse to work with another, and what one may do any number of men may do and any number of men may agree to d<3 without coming in conflict with any legal principle.'" See Minimum wage. Legal Evolution. "Social Justice and Legal Justice." By Professor Roscoc Pound. 75 Central Law Journal 455 (Dec. 20). "Professor Commons said recently, 'justice is not merely fair play between individuals, as our legal philosophy would have it — it is fair play between social classes.' I presume you would as sent to the proposition that fair play among social classes belongs to the idea of justice. Is it true, then', that our juristic thought, our legal philosophy, holds otherwise? Unhappily, one must admit that it does; or, at least that up to the present time it has, and that there are but the beginnings of a change. Many examples
might be adduced. But one, the course of deci sion of our courts until the last few years upon the subject of liberty of contract, will suffice for our purpose. Two of our state courts in passing adversely upon labor legislation be cause it infringed upon a theoretical freedom of contract have noted the frequency of such legis lation in recent times, but have said that it was not necessary to consider the reasons for it. Another court has asked what right the legis lature has to 'assume that one class has need of protection against another.' Another court has said gravely, that the remedy for the company store evil 'is in the hands of the employee,' since he is not compelled to buy from the employer, forgetting that there may be a compulsion in fact, where there is none in law. Another says that 'theoretically there is among our citizens no inferior class' — and, of course, no facts can avail against that theory. Legislation designed to give laborers some measure of practical inde pendence which, if allowed to operate, would put them in a position of reasonable equality with their masters, has been said by state courts, because it infringed upon a theoretical individual equality, to put them under guardianship, to create a class of statutory laborers, and to stamp them as imbeciles. Only the other day the highest court of New York told us that a work men's compensation act 'does nothing to con serve the health, safety or morals of the em ployees." I do not know that this artificial type of reasoning needs to be refuted outside of our courtrooms. The Supreme Court of the United States has completely abandoned it. Certainly when it is repeated today in our state courts, economists and sociologists are justified in the angry retorts with which they meet it." "An Eighteenth Century Constitution." By Frederic Bruce Johnstone. 7 Illinois Law Re view 265 (Dec). "Let the amending clause of the Constitu tion be changed. Let amendments be proposed on the vote of a simple majority in two successive sessions of Congress. The intervening election will submit the issue to the people and allow two years for consideration. Then let the amend ments be adopted by the vote of a majority of the people plus a majority of the states. "The plan is not original, it has been urged by many writers, and has been adopted by at least two governments (Australia and Switzer land) whose present plan was mode l!ed after ours. . . . "The Constitution of 1787, under which we are governed today, is worthy of the highest praise; but the conditions prevailing at its birth have ceased to exist. It was framed by men of the highest ability but was adopted by a people jealous of federal power. It controls the laws of a country which have experienced phe nomenal change; for over a century it has been subjected to strenuous analysis and racking interpretation, and it is now required to furnish a national basis for the solution of tremendous social and economic problems — why should it not be amended? Ancestor worship is no longer
