340
THE GREEN BAG
issue of stock of the C. N. O. & T. P. Railway required by law to be written by the Attor Company through the fraud of Doughty, its ney General in person, and generally to Secretary, and the carelessness of Cook, its confer on intricate and important questions President; the Telephone case, involving the of law and administrative policy with the relative rights of the Telephone Company Attorney General and the Assistant Attor and of a street railroad operated by elec neys General. One associated with him in tricity, both having franchises in the streets that office says: of Cincinnati, to the use of the ground as a "In all this work Solicitor General Taft return circuit; and the case of Moores v. impressed upon his associates in the Depart Bricklayers' union, in which he set out at ment of Justice his wide knowledge of the great length the relative rights, under the law, the fairness and wisdom of his judg law, of employers and employees in their ment and the courtesy and cordiality of his dealings with each other, and particularly manner." with respect to the legal status of a secondary It is the practice of the Government to boycott. This decision was affirmed by the take to the Supreme Court only cases of Supreme Court of Ohio, and so clearly had great importance 'either because of the Judge Taft stated the facts and the law that nature of the questions presented, or the the Supreme Court's affirmance was made large amount involved, or they are of such without opinion. The principles declared character that the decision of one will dis in this case have been recognized by judges pose of others of the same class. Of exceptional importance were the and lawyers all over the country, were reaffirmed by Judge Taft in the Phelan case, Behring Sea cases (In re Cooper, 138 U. S. decided by him when Judge of the Circuit 404; 143 U. S. 472), the Quorum case (U. S. Court of Appeals, and he said in his recent v. Ballin, 144 U. S. i), and the Tariff Act address at Cooper Institute on "Capital and cases (Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649). Labor" that he had never departed from In the first of these, one Cooper, a British his views as expressed in that case. subject, owner of the schooner "W. P. Scarcely a year and a half of his term had Sayward," the Canadian Government also elapsed when, a vacancy occurring in the intervening, had petitioned for a writ of office of the Solicitor General of the United prohibition against the enforcement of a States, he was, at the suggestion of Ben sentence of forfeiture and condemnation jamin Butterworth, then in Congress, and entered by the District Court of Alaska on a John Addison Porter, editor of the Hartford libel filed by the United States against that Post and afterward Secretary to President vessel for the alleged illegal killing of fur McKinley, seconded by the efforts of leading seals. Leave to file the petition was granted, members of the Bar and former colleagues but on return of the rule to show cause, the of the Superior Court Bench, appointed to Supreme Court declined to issue the writ. that office by President Harrison in January The second involved the question of the of 1890. legality of an act in the passing of which The quality of his equipment for this the Speaker of the House counted, in deter service found immediate recognition at mining whether a quorum was present or Washington. It was his duty to represent not, members who were actually present the Government in the trial of most of its but did not vote. cases before the Supreme Court, to act as In' the Tariff cases it was held that the Attorney General in the absence of that validity of an act of Congress, signed by officer, to prepare the most important the presiding officers of the two Houses and opinions requested by the President or the approved by the President, could not be heads of Departments, except such as are attacked by anything on the journals of
