JACOB M. DICKINSON cerned in a wide range of important and interesting cases. Often while he was con nected with the department of justice, and in his private practice, he has appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States, and his arguments in that exalted tribunal have always been received with attention and satisfaction by its members. Possibly his latest appearance there was when he argued the case of Howard, Administratrix, against the Illinois Central Railroad Company at the last term of that court. In that case he contended against the constitutionality of the Federal Em ployers' Liability Act, by which the Congress of the United States sought under the commerce clause of the Constitution to regulate and define the liability of interstate carriers to their employees. This is probably the first case involving similar questions which has gone to the Supreme Court since the President of the United States and the present Secretary of State have promulgated what is regarded in some quarters as rather advanced doctrine in respect of the nature and extent of Federal power and the true principles of constitutional construction to be regarded in ascertaining it. Upon this general subject Judge Dickin son delivered a thoughtful and eloquent address before the New York State Bar Association, January 15, 1907. He took as his text a statement made by the Presi dent in his speech at Harrisburg, October 4th, 1906, in the course of which that distinguished man said, referring to con ceded evils arising in connection with the tremendous growth and development of our commercial and industrial institutions and the necessity for governmental action to correct them: " In some cases this govern mental action must be exercised by the several states individually. In yet others it has become increasingly evident that no efficient state action is possible and that we need, through executive action, through legislation and through judicial interpre tation and construction of law to increase
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the power of the Federal Government." Judge Dickinson also referred to the observa tions of the Secretary of State, Mr. Root, made in New York on the 1 2th of December last, in the course of which that very able lawyer declared that the people of the United States would have the governmental control which they deemed just and neces sary, and that if the states failed to furnish it in due measure, sooner or later, construc tions of the constitutions would be found to vest the power where it would be exercised in the National Government. Ascribing to these statements the great weight which the conspicuous abilities and exalted stations of those who made them justly suggest, Judge Dickinson, standing fast upon the ancient ways, entered a solemn and eloquent protest against this method of change or amendment of the organic law of the nation. He did not con tend for any narrow construction of grants of national power in the Constitution; but against the extension of such grants by con struction, to the destruction of the just autonomy of the states, under the pretext that these sovereignties lacked either the power or the disposition to correct great evils, national in character, and which, there fore, demanded regulation by the nation. He appealed to the Bar and to the courts by adhering strictly to the Constitution to stay this rising tide of aggressive and, as it seemed to him, revolutionary sentiment. As I have heretofore discussed some of these questions publicly, I would not wish to be understood as altogether agreeing with the views of Judge Dickinson in this regard; but I have nowhere seen any weigh tier or more impressive statement of them than may be found in this address and his argument before the Supreme Court in the case that I have mentioned. Of course the great professional and public triumph of Judge Dickinson's career up to this time was his participation on behalf of this country in the proceedings before the Alaska Boundary Tribunal.
