Suchergebnisse

A protective tariff is constitutional. While most of us—Democratic party platforms to the contrary notwithstanding—had suspected that this was true, the Supreme Court, curiously enough, never passed on the question until its decision in Hampton v. United States. In that case the plaintiffs attacked the validity of the Tariff Act of 1922 on two grounds. In the first place, the so-called flexible tariff provision embodied in Section 315 was alleged to authorize an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the President. That section provides, in substance, that when the President, upon investigation, finds that differences in the cost of production here and abroad of articles produced in this country are not equalized by the tariff duties fixed by the act, he shall thereupon fix such new rates as will equalize these differences. The Court had no difficulty in rejecting this contention under the authority of Field v. Clark, in which the reciprocity sections of the Tariff Act of 1890 were sustained. Chief Justice Taft, speaking for a unanimous Court, reviews the general theory of the separation of powers and the doctrine that legislative power may not be delegated. He emphasizes, however, that each department may properly call upon the others for assistance "so far as the action invoked shall not be an assumption of the constitutional field of action of another branch." The scope and character of this assistance, furthermore, "must be fixed according to common sense and the inherent necessities of the governmental coördination."

Special Session—Power to Propose Constitutional Amendments Not Included in Governor's Call. In 1926 a special session of the Pennsylvania legislature proposed an amendment to the state constitution in the form of a new section, although the subject-matter of this amendment was not referred to in the governor's proclamation calling the session. In a taxpayer's action to prevent the submission to the people of this proposal it was alleged that the proceeding was in violation of Art. 3, Sec. 25, of the constitution of Pennsylvania, which provides: "When the General Assembly shall be convened in special session, there shall be no legislation upon subjects other than those designated in the proclamation of the governor calling such session." In Sweeney v. King the state supreme court held that a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment is not "legislation" within the meaning of this clause. In reaching this conclusion it relied heavily upon its earlier decision in Commonwealth v. Griest in which it had held that a constitutional amendment is not "legislation" which must be submitted to the chief executive for his approval, a doctrine well established both in state and federal courts. An opposite result on the principal question was reached by the supreme court of California in People v. Curry. Here the restriction upon a called session of the legislature was held to preclude the proposal of a constitutional amendment. The purpose of the restriction was declared to be to regulate the duration of the session and keep down expenses, and this purpose, it was held, ought not to be defeated by a strained or highly technical interpretation.

The most conspicuous constitutional decision rendered by the Supreme Court during its 1926 term, or for many a preceding term, was in the case of Myers v. United States. It is here held that the power of the President to remove executive officers appointed by him with the consent of the Senate cannot be restricted by Congress. On the question of the removal of such officers the Constitution is entirely silent. It is an interesting commentary on the process by which we make constitutional law that a problem as important as this, a problem which was debated at length in 1789, upon which presidents have acted and congresses have passed statutes, should now, after 137 years, be definitely settled for the first time, and be settled now only because the late Mr. Myers saw fit to sue the government in the Court of Claims for his salary.The facts in the case are simple. In 1917 President Wilson appointed Myers to a first-class postmastership at Portland, Oregon, for a term of four years. In 1920, by direction of the President, he was removed from office. A statute passed in 1876 and still in force provides that "postmasters of the first, second, and third classes shall be appointed and may be removed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and shall hold their offices for four years unless sooner removed or suspended according to law." The removal of Myers was never referred to the Senate for its consent.

Legislative Apportionment. The problem of the representation of large cities or metropolitan districts in state legislatures is becoming increasingly difficult and acute. The number of states in which a single center of population is with each census approaching a size which entitles it, on the basis of its inhabitants, to a controlling proportion of the representatives in the state legislature grows steadily as the current of population toward the city continues to flow. Certain states have dealt with this situation by frankly and openly discriminating against these metropolitan areas by specifying that they shall never be entitled to more than a fixed percentage of the representatives. The constitutions of certain other states do not permit this, however, but require that after each decennial census a total fixed number of members in the legislative body shall be allotted equally to districts of equal population. If this is done the metropolis is guaranteed under each apportionment the increase in representation to which its proportionate increase in population entitles it. And the answer volunteered to this problem by several state legislatures has been steadily to refuse to reapportion the state.

The Supreme Court of the United States during its 1925 term seems to have taken a vacation from the solution of major constitutional problems. Its activities provided very little newspaper copy. Most of the more important decisions could have been pretty accurately forecast upon the basis of previous adjudications, while the constitutional questions raised which could be deemed in any sense novel related to more or less technical or trivial matters. A considerable number of the more interesting cases dealt merely with matters of statutory construction and did not present constitutional issues at all. This comparative dullness of the judicial year's work is in sharp contrast with the achievements of the preceding term of 1924, in which at least six cases of genuinely first-rate importance were decided; while the Court has begun its 1926 term by handing down its epoch-making decision in the Myers case relating to the President's power of removal, and has followed it by the far-reaching ruling in the municipal zoning law case. This absence of judicial fireworks in the 1925 term may well serve to emphasize two facts sometimes overlooked in an appraisal of the work of the Supreme Court. The first is that in any judicial year an overwhelming proportion of the work of that tribunal is and must necessarily be of a humdrum and inconspicuous variety; useful and important in the sense that technical, detailed, and even trivial questions need to be answered authoritatively, but certainly not spectacular.

Validity of Procedure. In the summer of 1925 the appellate division of the supreme court of New York held that the City Home Rule Amendment of 1923 had not been legally adopted and was invalid. In the case of Browne v. City of New York the court of appeals reversed this decision and held the amendment valid. The chief ground of attack on the amendment was, it is believed, unique. It may be stated as follows: The New York constitution requires an amendment to be proposed by one legislature, approved by the legislature chosen at the next election of senators, and then ratified by the voters. The City Home Rule Amendment was proposed by the legislature of 1922, approved by that of 1923, and ratified at the polls in 1923. It was an amendment to Article XII. But the legislature of 1922 had also approved an amendment to Article XII, relatively trivial in nature, which had originated in the legislature of 1920. This amendment was ratified in November, 1922, and went into effect in January, 1923, before the second legislative approval of the City Home Rule Amendment. In other words Article XII, which the City Home Rule Amendment changed, was not the same when the amendment passed the legislature for the first time as when it passed the second time. The appellate division held not only that the amendment must be the same when passed by the two legislatures but that the provision amended must also be the same.

The decisions arising under the commerce clause of the Constitution during the 1924 term of the Supreme Court did not involve any striking extension of national authority in that field. There was no case approaching in significance the Recapture Clause Case decided in the previous term. However, the reinforcement of a familiar principle through a striking application of it, or the lucid and pungent expression of an old doctrine, lends some significance to several cases which otherwise have no far-reaching importance.In the case of Brooks v. United States the court sustained the constitutionality of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act of 1919. The act subjected to heavy penalties any one who transported or caused to be transported in interstate or foreign commerce any motor vehicle, knowing it to have been stolen, and any one who, with the same guilty knowledge, "shall receive, conceal, store, barter, sell, or dispose of any motor vehicle, moving as, or which is a part of, or which constitutes interstate or foreign commerce." It is certainly no surprise to learn from the opinion of Chief Justice Taft that the power to regulate commerce which is broad enough to enable Congress to bar from interstate transportation lottery tickets, diseased cattle, adulterated food, prize-fight films, and the like, and to penalize the interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes, is a power which can likewise be used to punish those who abuse the privileges of interstate and foreign commerce by using them in the furtherance of larceny or the disposal of stolen goods.

No one who has followed the steady expansion of federal authority over the business of interstate carriers sanctioned by the Supreme Court in the Shreveport Case, Illinois Central R. Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, and Railroad Commission v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., will view with surprise the unanimous decision of that tribunal in Dayton-Goose Creek R. Co. v. United States, sustaining the validity of the "recapture" clause of the Transportation Act of 1920. This clause provided in substance that since it is impossible to establish uniform rates upon competitive traffic which will adequately sustain all the carriers needed to do the business, without giving some of them a net income in excess of a fair return, any carrier receiving such excess shall place one-half of it in a reserve fund to be maintained by the carrier for certain specified purposes, and shall pay the other half into a general railroad revolving fund to be maintained in the interstate commerce commission. This fund is to be used by the commission to make loans to carriers to meet expenditures for capital account, and so forth.