which Judge Holmes' mind accords to a question of constitutional law. One familiar with his opinions on such subjects must be impressed by a certain largeness of view, an unwillingness to admit restrictions upon the powers of the law-making or administrative departments of the government which are not plainly contained in some specific por tion of the constitution from which the gov ernment draws its life. It will be remem bered that Judge Holmes taught constitu tional law at Harvard College in the early days of his practice. The broad spirit in which he deals with constitutional questions is the spirit to which all those who have thought most deeply on the subject come at last. The ideals of the world change, and with them the ends which the world wishes to attain through legislation. One must not accept too readily the argument of a new minority drawn from the silence of the fathers. That the makers of the constitution did not expressly permit does not necessarily mean that they forbade. That possibly grow ing class of persons who believe, if only half consciously, that because legislators grow incompetent, judges should exercise part of their functions, or at least should be very ready .to revise current enactments, have little to hope from Judge Holmes. He states his position clearly in an opinion rendered to the House of Representaives in 1894 (Opin ion of the Justices, 160 Mass. 586, 594) on the constitutionality of a proposed general act involving a referendum. Judge Holmes is speaking for himself alone, a majority, consisting of four judges, believing that the whole scheme of legislation was unconstitu tional. "In my opinion," he says, "the legis lature has the whole law-making power except so far as the words of the Constitution expressly or implicdly withhold it, and I think that in construing the Constitution we should remember that it is a frame of govern ment for men of opposite opinions and for the future, and therefore not hastily import
into it our own views, or unexpressed limita tions derived merely from the practice of the past. I ask myself, as the only ques tion, what words express or imply that a power to pass a law subject to rejection by the people is withheld? I find none which do so. ... I agree that confidence is put in (the legislature) as an agent. But I think that so much confidence is put in it that it is allowed to exercise its discretion by taking the opinion of its principal if it thinks that course to be wise." Of course an opinion on a question of power between the legislature and the people of a state is no help to the de cision of the questions of power which arise in Washington, but the quotation seems to reflect certain ingrained habits of thought which are likely to endure wind and weather. As has been said, Judge Holmes has writ ten some twelve hundred opinions since he came to the bench, as well as the articles and occasional addresses already referred to. Of all the opinions there are probably very few that would not be recognized at once by any reader as proceeding from his pen. In the first place his opinions are almost always short, and they are markedly free from that gentle prolixity which characterizes so many judicial utterances, and gives them the taste of half-baked dough in the mouth of the most patient reader. Judge Holmes' sentences are always virile; each word has been intended to carry some part of the idea. His thought is apt to be expressed elliptically, and some times he carries compactness of statement dangerously near to the point of epigram. His opinions are not without suggestions of that shrewd and kindly wit which illumined the writings of his father, restrained, of course, by the decorousness of the occasion. Judge Holmes has a habit of assuming the intelligence of his audience. Often decisions which many careful judges would think worthy of explanation covering at least sev eral pages are reduced to a phrase. A po liceman had been discharged because he
