Central Law Journal.

ST. LOUIS, MO., JULY 5, 1918.

BUY WAR SAVINGS STAMPS.

One of Pershing's men, returned from France, was speaking:

"When I left for home," he said, "the

boys over there were feeling pretty blue, because they thought that you here in America were not backing them up as you ought. We had a pretty bitter winter over there. The weather was the coldest France has known in years. Many of us were without proper food and clothing. Some were even without shoes. None of us were complaining, though, but the feeling that when we were doing so much for you, you were not doing everything in your power to back us up sometimes bit in pretty hard.

"We felt like the little Irishman felt in a Y. M. C. A. hut one evening. A bunch. of us had gathered there to listen to a speaker from America. During the course of his lecture he said:

THE NEED OF A NATIONAL LAW PERIODICAL.

In beginning a new volume of the Central Law Journal, we take opportunity to thank our many subscribers and, friends throughout the country for the high compliment implied by their continued patron

age.

We are constrained thus to express our

gratitude by the fact that these are unusual and trying times and the demands of economy, enjoined by the necessities of the hour, and the expressed wishes of our National Government, have led not a few practitioners to cut off all legal periodicals but those most essential to them in their practice. That the Central Law Journal, of all national law publications, should have suffered the least justifies the presumption that this Journal is regarded by many lawyers, in some degree at least, as an office necessity.

But while this fact may offer some ground for self-congratulation, we, nevertheless, are conscious of a deep feeling of concern over the gradual disappearance of so many

to a man.'

"Then my little Irish friend got up. 'Yes,'

he said, 'you're all behind us, all right, a

h of a ways behind-4,000 miles.'"

Are we that far behind "the boys?" If we are, let us move up closer. Let us put all our energy into this War Savings Campaign. Let us save to the utmost of our ability and put our savings into W. S. S., and get everyone else to do the same. We ought to make "the boys" in France realize that while the mileage may be great, it is easily spanned by our willingness to help.

Some one has said: "If one of our boys hesitated as long in going over the top as some people do in buying Liberty Bonds or War Savings Stamps, he would be courtmartialed and shot for cowardice. And if the same punishment were meted out to noncombatants for financial cowardice an awful lot of people would be shot at dawn."

worthy contemporary, Case and Comment, of Rochester, suspended publication. Only a few years before, we purchased, on request, the entire subscription list and good will of the Green Bag of Boston. Not many years before that event the Albany Law Journal went out of existence.

The gradual disappearance of a national legal press should concern every lawyer in the United States. A bar of any great country without a strong national press is in danger of being regarded as provincial in habit of thought. It has not and cannot have wide range of vision, and while it may succeed commercially it is bound to deteriorate in respect of all those attributes and elements which go to make the profession of the law an intellectual profession rather than a commercial pursuit.

There are, we admit, some very good reasons for present conditions in this country.

America, unlike England or France, which have many strong legal publications, is not in a legal sense, a homogenous nation. It is a bundle of separate sovereignties having legislatures and courts wholly independent of each other. And today even the common law precedents of other states, heretofore regarded as so important, are losing their influence, not only because the mass of such precedents has become too unwieldy and confusing, but because each jurisdiction, especially the older states, have precedents and statutes of their own, fully covering every possible point of law that can arise. in the average lawyer's practice.

But there are other reasons, some of which are just making their importance felt, which point the other way.

In the first place the great mass of federal legislation having to do with the daily commercial and social life of the people is having a tendency to create a real common statute law for the whole country. The socalled encroachments of Congress in legislating in respect of the internal affairs of the people of the state are, in view of the present liberal attitude of the Supreme Court, likely to be widened and enlarged after the war rather than otherwise. this connection we refrain from expressing an opinion favorable or otherwise in regard to this tendency of centralization of legislative and judicial powers in the Federal Government, but are merely calling attention to a fact as we see it.

In

Another reason, which implies the duty of the lawyers of the several states occasionally to take the time to look over their backyard fences to note what their neighbors may be doing, is the steady progress being made by the Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws in securing the adoption of uniform state laws on subjects where uniformity is considered desirable. It is the desire of this great Conference that these laws shall not only be uniform as to the letter, but also as to the construction placed upon them by the courts of the vari

ous states. The decisions of other states, therefore, construing the various provisions of such laws are, and should be, more conclusive than local precedents preceding in point of time the adoption of such laws as indicating the intention of the legislature, since it is now admitted by the courts that with respect to such laws the supreme intention of the legislatures is that such laws shall be uniform and kept uniform with similar laws of other states without regard to previous holdings, constructions or definitions by local tribunals of last

resort.

In view, however, of the present uncertainty and confusion in legal thought in this country and in view of radical changes now taking form, tending more and more to nationalize the lawyer, we purpose to hold a steady course and, with the support of lawyers of wide vision, contribute what we can to the new and better era, whose coming will be at most but a matter of a very few years.

FAITH AND CREDIT CLAUSE APPLIED TO JUDGMENT IN SEQUESTRATION PRO

CEEDINGS.

Dissenting opinion by Justice Clarke, concurred in by Justices Pitney and Brandeis, in Marin v. Augedahl, 38 Sup. Ct. 452, shows a very formidable attack on the ruling by a majority of the court in the above case.

This ruling was that in sequestration proceedings against an insolvent corporation under Minnesota law, before a court, whose jurisdiction is challenged in another state, a judgment by former court is entitled to respect in the other state, where the challenge is made, notwithstanding that no issue under such a challenge was presented or passed upon by the court rendering the judgment.

In this case the sequestration proceeding was against a manufacturing company

and its stockholders in Minnesota under a statute of that state, for the purpose of making an assessment against the latter for double liability upon their stock. By Minnesota constitution it is provided that a stockholder "in any corporation, excepting those organized for the purpose of carrying on any kind of manufacturing or mechanical business, shall be liable to the amount of stock held or owned by him." The Minnesota court in the sequestration proceedings found that the stockholders should be assessed each in the sum of $100 for the shares they held and should pay to its receiver the said sum on each of said shares.

The majority held that all of the stockholders were "sufficiently represented by the corporation to be bound by the order (of the court), insofar as it determined the character and insolvency of the corporation and other matters affecting the propriety of a general assessment such as was made."

It was said in the prevailing opinion that: "Had the Minnesota court held that the corporation was in the excepted class and then denied the receiver's petition, is it not certain that the order, if neither set aside nor reversed, would have settled conclusively the non-existence of the asserted liability?**** Charged with the duty, as the court was of ascertaining whether there was any liability to be enforced, it was its province to consider and decide every question which was an element in that problem, including the one of whether the corporation was in the excepted class."

In other words, the court holds, that, though the constitution declares, that the statute will not apply to an excepted class, yet if the court declares that a corporation in that class is proceeded against, there is jurisdiction by erroneous ruling to bind stockholders to a liability the constitution forbids to be adjudged.

The dissenting opinion asserts that the state court, though generally a court of

general jurisdiction, yet in this proceeding it "was not acting as a court of general jurisdiction," but "as a statutory court of strictly limited powers," and, "as a court of general jurisdiction," it had no jurisdiction at all to entertain the suit. If the principle is sound that a court of limited jurisdiction has. no presumptions in its favor, also it must be true that a court of general jurisdiction, when acting as special tribunal, becomes, for the instant, a special tribunal.

a

NOTES OF IMPORTANT DECISIONS.

INDEMNITY INSURANCE-MALE ADULT AS MEMBER OF FAMILY OF INSURED.In Fullerton v. U. S. Casualty Co., 167 N. W. 700, decided by Supreme Court of Iowa, it was held that a policy insuring against damage caused by an automobile used "for business or pleasure," when interpreted by both parties as covering damage caused by the car when driven by insured or by any member of his family, made indemnity include damages paid by policy insured when his automobile was driven by his son, who was of legal age, but was living at the home of insured as a dependent.

The court speaks of the rule making such an owner liable to any person injured by any member of his family and says that: "It is true that the son had arrived at his majority. He was, however, a young man just out of school, living at the parental home, a member of his family and as yet dependent upon his father. Under such circumstances, the mere fact that he was more than 21 years old would not require the application of any other rule of law than we have already

stated."

We cannot speak of a practical construction put upon the policy by the parties, as this construction seemed to be none other than an understanding between the parties as to the meaning of the words "for business or pleasure," the latter to include use by members of the family of insured, and the court appears to admit that, had this adult have been greatly over the age of 21 years, he would not have been thought to be a member