gous points of constitutional law. It is frankly stated in the opinion that the reasoning of the highest federal tribunal seems strained and illogical, but the Iowa court of last resort must follow precedent. It says with rather extraordinary candor, in regard to the "original package" and similar doctrines laid down by the United States Supreme Court: "These holdings, it is needless to observe, render the power of the state to prohibit the traffic in liquors to a large extent nugatory, and leave the agents of non-resident dealers to ply their trade with bootleggers and other resident violators of the law without effective hindrance, but we have only to declare the law as we find it. It is proper to add that all these cases under the authority of which this appeal is disposed of have been decided by a divided court. The dissent of Justices Harlan, Gray, White, Shiras, and Brown is supported by persuasive reasoning and great weight of authority, but whatever we may think of the comparative merits of the arguments employed, we are in duty bound to follow the authoritative pronouncement of the court whose decision upon this and kindred questions is final." Sound writers have confidently declared that sooner or later the federal tribunal in question would be compelled to reverse itself in this matter, and take the position that it is no infringement upon the power of congress to prohibit shipment of liquor into a state, or the sale of liquor by agents of nonresident dealers to citizens of a prohibition state. The Iowa decision, with its outspoken criticism of the United States Supreme Court, may hasten the anticipated reversal, though it must be admitted that the present tendency is to extend, rather than to contract, federal or congressional power over interstate commerce. Taxing Franchises as Property. The taxation of special franchises as property is now the established policy of many states, though the public service corporations are still strenuously opposing such taxation on various flimsy grounds. In New York and Illinois the question is before the courts. So far as the former state is concerned, the validity of franchise taxation has been settled beyond successful challenge; only the rate of such taxation and the meth od of estimating the actual value of franchises are subjects of controversy. In New York, however, the constitutionality of the law for the taxation of franchises as real estate is still in dispute. The law was passed in 1898, when Mr. Roosevelt was governor of New York, and has added. hundreds of millions to the taxable property of the state. Little has been collected under it, the corporations having attacked it as repugnant not only to the state constitution, but also to the Four LORD MILNER, Appointed Governor of the Orange River Colony. of the Federal Constitution. They contended that it violated the home-rule principle, inasmuch as the assessments were made by the state board and not by local tax officials; that it impaired the obligation of contracts, and that it was vague, uncertain, unscientific, and dangerous to property rights. Ex-Judge Earl, as referee, after a prolonged inquiry, recently rendered a decision dismissing all these objections and sustaining the law in whole and as to every part. It is unnecessary to refer here to the more tech nical aspects of the case, but the general doctrines of the decision are of profound importance. The law, Judge Earl holds, impaired no contracts and confiscated no vested interests. The franchise tax takes away nothing previously granted; its imposition is not an effort to exact more compensation for the franchises than had been stipulated, but one to compel their owners to pay their proper share of the tax burden. When granted they were not taxed, but that fact implied no pledge of permanent exemption. They are property of immense value, and there is no reason for exempting them. It is not easy to ascertain their value. Various methods of valuation have been suggested, but in New York the state board of assessors is not required to disclose its mode a layman, Dr. Woodrow Wilson, professor of determining the actual value of franchises. of jurisprudence and political science, to the Referee Earl upholds this discretionary seat invariably occupied heretofore by a divine or theologian. power. He says: Tendencies in University Life. The commencement season naturally calls forth discussion of educational problems and the changes required by the constant adjustment of institutions of learning to the varying conditions of existence. It is a time for stock-taking, review, and orientation. This year speculation was especially active owing to the sudden withdrawal of Dr. Patton from the presidency of Princeton and the noteworthy action which followed it. For the first time in its history, Princeton has called No American university has been more closely identified with conservatism than Princeton, and while Dr. Patton's resignation has been attributed to personal reasons and, in part, to friction among the trustees and faculty, the election of Dr. Wilson has a deeper significance. In the words of one commentator: "Princeton at last joins the ranks of the great American universities, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, which have passed from the clerical influence, if not domination, of their early days. It is not likely to return. The secularization of our collegiate education grows steadily more complete." The tendency toward lay college presidents is strikingly exhibited by the Chicago Tribune in the following survey: "There is now Hadley of Yale, who is a political economist; there is Eliot of Harvard, who used to be a mathematician and a chemist before he took to administering a university; there is Butler of Columbia, who was a student of philosophy and pedagogy; there is James of Northwestern, another political economist; there is Angell of Michigan, whose academic specialty was modern European literature; there is Northrop of Minnesota, a lawyer; there is Jordan of Leland Stanford, a zoologist; there is Wheeler of California, a Grecian; there is Schurman of Cornell, a philosopher; there is Remsen of Johns Hopkins, a chemist; there is Hall of Clark, a psychologist; and so on. Faunce of Brown is a minister, and Harper of Chicago used to be a professor of Hebrew in a theological seminary. These men are at present the most notable exceptions to a general rule. The last statement is altogether too sweeping in view of the list of eminently successful clerical college presidents which any one can readily bring to mind: Tucker of Dartmouth, Hyde of Bowdoin, Harris of Amherst, Raymond of Wesleyan, Day of Syracuse, Bashford of Ohio Wesleyan, the late John Henry Barrows of Oberlin, Thwing of Western Reserve, Andrews of Nebraska, etc. Nevertheless the tendency is noteworthy. What does it imply or denote? What other changes will it bring? Will secularization lower the tone of the colleges? Will their cultural mission be subordinated to utility and the "practical requirements Hadley of Yale firmly opposes the recently of the age?" There are those who assert adopted policy of requiring a bachelor's that university ideals unfit men for the work degree as a condition of admission into the of the world, and, strangely enough, profess- university schools of law or medicine. Such ors have avowed some sympathy with this a degree insures maturity of mind, but it is view. Yet modern educational standards nevertheless a serious mistake, according to are by no means exalted, and it is not easy President Hadto see wherein the university outlook ley, to insist hampers graduates who have to enter pro- upon it as a prefessional or commercial activity. requisite. His reasons are set forth in his annual report, from which we quote: Colleges continually adapt themselves to the ideas and needs of the time. There are doubtless unsolved educational problems, as there were at any previous period and as there will be at any period in the future. The New York Tribune says, in this connection: "The place of the college - that is, of higher liberal training as distinguished from academic work on the one hand and technical work on the other is all unsettled. It is the greatest of our educational problems; for on its satisfactory solution depends the production of students technically trained for professions, who are at once cultivated men, not mere specialists, and who at the same time are graduated for practical work at a reasonably early age. What ballast can be best thrown overboard? What cargo is precious enough to keep? What method will best use the school period to inculcate the highest culture and character together with the greatest practical working power? These are the unsolved questions of the universities." It is important to note that President "Each increase of human knowl edge makes it harder for the CHARLES W. ELIOT, young professional Elected President of the National difficulty by requiring a long course of study, or shall as soon as they are qualified to enter thereon. If we adopt the former system, as so many of our universities are now tending to do, we enhance the artificial difficulties which are already great enough at best, and tend to make the professions of law and medicine places for the sons of rich men only." The usefulness of universities is measured by the amount of public service they perform, and when they become undemocratic or exclusive they endanger their influence on society. This truth has been emphasized by several distinguished commencement orators, and applied to the graduates as well. The educated man is bound to be a better citizen, a better workman, a better man in all relations of life; if he is not, he has betrayed a trust and abused his privileges. The Anti-Trust Crusade. There have been interesting developments in the government's campaign against trusts or combinations in restraint of trade. Judge Grosscup, of the federal circuit court, has granted a temporary injunction against the six big meat packing companies, restraining them from agreeing to fix prices, restrict shipments, and otherwise attempting to monopolize any part of the trade in fresh meats. The defendants failed to resist the application, reserving the right to demur to or answer the government's bill at any time during the pendency of the temporary order. Little evidence was presented in court, but it is known that the Department of Justice was fully prepared to substantiate the allegations of its bill. Whether the acts of the packers in doing away with competition in buying cattle and selling their products come within the prohibitions or the purview of the federal anti-trust law, is a question upon which legal opinions differ. But the arrangement alleged to have existed between the packers and the railroads for the payment to the former of rebates upon their shipments is manifestly a violation of the law. JOHN MITCHELL, President United Mine Workers of America. Meantime the attention of the government has been called to the operations of another powerful combination that of the anthracite mine owners and coal-carrying railroads that have acquired the greater part of the coal fields. The public has long been certain of the existence of a coal trust, and has complained bitterly of the arbitrary manipulation of the prices of anthracite coal. There have been demands for a government investigation, and these have received strong support from the recent report of the congressional industrial commission. That body has declared that the output of coal and the selling price were alike fixed by agreement, and that "competition between either the producers of anthracite coal or the railroads that transport their product can no longer be regarded as of the slightest effect," it having "disappeared apparently once and for all." It is clearly impossible for the government to attack one or a few combinations while extending immunity to all the rest. In the enforcement of the trust act and the interstate commerce act there can be no legal discrimination, and the duty of the executive department of the government is as plain and unmistakable in one case as it is in another. Correspondents at Washington who profess to speak for the administration say that the anthracite coal combination is too powerful and too closely allied with Wall Street to be called to account even by a strong and strenuous president, and that the movement against the illegal trusts will not be carried further than the present point. It is difficult to imagine a more paradoxical and dubious "defense" of the administration. Its worst partisan enemies could hardly say anything more damaging. But there is no reason to suppose that these gratuitous explanations correctly state the president's position. The law will doubtless be impartially applied, and in any given "trust" case the question is simply as to the sufficiency of the evidence available for criminal prosecution or injunction proceedings. In some quarters the somewhat unexpected anti-trust campaign has led to the demand for the repeal or modification of the Sherman act. One senator has called it "ancient," though it is hardly twelve years old. The argument is by no means unfamiliar. Combination is inevitable; agreements with regard to prices, production, and division of markets are not necessarily oppressive and unreasonable, and sometimes actually necessary to prevent "cut-throat competition" and ruinous waste; the old notions concerning restraint of trade are inapplicable to the conditions of this age-an age of coöperation and consolidation; finally, since labor is permitted to organize, fix the price of its services, and enforce its demands even by concerted strikes, picketing, etc., it is unjust and un-American to deny to capital the same right of combination for the regulation of prices and output. Thus runs the argument against the policy of the Sherman act. That there is some plausibility and even force in it few will deny. But the same logic will justify an assault on every state law against trusts, and on every attempt to apply common-law principles to present industrial conditions. Are all anti-trust laws to be repealed? If so, what will protect the consumers, the masses of the people, from extortion, abuse of monopolistic power, and short-sighted selfishness? Are all the consumers to be left absolutely without protection? makes no demand for the recognition of its claims, and submits for the sake of the principle of free contract and free industry. Here and there we see signs of dissatisfaction with the established policy, but compulsory arbitration has few advocates. It is significant that the Liberal government of Canada, disregarding the theory and practise of the United States (whose influence is potent in the Dominion), has followed the example of its sister colonies in It may be remarked incidentally that no political party, no platform, no public man seeking election or reëlection has ventured to propose the repeal of all anti-trust laws. In politics the popular thing is the advocacy of stricter and more effective anti-trust Australasia and taken legislation. Still, corporate and financial interests will no doubt initiate an agitation in the opposite direction. JOHN W. FOSTER, Chairman Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration. a step toward com- Why the bill is not made to cover all public utilities—that is, all industries based on franchises and privileges is not explained. Between such utilities and competitive industry generally there is a natural distinction, for to the former category the public contributes valuable assets (streets, the power of eminent domain, legal monopoly, etc.), whereas in the case of the latter and wider category it furnishes nothing except police aud judicial protection. Between railroads and telegraphs, telephones, gas and electric lighting industries there is no natural distinction as regards principle, and it is not easy to see why compulsory arbitration should be prescribed by law for railroads of all kinds and not for the other public utilities enumerated. But passing this question over, the bill proposed by the Laurier government is impor |
