The Green Bag
98
"The Mysteries and Cruelties of the Tariff: A Tariff-Made State." By lda M. Tarbell. Ameri can Magazine, v. 71, p. 349 (Jan). Miss Tarbell takes for her target the manu facturing industries of the state, and is particu larly severe upon their alleged practices toward
child labor, practices necessarily destined to be modified
by the new factory inspection law
which goes into effect this month. Taxation. “The Things that are Caesar's;
II, The Tribute of the Corporations." By Albert _]ay Nock. American Magazine, v. 71, p. 302 (_Ian.). Having previously sought to expose dis crimination between the rich man and the poor man in the New York personality tax laws, this author now seeks in a second instalment to show similar discrimination against small corporations and business firms in favor of large, powerful ones.
Latest Important Cases Defamation.
“Panama Libel" Case—Publi
cation by Circulation of Copies within a Federal
Reservation No! 0 Separate Ofl'ense of which Federal Courts can Take Nolice.—$late Powers. U. S. The United States Supreme Court on Jan. 3 unanimously affirmed the decision of the United States Circuit Court rendered at New York City a. year or two ago, which quashed the indict ment of the Press Publishing Company for expressing opinions in the New York World reflecting on the honor of men believed to have derived pecuniary benefit from the sale of the Panama Canal to the United States. The opinion of the Court, written by Mr.Chief Justice White, dealt entirely with the act of Congress of 1898 under which the indictment was brought, and the effect of which was to incor
porate the criminal laws of the several states into the federal law, so as to make them appli cable to federal reservations. The Court said that investigation plainly showed: “First, that adequate means were afforded for punishing the circulation of a libel on a United States reservation by the state law and in the state courts without the necessity of resorting to the courts of the United States for redress; "Second, that resort could not be had to the
courts of the United States to punish the act of publishing a newspaper libel by circulating a copy of the newspaper on the reservation, upon
the theory that such publication was an inde pendent offense, separate and distinct from the primary printing and publishing of the libel ous article within the State of New York, without disregarding the laws of that state and frustrat ing the pl .in purpose of such law, which was
that there should be but a single prosecution and conviction." Cf. 21 Green Bag 644. involuntary servitude. Thirteen Amendment
No! Violaled by Statute Actually Regulating Negro Labor-“Peanage" Law of Alabama Invalid Not for Discrimination, but Because it Tend: Toward Involunlary servitude. U. S.
The Alabama “labor contract" law made it a misdemeanor for any person to enter in to a contract to labor, receive advance pay, and then fail to do the work without refunding the money advanced. The breach of the contract was made prima facie proof of intent to defraud, and under a rule of Alabama law the laborer was not permitted to rebut this proof by testifying as to his unexpressed intention at the time of making the contract. The law had been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court of Ala bama. In the case of Alonzo Bailey, a negro, the Supreme Court of the United States was asked to rule upon the constitutionality of the act. The Department of Justice was allowed to par ticipate in the arguments as amicus curiae, claiming that the Thirteenth Amendment had been violated. Mr.
Justice
Hughes,
who
announced
the
opinion of the Court, said that as there was nothing in the statute discriminating against negroes, the point that Bailey was a negro could not be considered by the Court, and the case would be treated as if it had come from New York or Idaho. The Court said that the statute had the effect of making breach of contract a misde meanor without saying anything about intent to defraud. and held that a state could not reduce a person to involuntary servitude by making his failure to pay a debt a crime.
