commission, and to constitute a general railroad contingent fund to be used to aid needy carriers and to secure equipment necessary in the interests of the public.

The rights of non-union labor to be heard before the Labor Board are upheld, though unorganized labor has no direct representation on this board. Representation of the public on the board, much criticised by labor, was made imperative, on the ground that eventually it is the public which always has to pay. Consideration of all the special circumstances on which the wage scale was to

IN

be fixed has resulted in effect in a bill of rights for labor, providing for equalization as compared with other industries, the cost of living, the hazards of employment, training and skill required, degree of responsibility and the elimination of inequalities resulting from previous wage orders or adjustments.

No penalties are provided for use in enforcing the decisions of the board, as it is believed that publicity and public opinion will suffice to bring about compliance on the part of both the carriers and the workers.

A

N a decision handed down March 1 the Federal Supreme Court held that the United States Steel Corporation is not a trust in the meaning of the Sherman anti-trust law. The opinion was read by Justice McKenna and was concurred in by Chief Justice White and Justices Holmes and Vandevanter. dissenting opinion was rendered by Justices Clarke, Pitney and Day, and was read by the latter. Two Justices, Brandeis and McReynolds, had abstained from any expression of opinion. The reason for this on the part of Justice McReynolds was that he had been Attorney General at the time the Government dissolution suit was instituted. Justice Brandeis, before his elevation to the Supreme bench, had in 1911 expressed an opinion that the Steel Corporation was in fact a trust.

The majority opinion held, in effect, that the Steel Corporation had committed no overt acts violative of the Sherman law since the Government's suit was filed; that though by its size and its control of equipment the corporation was in a position to dominate the trade, this was not to be considered, since there was no actual evidence that it did so. Finally -and this was the striking feature of the decision-it was held that to order the dissolution of the corporation would involve the risk of great disturbance to the financial and economic structure, and thus would menace the public interest, which was of paramount importance.

The dissenting opinion contended that the decision, by not conforming with the precedent established in the Standard Oil and American Tobacco Company cases, constituted an annulment of the Sherman law. It also held that no alleged public interest could give sanction to a violation of law, and no disturbance of foreign or domestic commerce could justify the abrogation of statutes.

The majority opinion justified its departure from the precedents established in the oil and tobacco cases, on the ground that in the steel case there was no evidence, as in the other two, that the corporation had from its inception been a lawbreaker. Regarding this, it said in part:

In the tobacco case, as in the Standard Oil case, the court had to deal with a persistent and systematic lawbreaker, masquerading under legal forms, and which not only had to be stripped of its disguises but arrested in its illegality. A decree of dissolution was the manifest instrumentality and inevitable. We think it would be a work of sheer supererogation to point out that a decree in that case or in the Standard Oil case furnishes no example for a decree in this.

The decree, it is thought, will have an important bearing on many antitrust cases now pending, such as the suits instituted against the Sugar Trust, Eastman Kodak Company, Reading Railroad Company, Keystone Watch Company, and others. By some it is pointed to as justifying the agreement reached

without suit by Attorney General Palmer with the packers. Others construe it as a notification to "big business" that, despite size and magnitude of resources, any so-called trust will be immune from prosecution during good behavior.

While somewhat of weight was lost

to the decree by the fact that it was not rendered by a full bench, and also that three out of the seven members participating vigorously dissented, it was generally recognized that it would have a most important influence on the whole anti-trust program of the Attorney General's office.

UNITED STATES CABINET CHANGES

BAINBRIDGE COLBY, a lawyer of

New York, was nominated by the President on Feb. 25 to succeed Robert Lansing as Secretary of State. This nomination met with considerable opposition in the Senate. A graduate of a New England college, Mr. Colby had come to New York in 1892. His political career was marked from the start by independent tendencies. He left the Republican Party in 1912 to support Mr. Roosevelt. When the candidacy of Charles E. Hughes on the Republican ticket was indorsed by Mr. Roosevelt in 1916, Mr. Colby refused to follow, and came out for Wilson. Since that time he has been a warm supporter of the President and of his policies. As a member of the Shipping Board Mr. Colby vigorously opposed the effort of British interests to obtain control of former vessels of the International Mercantile Marine transferred to American registry. He was closely associated with Sir Joseph Maclay, British Minister of Shipping. Later he was in Paris in connection with the Peace Conference. He has been a convinced advocate of the League of Nations, and in an address delivered on Feb. 18 he paid a warm tribute to President Wilson as its initiator. The Senate named a committee to examine into his qualifications, and Mr. Colby himself appeared before this committee by request. Early confirmation of his appointment was expected when these pages went to press.

A peculiar state of affairs had developed on March 15 with the expiration

of the tenure of Frank L. Polk as Acting Secretary of State. Owing to the delay of the Senate in confirming Bainbridge Colby's appointment, the State Department was left without a head. Mr. Polk continued to serve, but his functions were considerably curtailed. He was unable to attest signatures, to issue proclamations or to authorize passports. The passport situation was said to be the most urgent and the most embarrassing. As against the usual yearly average of 20,000, about 23,000 passports were issued in January and February of this year, and 14,000 up to the middle of March. Applications for passports made by or before midnight of March 14 would not be granted until the office of Secretary of State was filled..

Following his resignation as Secretary of the Interior, Franklin K. Lane, in a valedictory letter sent to President Wilson on Feb. 28, his last day of office, made sharp criticism of Governmental methods in Washington as he had found them during his seven years of Cabinet service. Governmental work in the various departments, he asserted, was poorly organized; every one seemed afraid of every one else, and evaded responsibility, and the creative sense was blunted. He suggested as a partial remedy the appointment of fewer men, but men of greater capacity.

As Mr. Lane's successor the President appointed John Barton Payne, who has been Chairman of the Shipping Board, his appointment to become effective on March 1. Mr. Payne stated that he had accepted the new post at the wish of

the President, though his heart was in the Shipping Board. He was born at Pruntytown, Va., sixty-four years ago. Admitted to the bar at the age of 21, he occupied in rapid succession the offices of Chairman of the Democratic County Committee, Judge of the Circuit Court, and Mayor of Kingwood, W. Va. After moving to Chicago he soon became known as one of the ablest lawyers of that city. In 1893 he was elected a Judge of the Superior Court of Cook County. In 1892 he entered a large and well-known legal firm. During the war he was general counsel to the United States Shipping Board, and later Secretary McAdoo requested him to act as general counsel to the Railroad Administration, in which capacity he served for some time.

* * *

OTHER APPOINTMENTS

THE nomination of Rear Admiral Will

iam S. Benson to be a member of the Shipping Board to succeed John Barton Payne, who had become Secretary of the Interior, was confirmed by the Senate on March 13.

The appointment of William Martin Williams of Alabama to succeed Daniel C. Roper as Commissioner of Internal Revenue was announced on March 15. Mr. Williams had occupied the post of Solicitor for the Department of Agriculture, and was recommended for his new office by Secretary of the Treasury Houston. Mr. Roper's resignation was to become effective April 1.

Colonel W. B. Greeley, it was announced at this time, had been appointed as Chief Forester to succeed Henry S. Graves. Colonel Greeley, who is a graduate of the University of California and the Yale Forest School, had received the French Legion of Honor and the British Distinguished Service Order for his work as Chief of the Forestry Section of the American Army when he had been in charge of 21,000 specially trained troops. His work in the Forestry Service of the United States had ranged through all technical grades. His new appointment was a promotion from the post of Assistant Forester.

DISABILITY TEST FOR PRESIDENT

TWO

WO resolutions were introduced in Congress on Feb. 18 proposing that the Supreme Court be empowered to determine when a President of the United States is incapacitated for performing the duties of his office. Another bill was presented the following day by Representative Madden of Illinois, which proposed that the Cabinet be authorized to define a President's disability. Mr. Madden expressed his fears of the precedent established by President Wilson in removing Mr. Lansing from office on the ground of his having called the Cabinet together to discuss national matters during the President's illness, and declared that in the future no Cabinet would ever dare to meet in a similar contingency. His bill provided that, on the Cabinet's decision, after investigation of the President's incapacity, the Vice President should immediately assume his functions.

THE

THE NEW BRITISH AMBASSADOR THE appointment of Sir Auckland Geddes, formerly President of McGill University, Montreal, as British Ambassador to the United States, was officially announced in London on March 1. His coming to America to enter on his official duties was scheduled to occur within a month. The personality of the new Ambassador is an interesting one; over 6 feet 21⁄2 inches in height and very broad-shouldered, he is noted as an athlete both in body and mind. Keenly interested in business development, he is said to have been in large part responsible for the recent development of British trade policy; though alive to the reality of business rivalries, he declares there can be no possibility of friction between the United States and Great Britain on trade questions if both nations show good-will.

Though of Scotch descent, he has lived so long in Canada and the United States that he cannot be distinguished from a native. To meet the expenses of his new office Sir Auckland Geddes will receive a net allowance of $100,000 yearly.

MAJOR SCHROEDER'S AIR RECORD

MAJOR R. W. SCHROEDER of the

set a

United States Army Aviation Corps

new world record for altitude

reached in an airplane, when on Feb. 27, flying at Dayton, Ohio, he climbed to a point 36,020 feet above the earth. At this altitude of more than six miles he lost consciousness, as his supply of oxygen had become exhausted, and fell, as indicated by the instruments on his machine, more than five miles in two minutes. When within 2,000 feet of the earth he recovered consciousness sufficiently to right his machine, and made a safe landing at McCook Field. The attendants there found him sitting in his machine, apparently lifeless. He was blinded, his limbs paralyzed with cold, despite his electrically heated suit; he was also suffering from the effects of lack of oxygen. In this condition he was removed to a local hospital, and on the following day was resting comfortably, with ice packs on his eyes, which were still blinded as the result of his experience. Later he told the following facts:

The temperature at the peak o. th climb was 67 degrees below, Fahrenheit. The centre section of my machine was coated an inch thick with ice. The exhaust from the motor sprayed fumes of carbon monoxide over me, and I was breathing this continually along with the oxygen. I had set out with three hours' supply of oxygen, and four hours' fuel supply. I was getting along rapidly. I knew by reading my instruments that I had broken the record; that I was flying higher than any man had ever flown before. I had an hour and one-half supply of fuel left and was quite elated. I was wondering just how far I could climb in that time when I found my reserve tank of oxygen emptied.

I had discarded the original tank some minutes before, because it did not function properly, and when I exhausted my reserve I turned back to it. It would not work. I had torn off my heavy goggles, because the motor exhaust was crystallizing on them and interfered with my vision. I turned toward the instrumentsthen everything went blank. I fell into a flat nose dive. As far as I can remember, part of the fall was in a straight dive. The rest was a spinning nose dive. I believe I was really 34,000 feet high when I fell against the switchboard. My motor was on at the time. I was trying to turn off the switch as I nosed the plane head down. I must have turned the

switch off, lost consciousness completely, but revived long enough to make a landing.

* * *

CONVICTION OF SENATOR NEWBERRY

TWO years in the Federal Penitentiary

and a fine of $10,000 were imposed upon United States Senator Truman H. Newberry on March 20 by a verdict in the United States District Court of Grand Rapids, Mich. Mr. Newberry had been indicted for conspiracy to violate the Federal statute, limiting Senatorial campaign expenditures, in his campaign against Henry Ford. The trial, which was by jury, was begun on Feb. 2 and ended with the conviction of the accused Senator on March 20. Sentence on sixteen others, including Senator Newberry's brother, ranged from two years' imprisonment and a $10,000 fine to a fine of $1,000. A request for a ninety-day stay of execution was granted all the defendants, and they were freed on their own recognizance until new bonds could be made. The jury's deliberations were summed up subsequently by one of the jurors as follows:

We followed the Judge's instructions and the evidence. Considering both, we had. no other choice than to convict. The first question to be determined was whether a conspiracy had actually existed in the Newberry campaign of 1918. We argued and voted until finally the whole twelve of us agreed that the evidence conclusively demonstrated that a conspiracy existed as defined in the indictment. * * *

STOCK DIVIDENDS NOT TAXABLE

THE Supreme Court decided on March

8 that the taxing of stock dividends under the income tax section of the 1916 revenue law was unconstitutional on the ground that stock dividends are not income, and cannot be taxed as such if declared by corporations out of their profits accrued since March 1, 1913. In consequence of this decision all taxes collected by the Government for 1917 and 1918 on stock dividends and paid under protest must be refunded by the Government. According to the Actuary of the Treasury, the refund for these years will reach a minimum total of $35,000,000. This decision was bitterly attacked by Samuel Gompers, President of the

American Federation of Labor, who declared that it would throw $100,000,000 of additional taxation on other people, and was part of an "invasion of the people's rights by the judicial tribunals of the country."

* * *

PENSION FOR AGUINALDO

GENERAL EMILIO AGUINALDO,

leader of the Filipino insurgents against the Spaniards in 1896, was granted a yearly pension of $6,000 by the Territorial Legislature of the Philippines on March 8. Cayetano A. Areliano, former

ly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, was granted a pension of the same amount, and Frank W. Carpenter, retiring Governor of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu, was voted a grant of $25,000.

THE

** * *

BRITISH MIDDLE-CLASS UNION

British Middle-Class Union, branches of which are springing up all over the country, has been organized by the salaried population of Great Britain to counteract the increasing demands of the labor unions and their continued strikes, tying up essential public services. The new union points out that while organized labor can count on some 10,500,000 votes, the middle class can rely upon approximately 25,000,000. It utters no threats, but declares its intention to co-operate with the lawful authorities in rendering effective help in emergencies, and to prove that "the people as a whole are greater and more powerful than even the most thoroughly organized minority."

PAYING OUR WAR ACCOUNT IN SPAIN

THE Spanish Minister of Finance on

Feb. 28 at Madrid signed a decree permitting the admission into Spain of 33,000,000 pesetas (about $6,600,000 at the normal rate of exchange) to be paid by the United States in accordance with the terms of the financial agreement signed two years ago. This arrangement was concluded by Ambassador Willard on March 7, 1918, and provided for the purchase of large quantities of supplies in Spain for General Pershing's forces in France; at the same time a French credit was established in Madrid for the purchase of similar supplies. In return for export concessions the United States assured to Spain whatever cotton and oil it required, though barring all shipments of these commodities to Germany before the end of the war. Under this agreement General Pershing obtained for his army 500,000 woolen blankets, 20,000 tons of leather, 100,000 tons of chick peas, great quantities of saddles and bridles, and a large number of mules.

* * *

THE NEW FRENCH PREMIER

ALEXANDER MILLERAND, who suc

ceeded M. Clemenceau as Premier of France on Jan. 18, has figured as a prominent lawyer in many important cases in the last twenty-five years. His action some years ago in declaring his faith in socialism startled and scandalized the Palais de Justice, but he became the first Socialist Minister under the Third Republic in the Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet, which endured for several years. He was always emphatic in his dismissal of bourgeois fears of socialism. A solid and convincing speaker, he