250
The Green Bag
as an infringement of the rights and privi leges assured by the State Constitution and by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Con stitution of the United States. The action was brought by Mrs. Benjamin R. Tillman, _Ir., the divorced wife of the son of Senator Tillman, to gain the custody of the children, who had been transferred to their grandfather by an instrument executed by Benjamin R. Tillman, Jr. Interstate Commerce. “Satisfactory or Rea sonable" Through Route—lnterpretation of Statute-Powers of Interstate Commerce Com mission. U. S. In Northern Pacific Railway Co. v. Inter state Commerce Commission, the so-called "Portland Gateway" case, decided March 7, the United States Supreme Court annulled an order of the Commission requiring the rail road to join with competing railroads in establishing a through route and joint rates from the East to Puget Sound points by way of Portland, Ore. The court held that the railroad already maintained a “satisfactory or reasonable route" from the East to Puget Sound points, and as long as such a route was in existence the Commission could not require the road to join in another. The court took the position that climate,
scenery and a desire to visit along the routes south of the Northern Pacific did not make the latter's route “unsatisfactory or unrea sonable," and to hold otherwise would be to
give an artificial meaning to the words of the statute.
“The condition in the statute is not to be trified away," said Mr. Justice Holmes in
announcing the opinion of the court. Interstate Commerce. State License Tax on Privilege of Doing Business Within the State— Unconstitutional Burden on Interstate Com merce—Kansas “Bush" Act. U. S. The same line of reasoning as that followed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Kansas (216 U. S. 1, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 190; see 22 Green Bag 192) was adopted in Pullman Co. v. Kansas ex rel. Coleman (30 Sup. Ct. 232,
proceeded upon the principle that the state had no authority to deprive the company of the right to do intra-state business in such a manner as would necessarily deprive it of the right to engage in interstate business, nor to burden the interstate business with a tax which was, in effect, levied on property out
side the state. Mr. Justice Moody, though absent, approved of this opinion of the court, which is based on the much fuller opinion in the Western Union case. Mr. Justice White concurred, not only on the narrow grounds on which he had based his concurrence in the Western Union case, taking the view that the levying of a tax on property within the state devoted both to intra-state and interstate commerce was con fiscatory, but also on grounds similar to those expressed in the majority opinion, giving more extended consideration, however. to the rights of the states in matters of taxation. Mr. Justice Holmes dissented on the same ground as in the Western Union case, saying that such an exclusion as that contemplated by the statute “is not a burden on the foreign commerce at all; it simply is the denial of a collateral benefit. If foreign commerce does not pay its way by itself, I see no right to demand an entrance for domestic business to help it out." Chief Justice Fuller and Mr. Justice Mc Kenna concurred in the dissent. Legislative Appropriations. Salaries of Public Officers-State Parole Act Unconstitu tional. Ill. The Illinois parole law of 1899 was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Illinois in People v. Joyce, decided Feb. 16 (42 Chicago Legal News 223, Feb. 19; 40 National Corporation Reporter 48, Feb. 24).
The reason for this ruling was found not in the system of parole provided by the act, but in the fact that the title of the act in cluded two subjects, and the act violated, by implication, the provision of the state consti
tution requiring statutes appropriating the salaries of ofiicers to contain no provision on any other subject. The act was therefore
L. ed. adv. sheets p. 232), the facts being
unconstitutional, and
similar. In this case, as in the former one, the so-called "Bush" act of 1898 was declared unconstitutional. This act imposes on foreign corporations what is substantially a license tax, levied as a condition precedent to engag ing in business within the state. The Court, Mr. Justice Harlan delivering the opinion,
existing laws. Legislative Privilege. Administrative Func tions of Committees of Congress Subject to Re view in the Courts-Legislative Duties Cannot be Delegated by Congress. D. C. In Valley Paper Company v. joint Con gressional Committee on Printing, decided
void as a
repeal of
A .. II.‘
