206
The Green Bag
erous protests from various sources against the literacy test prescribed by the bill. The Massachusetts house committee on constitutional amendment, in report ing unanimously against the Progres sive party's bill, providing for the recall of state and county officers and for the recall of judicial decisions, reflects pub lic sentiment in Massachusetts, where there is no popular demand for either of these recall provisions. An effort to substitute the bill for the adverse report of the committee failed in the house Feb. 18. The women of New Jersey realized one of their greatest ambitions Feb. 26, when the Assembly, after hoursof debate, concurred in the Senate resolution pro viding for an amendment to the state constitution giving women the right to vote. The House passed the measure by a vote of 46 to 5. The resolution will have to be adopted by next winter's legislature, and then at a special elec tion the proposed amendment to the Constitution extending the right of fran chise to women will have to be submilted to popular approval. The United States Senate, by a vote of 63 to 21, and the House of Represen tatives, by a vote of 244 to 95, overrode Mr. Taft's veto of the Webb bill, pro hibiting the shipment of liquor from "wet" into "dry" states, when intended for use in violation of state prohibitory statutes. Senator Root had attacked the bill as unconstitutional. The Presi dent had vetoed it on the same ground, saying that "The custom of legislators and executives having legislative func tions to remit to the courts entire and ultimate responsibility as to the con stitutionality of the measures which they take part in passing, is an abuse which
tends to put the courts constantly in opposition to the legislature and execu tive, and, indeed, to the popular sup porters of unconstitutional laws." Personal Judge Garrett D. W. Vroom and Judge John J. Treacy have both resigned from the Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey, the former because of ill health, the latter to practise law. Judge Nathan Goff, who has been elected United States Senator of the legislature of West Virginia, is a man of ripe experience on the federal circuit bench and was Secretary of the Navy under President Hayes. Hon. James Bryce has been appointed by the British Government a member of the Hague Permanent Court of Ar bitration. He is to succeed Sir Edward Fry, formerly a member of the British High Court of Justice, who will retire from the Hague Court next August at the age of eighty. Homer Albers, Dean of the Boston University Law School, was tendered a reception and dinner by his fellow mem bers of the class of 1885 at the Univer sity Club in Boston Feb. 28. The occasion was the fiftieth birthday of Dean Albers, and the affair was attended by more than a dozen prominent lawyers and judges. Arthur J. Small has been reappointed State Law Librarian of Iowa for the fifth time, for a period of six years. Mr. Small was one of the founders and organizers of the American Association of Law Librarians and was the first president, serving for three terms. He is also librarian of the Iowa State Bar Association.
