164
The Green Bag
business community is if anything more emphatic in its demand that the law shall be not only reasonable, but plain, and the popular desire for regulation such as that already exercised over rail ways is so apparent that Congress can hardly afford to ignore it. The country as a whole seems to want federal super vision of monopoly under a statute supplementary to the Sherman act, but the country cannot yet be said to be committed to the cause of federal incor poration or of regulation by an adminis trative commission. The latter two pro posals are undoubtedly regarded with favor, but public sentiment moves slowly, and there are still backward currents which show that the people still hesitate to approve anything which may barely suggest too positive a legiti mation of reasonable restraints of trade. A somewhat depressing development of the month was the Administration's acceptance of the Lodge amendment to the general arbitration treaties with England and France. Public sentiment could have been educated to look upon the unamended treaties with greater favor, but the Administration doubtless had very strong, if not conclusive grounds for its assumption that the ratification of the treaties by the Senate, in the form originally proposed, was impossible of attainment. The adoption of the plan in this amended form will be better than nothing, for the moral influence of reports by the Joint High Commission finding controversies justiciable and recommending arbitration will be con siderable; it will be very far, however, from imposing on this country an obli gation to arbitrate all justiciable differ ences, and will bring us only one step nearer the settlement of international disputes by law rather than by armed force.
Procedure
The time for oral argument has been reduced by the Missouri Supreme Court from three to two hours. It is estimated that this will aid the court materially in catching up with the docket. As a result of the representations made Jan. 25 before the full Judiciary Com mittee of the House and a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee by a committee of the American Bar Asso ciation, it was thought probable at the time that two of the three bills which the Association is urging in the interest of reforming judicial procedure, might pass this session of Congress. The bills that are to be favorably reported by the subcommittee of the Senate com mittee are the Nelson bill, seeking to prevent purely technical errors that do not affect the merit of the case, from being made cause for reversal, and the Root bill, which seeks to prevent the dismissal of or further delay on the trial of a case which has been erroneously brought in equity instead of at law, or vice versa. The third bill, which the subcommittee consisting of Senators Root, Culberson, and Brown took under advisement, is the bill seeking to au thorize a review by the United States Supreme Court on writ of error the decision of a State Supreme Court, whether that decision upholds a State statute or invalidates it. Interesting figures of appeals and reversals are given by T. J. Johnston of the New York bar, in a letter to the New York Sun. An examination of the appellate history of 145, 551, in which he had capable assistance, showed him that "there were only 3,101 appeals and 754 reversals, for any reason, including technical ones; the percentage of ap
