Abuse of Corporate Charter. By D. E. Mowry. Central Uniform Corporations Laws. By Franklin A. Wagner. New York Law Journal, July 29, 1909 Government Regulation of Security Issues. By A. U. Ayres. Political Science Quarterly, December, 1913 Power of Congress to Enact Incorporation Laws, and Laws The Standard Oil Decision and the Rule of Reason. By H. L. Wilgus. Michigan Law Review, June, 1911. D. Public Utilities: Property affected with a Public Interest State Control of Public Utilities. By Bruce Wyman. Har- A. Establishment of Commissions Commission Regulation of Public Utilities: A Sey of A Government of Law as Distinguished from a Government of Functionaries. By Hannis Taylor. Green Bag, Sep- B. Some Problems of Commissions Some Features of State Regulation of Public Utilities. By John H. Roemer, Wisconsin Bar Association Factors Determining a Reasonable Charge for Public Utility Conclusiveness of Administrative Determination in the Fed- eral Government. By T. R. Powell. Political Science Methods of Judicial Review in Relation to the Effective- ness of Commission Control. By O. L. Pond. Annals American Academy of Political and Social Science, May, Progressive Tendencies in Labor Law Administration in America. By John B. Andrews. American Labor Legis- The Legal Minimum Wage in the United States. By A. N. Holcombe. American Economic Review, March, 1912 B. Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation Constructive Investigation and the Industrial Commission Constitutional Aspects of Federal Regulation of Business. The Regulation of Railway Rates under the Fourteenth Amend- Power of Congress over Manufacture and Production. By Thomas H. Calvert, from "Regulation of Commerce under - Federal Usurpation. By Franklin Pierce, from "Federal Usur- VIII. EXCERPTS FROM TESTIMONY GIVEN AT THE HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE COMMERCE OF UNITED STATES SENATE, INVESTIGATING THE DESIRABILITY OF CHANGING THE LAWS REGULATING AND CONTROLLING CORPORATIONS, I THE CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF PROPERTY AND THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT THE CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION OF PROPERTY IN AMERICA BY ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY, PRESIDENT OF YALE UNIVERSITY (From the Independent, April 16, 1908) The basis of the expansion of governmental functions in relation to industry and property is the changing opinion regarding property obligations and vested rights. The statement by President Hadley may well be called the classic pronouncement upon this subject. — EDITOR'S NOTE. - European observers who study either the specific industrial questions which have come before the American people for their solution, or the general relation between the industrial activity of the Government and that of private individuals, are surprised at a certain weakness of public action in all these matters. Our legislatures are often ready to pass drastic measures of regulation; they are rarely willing to pursue a consistent and carefully developed policy for the attainment of an industrial end. The people often declaim against the extent of the powers of private capital; they are seldom willing to put that capital under the direct management of the government itself. The man who talks loudest of the abuses of private railroad management shrinks from the alternative of putting railroads into the direct control and ownership of the State. The fact is, that private property in the United States, in spite of all the dangers of unintelligent legislation, is constitutionally in a stronger position, as against the Government and the Government authority, than is the case in any country of Europe. However much public feeling may at times move in the direction of socialistic measures, there is no nation which by its constitution is so far removed from a socialism or from a socialistic order. This is partly because the governmental means provided for the control or limitation of private property are weaker in America than elsewhere, but chiefly because the rights of private property are more formally established in the Constitution itself. This may seem a startling proposition; but I think a very brief glance at the known facts of history will be sufficient to support and sustain it. For property in the modern sense was a comparatively recent development in the public law of European communities. In the United States, on the contrary, property in the modern sense represents the basis on which the whole social order was established and built up. Down to about the thirteenth century the system of land tenure in every country of Europe was a feudal one. It was based upon military service. A man held a larger or smaller amount of land on account of his larger or smaller amount of fighting efficiency. There were many rival claimants for the land. The majority of those who wanted to cultivate the soil were unable to protect themselves against the dangers of war. In the absence of an efficient protector or overlord no amount of industry was effective and no large accumulation of capital was possible. The services of the military chief were indispensable as a basis for the toil of the laborer or the forethought of the capitalist. It was the military chief, therefore, who enjoyed not only the largest measure of respect, but the strongest position under the law. As the conditions of public security grew better these things changed. From the fourteenth century to the nineteenth Europe has witnessed the gradual substitution of industrial tenures for military tenures, the gradual development of a system of property law intended to encourage the activities of the laborers and the capitalists, rather than to reward the services of the successful military chieftain. But down to the end of the eighteenth century this new sort of private property represented a superadded element rather than an integral basis of the constitution of society. And even the developments of the last hundred years in constitutional law and industrial activity have not been able to obliterate a certain sense of newness when we contrast the position of the aristocracy of wealth with that of the aristocracy of military rank. In the American colonies, on the other hand, where the public law of the United States first took its rise, conditions were wholly different. People wanted no military chieftain to protect them, no overlord to rule them. Each man was familiar with the use of a gun - how familiar, the overwhelming losses of the British troops in the Revolutionary War, when brought face to face with untrained farmers, testify very clearly and was ready to take his share in protecting the community against the attacks of the Indians or their French leaders. |