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The Albany Law Journal. tion which prohibits the newspaper discussion

A Monthly Record of the Law and the Lawyers. Published by THE ALBANY LAW JOURNAL COMPANY, Albany, NY.

queries or comments, criticisms on various law questions, addresses on legal topics, or discussions on questions of timely interest, are

proceedings.

[All communications intended for the Editor should be addressed

of cases before the courts for solution, it would seem that there can be no impropriety in stating the contentions of the opposing sides.

Contributions, items of news about courts, judges and lawyers' The main question seems to be "whether that sovereign nation shall, in the language of the solicited from members of the bar and those interested in legal Declaration of Independence, take that 'separate and equal station among the powers of the earth to which the laws of nature and of nature's god entitle it,' or whether in adopting a Constitution for its own government it put upon itself shackles which prevent the exercise of some of the most important functions of national sovereignty."

simply to the Editor of THE ALBANY LAW JOURNAL. All letters relating to advertisements, subscriptions or other business matters should be addressed to THE ALBANY LAW JOURNAL COMPANY.] Subscription price, Three Dollars per annum, in advance. Single

number, Twenty-five Cents.

ALBANY, N. Y., JANUARY, 1901.

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The attorney-general, in presenting the case for the government, contended that the power to acquire territory and provide for its government in any way that its condition may seem to require, is explicitly vested in congress by the Constitution itself, and is to be freely exercised. Like any other power, it may be abused, but congress embodies the legislative authority of the people of the nation and is controlled in its composition and its conduct by them, and the people rely upon their own capacity and disposition to prevent their representatives from abusing the power intrusted to them.

The ALBANY LAW JOURNAL makes its bow to the new century in a somewhat new guise. It will come to the office and study less fre- Counsel for the plaintiffs in these cases, on quently than heretofore, but in larger and the other hand, took the ground that the nafuller proportions, better than before in the tional government not only has limited value, extent and variety of its contents, and we hope more than ever a welcome friend and helper to the busy lawyer, whose time is so fully occupied that he can find time only for the best, and for whom the best is none too good. Performance is better than promise. The JOURNAL will speak for itself.

powers, so far as it touches the jurisdiction reserved to the States which established that government, and insisted upon safeguards for themselves, but that the limitations and the safeguards extend of their own innate force and by virtue of their existence in the Contution to any territory that the nation may acquire in the exercise of its sovereignty.

The arguments before the Supreme Court of We are not going to argue the great question.

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The time for that has now passed, as we shall soon have the decision of the highest court in the land.

Governor Odell seems to have landed a veritable bombshell in the camps of the chronic officeholders and officeseekers of both parties. Annual messages, especially when the maiden efforts of new and untried statesmen, are ordinarily about as dry as a Kentucky colonel, but the newly-inaugurated chief executive of New

York seems to have broken all traditions in that official might be empowered to appoint a

limited number of additional assistants and still the public treasury would be a gainer by many thousands of dollars. The new governor's announcement also that he should not avail himself of the authority granted by the last legislature to appoint a law adviser at a salary of $5,000, with an allowance of $4,000 for clerk and stenographer hire, but would call upon the attorney-general for such legal advice as he might be in need of, shows good "horse sense." The State's legal adviser can designate one of his assistants to act in this capacity for the three or four months he may be needed, instead of paying $9,000 a year for a gubernatorial legal bureau, year in and year out. The governor also favors the consolidation of numerous boards and bureaus and would make the State Board of Charities, the Prison Commission and the Board of Health single-headed. Another excellent suggestion for the saving of expense is that the official appraisers for the "transfer" or collateral inheritance tax be dispensed with, that the appraisals be made by the comptroller and the county treasurers and that extravagant fees be cut off. The reason for this recommendation

the matter of first communications, showing an astonishingly powerful grasp of the lever of government and a wholly unexpected capacity in one who had been known principally as a "practical politician." The cry of retrenchment and reform in gubernatorial messages is about as old as State government; all of Governor Odell's predecessors made similar, though perhaps not so sweeping, recommendations, but, having "put themselves on record," they seem to have lost interest in their own plans for lopping off the useless and incumbering branches of the governmental tree. With what amazing rapidity and luxuriance these have grown in recent years would startle the average taxpayer and citizen, could he have the facts presented in succinct form. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is it of economical and efficient government, for the officeholders seem to grow fatter and more insatiable with every addition to the patronage trough. It has come to be the usual thing for governors, on entering upon their duties, to urge the use of the pruning-knife and then forget all about it. Whether this will be the result of Governor Odell's administration remains for the future to disclose. is better appreciated when it is known that He has made so many excellent recommen- more than ten per cent of the tax last year, dations in his first communication to the leg- was swallowed up in administration purposes. islature that the reviewer is embarrassed to On the subject of taxation a number of impick out any particular one for commendation. | portant recommendations are made. He recWhat he says about special attorneys seems to us peculiarly apt. That the attorney-general's office should do the work now done by the special counsel for the different departments seems self-evident, otherwise one might well inquire: "Why not abolish the State's legal department and have done with it?" What is the attorney-general's office for, but to attend to the legal business of the State? Last year that office cost the taxpayers nearly a round $100,000, or to be exact, $93,384. There is no question that Governor Odell is quite within bounds when he says the abuses that have grown up under the attorney system are such as to call for correction. The obvious remedy seems to be to prevent by law the employment of special counsel and compel the attorney-general's office to look after all the legal business of the State; for this purpose

ognizes the need of more liberal legislation in regard to incorporations which shall invite capital into the State instead of driving it away, and an adjustment of the taxation of corporations to their earning capacity. While accepting the principle of an extra tax upon special franchises, he is convinced that the present method of applying it is crude and should be more clearly defined. He is apparently not fully in favor of the plan of the Stranahan bill of last year for providing sufficient revenue for the State without levying a direct tax for the purpose, though anxious, as every one is, to see that an accomplished fact. He commends the uniform tax of one per cent on the capital of banks and trust companies, but would include the surplus of savings and insurance institutions and relieve mortgages altogether. It must be said, in justice to the

new governor, that he has, to all appearances, fluency, the occasion cannot fail to be one of succeeded in impressing himself upon both the extraordinary interest and the production one people and the politicians as a man who means of more than ordinary value. Wu Ting-fang exactly what he says, with the courage and is undoubtedly one of the most prominent men energy to put his words into deeds. That is in the public eye to-day, by reason largely of no easy thing, especially for a “practical poli- the recent events in the ancient kingdom of tician." The counting of chickens before they which he is the representative, and his conemerge from the shell is notoriously unsafe ceded ability in the art of diplomacy, as well as and liable to lead to bitter regrets. Similarly, his deep learning in the domain of law. He the counting of governmental reforms as ac- is an English barrister, of Lincoln's Inn, Loncomplished facts just because a governor has don. Arriving in Albany on the fifteenth inadvised them, would be the height of folly. stant, clad in his full robes of office and atWhat seems to have stirred the popular pulse tended by his retinue of servants, he will be and curiosity is the fact that a "practical poli- entertained by members of the association, tician" like Governor Odell should have and on the evening of the fifteenth, previous started right in with rolled-up sleeves to lay to the address, he will be the guest of the Hon. bare the many abuses of power that have been Simon W. Rosendale at an informal dinner. perpetrated by his own party and the opposi- After the address the distinguished visitor will tion for partisan ends. To quote the New be given a reception at the Fort Orange Club; York Times, “the vicious and contaminating on the evening of the sixteenth he will be presRepublican practice of creating needless offi-ent at the association's annual banquet and ces and authorizing the payment of large sums in fees to persons hired to do the work for doing which other persons draw liberal salaries, is the parent of the vices against which his crusade is directed. In that way the machine makes the treasury pay the living expenses of its workers and heelers. It is that that stirs the public indignation, even more than the evident waste of money." The proof of the pudding is in the eating of it. The proof of the value of a legislative session is in the wise acts passed and signed by the executive. The public is expectantly waiting.

will respond to a toast. Thus the annual meeting for 1901, both by reason of Mr. Wu Ting-fang's presence and of the many important topics to be discussed at the formal sessions promises to exceed in interest any former annual gathering.

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The notorious Cudahy affair at Omaha, Neb., and other similar but less spectacular crimes, perpetrated by weak imitators who to reap a harvest of ill-gotten sought to wealth, has directed public attention. the fact that in few of the States are there in force laws which provide adequate punishment The very interesting announcement is made for this class of crimes. It would be difficult that at the coming annual meeting of the New to name a species of criminality more despicYork State Bar Association in this city this able, deliberate and inherently wicked than month, one of the most brilliant representa- kidnapping, for no torture can be more extives of foreign nations in this country, "his quisite than that endured by fond parents excellency Wu Ting-fang, LL. D., minister whose child has been deliberately stolen and plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary from held for ransom. The villains who could the emperor of China to the United States, plan and carry out such a bold crime must be Spain and Peru," will be its guest and will ad- capable of any depths of iniquity. Since the dress the members and their guests on the Cudahy case and the publicity given thereto, evening of the fifteenth inst., in the assembly the fact that existing penalties in many of the chamber of the capitol. The distinguished States are wholly inadequate has been emphavisitor's topic will be "Chinese Jurisprudence," sized, and public sentiment has been stirred to and as he is not only a man of letters, a learned the point of demanding legislation that will lawyer and an accomplished diplomat, but provide a more fitting punishment for those speaks and writes the English language with who may hereafter be convicted of the crime

of kidnapping. At the same time there is danger of permitting the pendulum to swing too far, for we observe that in several of the States there is a sentiment in favor of making death the punishment for the crime. In North Dakota, for example, a leading member of the legislature is quoted as saying: "The statutes of North Dakota provide only a penitentiary sentence ranging from one to ten years, as a punishment for kidnapping, at the discretion of the trial judge. I favor the death penalty for the offense. There is no punishment too severe for such crimes." In Iowa and Wyom ing also there appears to be a similar sentiment. From this notion we beg to record our strong dissent. Attempts to provide too severe a penalty are likely, in our opinion, to result on no legislation at all. If the death penalty is to be retained, and we believe it should be, it ought to be reserved for those malefactors who have been convicted of murder in the first degree. Life imprisonment would fit the case exactly.

move of its own accord in the matter, the several medical societies, in concert for their own and the general protection, can easily force it to action. The fact that the Christian Science' leaders habitually commit this obvious fraud shows exactly how much of sincerity there is in their sickening professions of superior piety and virtue. Some patients they kill, others they allow to die needfees and keep out of jail, they are perfectly content. lessly, but so long as they get their extortionate All means to those ends are good to them, and the mere filing of a deceptive death certificate is a trifle too slight to get a moment's consideration."

The statistics of executions and lynchings which the Chicago Tribune has kept for the past sixteen years, make interesting reading to the penologist. It appears that, since 1885, 2,583 persons have been lynched in the United States, and that during the year just past the number was 115, an increase of eight over the record of the year 1899. Of these 115 mob murders, 107 occurred in the South and eight in the North; of the victims, 107 were negroes. The northern States in which the lynchings occurred were Indiana, three colored men, Kansas, two white men, and Colorado, two colored men. In the South, Louisiana and Missouri head the list, each with a lynching record of twenty victims during the year 1900. The legal executions during the year 1900

with those of the year 1899. At the same time the number of crimes punishable with death or imprisonment for life have increased by over 2,000. Eighty of the legal executions were in the South and thirty-nine were in the North. Of the total of 119 executed, sixty were white, fifty-eight negroes, and one a Chinaman. No woman was put to death under the law in the United States in the year 1900.

As a result of the Brush will contest in the city of New York, something definite in the way of evidence as to how the Christian Scientists cover up their failures has been obtained. It appears they have usually at hand some broken-down regular physician who is will-numbered 119, a decrease of twenty compared ing to sign any death certificate that is presented to him by a "healer" who has attempted to cure somebody afflicted with a real malady, and has failed. Thus, while the letter of the law is observed, its spirit and intention is shamelessly violated, to the infinite danger of the public. The apathy with which the doings of this dangerous cult is regarded is one of the strangest things in the closing days of the century, and if the public is so blind and credulous that it will not protect itself from this sort of imposition, then the law should step in and render the continuance of these wretched practices in the name of religion, impossible. We heartily indorse the following from the New York Times of recent date:

"The trick is simple, but it is also abominable, and now that its practice has been put beyond doubt or question, steps should instantly be taken to make it of no utility. If the legislature will not

indeed, the world seems to have gone patent mad. In the United States alone there were 623,535 patents granted in the sixty-two years from 1837 to 1898. During its existence the patent office has received more than $40,000,000 in fees. On carriages and wagons more than 20,000 patents have been granted; on stoves and furnaces, 18,000; on lamps, gas fittings, harvesters, boots and shoes and receptacles for storing, 10,000 each. The total of patents for the civilized world is easily twice that of the United States.

The past century has been one of mechanism

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