Law and Politics Commons^™

The Political And Social Factor In Legal Interpretation, Roscoe Pound

Michigan Law Review

We may think of the task of the legal order as one of maintaining the inner order of a politically organized society. The term "law" is not uncommonly used to include the task and the agencies by which we endeavor to achieve it. Thus it is used (as by sociologists and by the historical jurists) for all social control, and, by those who limit the term to a highly specialized social control through politically organized society, for (1) the legal order, the regime of adjusting relations and ordering conduct by systematic employment of the force of a state (the type …

Libel And Slander-Charge Of Communism As Libel, Robert L. Cardon

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff a federal official, brought a libel action based on defendant's publication, in 1944, of an article charging that plaintiff had been campaign manager for a Communist candidate in a New York election; had been employed by the Daily Worker; and had caused defendant's removal from a Bronx ration board because of defendant's opposition to left-wing activities connected therewith. Plaintiff contended that the article was libelous in that (1) it charged that he was a Communist; and (2) it charged that he had conspired, in violation of the duties of his office, to oust defendant. Held, the complaint stated …

Spotlight On Congress: A Review Of Six Recent Books, John W. Lederle

Michigan Law Review

Many books on Congress have appeared recently. Perhaps no period in our history has seen the printing of as many books bearing on Congress. This review is directed to a consideration of six of these which have come out during the last three years. Some of these volumes are broader in scope and deal with other topics than Congress. It will be appreciated that this review is restricted to the subject matter dealing with the legislative branch of government.

The Divided Supreme Court, 1944-1945, C. Herman Pritchett

Michigan Law Review

The United States Supreme Court has in recent years been supplying fascinating material for students interested in the interplay of personal and institutional factors in the judicial decision-making process. Contrary to the more restrictive practices of some other legal systems, the traditions of the American judiciary have never insisted that justices sitting en banc should hide the existence of division among themselves behind a facade of pretended unanimity. Justices who dissent from a decision of their brethren have been permitted to say so, and to give their reasons. This practice has had an immeasurably great effect in facilitating the growth …

Political Committee Expenditures And The Hatch Act, John W. Lederle

Michigan Law Review

Democratic governments are rightly concerned about how money is used to influence elections. The oft-quoted proverb, "He who pays the piper calls the tune," contains a large grain of truth. In many countries comprehensive statutory regulation of campaign expenditures may be found; but it is unlikely that any other country can match the variety of experiments which have been indulged in by-the national Congress and the forty-eight state legislatures in the United States.

Italian Administrative Courts Under Fascism, Paul B. Rava

Michigan Law Review

Observers not wholly familiar with the administration of the present government of Italy are generally surprised by the fact that the Council of State, the supreme administrative court, is still an operating body after more than eighteen years of blackshirt revolution and domination. It seems strange that a dictator should have preserved this agency, which was established in order to bring justice into public administration, and which rapidly became the principal guardian of individual rights against administrative arbitrariness. One asks how the Council of State can, in a totalitarian state, continue to exercise its functions of administrative court and of …

Niemeyer On Law Without Force, Josef L. Kunz

Michigan Law Review

Whereas Lauterpacht tried to determine the function of law in the international community, Niemeyer investigates the function of politics in international law. His book is on politics, but it is theoretical in its treatment and not political. The book not only represents an ambitious work, but is certainly interesting and stimulating. As to his ideas, Niemeyer derives from Herman Heller, to whom the book is dedicated. Heller's theory of the States is not a legal, but a sociological, a functional theory of the modern, occidental State as it developed since the Renaissance, a theory which stands halfway between Kelsen's "pure …

Should The Power Of The Federal Government Be Increased?, Donald R. Richberg

Michigan Law Review

This question, in its broadest aspect, may call for an opinion as to whether the power of the federal government, delegated and limited by the Constitution, should be enlarged by constitutional amendment. The question, more narrowly construed, may be whether the federal government should extend the exercise of its present, delegated powers over more subjects of regulation and into more detailed controls of American life and work.

The State Legislatures And Unionism: A Survey Of State Legislation Relating To Problems Of Unionization And Collective Bargaining, Russell A. Smith, William J. Delancey

Michigan Law Review

'There ought to be a law!" So declared labor and its friends in the early days of the New Deal, and the Wagner Act and "little" Wagner acts (the "labor relations acts") were the legislative response. Now, some five years later, with Utopia in labor relations not yet at hand, the hue and cry goes up for still more law, both state and federal. In part this is the typical American reaction to particular irritations and assumes with the usual naiveté that there is a single legislative specific for every isolated ailment. In part it is the equally typical reaction …

Aliens - Deportation - Statutory Construction, William K. Jackson

Michigan Law Review

The petitioner was held for deportation under a statute requiring deportation of any alien who at any time after entering the United States is found to have been at the time of entry or to have become thereafter a member of any one of previously enumerated classes of aliens who may be excluded. The circuit court of appeals in denying deportation based its decision on the fact that the evidence was insufficient, since it was not proven that the Communist Party was an organization that believes in or advocates the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the …

Recent Developments In The Deportation Process, Reuben Oppenheimer

Michigan Law Review

The process under which the United States, through the Department of Labor, deports aliens found to be unlawfully in this country is one of the oldest in American administrative law. It is also one of the most interesting, for this process deals almost entirely with persons as contrasted with property, and its development has been largely unimpeded by court decisions.

Constitutional Law - Protection Of Freedom Of Speech Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Jack L. White

Michigan Law Review

The appellant, a negro member of the Communist Party, was engaged in work as a paid party organizer in Atlanta in 1932. Shortly after leading a hunger march of unemployed he was arrested, and was tried and convicted under a state statute, enacted in the Reconstruction Period, which made criminal "any attempt, by persuasion or otherwise, to induce others to join in any combined resistance to the lawful' authority of the State." At the time of his arrest the appellant had in his possession evidence of his organization activities and also a quantity of party literature, but there was no …

The Non-Recognition Law Of The United States, Kimon A. Doukas

Michigan Law Review

We speak of nations as being equal, independent and sovereign within the fixed confines of their physical boundaries. As aptly stated by our Supreme Court, in the civilized world of today, "Every sovereign State is bound to respect the independence of every other sovereign State, and the courts of one country will not sit in judgment on the acts of the government of another done within its own territory."

Constitutional Law - Validity Of Criminal Syndicalism Statute, Herman Jerome Bloom

Michigan Law Review

The defendant was indicted for assisting in the conduct of a meeting which was called under the auspices of the Community Party, an organization advocating criminal syndicalism. The statute defined criminal syndicalism as "the doctrine which advocates crime, physical violence, sabotage, or any unlawful acts or methods as a means of accomplishing or effecting industrial or political change or revolution," and described a number of offenses, including the presiding at, or the assisting in, the conduct of a meeting of an organization advocating criminal syndicalism as defined in the act. The state court upheld the indictment under a construction of …

The Unicameral Legislature In Nebraska, Lester B. Orfield

Michigan Law Review

It is perhaps not exaggerating to say that no more far-reaching innovation in state government has been adopted in recent years than Nebraska's unicameral legislature. It is an axiom of political science - somewhat modified, to be sure, by the growth of administrative tribunals - that there are three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. Nebraska has drastically changed the first of these three by adopting a single-house legislature. This question whether the legislature shall consist of one or two houses has become the chief problem of legislative structure during recent years. The model state constitution drafted by the …

Political Theory And Practice, Everett S. Brown

Michigan Law Review

A review of THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT. A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY. By J. Mark Jacobson, Ph.D.

The Courts, The Press, And The Public, Stuart H. Perry

Michigan Law Review

It was with especial gratification that I accepted this invitation to speak. It is a pleasure to be with you, and it affords me an opportunity to contribute to a discussion of matters that are of great importance to your profession and my own and to the public. Perhaps I should not thus separate myself from your profession. I am still at least nominally a member of the bar, and though it is many years since I last appeared in court I have a keen and sympathetic interest in legal matters and enjoy my contacts with the bench and bar …

Constitutional Law-Municipal Corporations-Police Power

Michigan Law Review

The defendants circulated, on the streets of Milwaukee, hand bills which set forth the political and economic views of their group. An ordinance made it unlawful for any person "to circulate or distribute any circular, hand bills, cards, posters, dodgers, or other printed or advertising matter, * * * in or upon any sidewalk, street, * * * or other public place, park or ground within the City of Milwaukee." The defendants were arrested and convicted of violating this ordinance. There was no charge that the ordinance was enforced in any unreasonable or discriminatory manner, or that its purpose was …

Review: The Public And Its Government. By Professor Felix Frankfurter, Forrest Revere Black

Michigan Law Review

A Review of THE PUBLIC AND ITS GOVERNMENT By Professor Felix Frankfurter.

Review: Edward Coke, Oracle Of The Law

Michigan Law Review

A Review of EDWARD COKE, ORACLE OF THE LAW By Hastings Lyon and Herman Block.

The United States And The League Of Nations, Clarence A. Berdahl

Michigan Law Review

With the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles by the necessary number of Powers on January 10, 1920, there came into existence that new experiment in international cooperation and government known as the League of Nations. It has grown from a membership of 43 states in 1920 to 55 in 1929. Including Great Powers and Small Powers, states of Europe, Asia, Africa, South, Central, and even North America, it can in no sense of the word be properly characterized as a European league merely, or another Holy Alliance, but is truly a world organization. Only Afghanistan, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Russia, …

The New Law Of Nations, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"In these disillusioned years which are the aftermath of the World War the law of nations has come to be regarded in many quarters with a kind of sophisticated skepticism. It is freely asserted that the law has proved a futile reliance, that it has broken down, and it is asked--with an air of unbelief too obvious to be misunderstood--What is there that is ever likely to be done about it?"

The Russian Reinsurance Case, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson's second commentary on Russian Reinsurance Company v. Stoddard and Bankers Trust Company: "The facts in the Russian Reinsurance Company case were without precedent. The Reinsurance Company had been incorporated in Russia in 1899 under a special statute constituting its charter and by-laws.... In 1917 the revolutionary Soviet Government was established in Russia and seven of the eight persons constituting the company's board of directors was driven into exile. In 1918 Soviet decrees nationalized the company, confiscated its property, and apparently terminated its corporate existence. Nevertheless, the exiled directors held meetings in Paris and continued to direct the …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

The Juridical Nature Of The State, Sir Paul Vinogradoff

Michigan Law Review

Of all varieties of social co-operation, one dominates the others. It is the State, and a fundamental problem in every system of law consists in settling the legal relations between the State and its members- both the individuals and the juridical persons.

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

The Reform Of Civil Procedure, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

Professor Sunderland addresses the pernicious involvement of legislators in legal reform, contrary to the English model. This duty should be left to those who know the Law better than any: "The courts constitute the judicial department of the state, and the judges who preside and the lawyers who practice in them are the selected group of trained men charged with the responsibility for administering the law."

A Guide To Diplomatic Practice, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"Sir Ernest Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice was first published in 1917. It was the first systematic treatise on the practice and procedure of diplomacy to be printed in the English language, covering a field already occupied in other languages....

"...[T]he author compiles a wealth of data accumulated in research and long experience in what may perhaps be described as the professional diplomatist's book of forms and precedents... It is chiefly a digest of diplomatic data intended to afford practical guidance in the routine of diplomatic organization, precedence and ceremonial, procedure, immunities, international congresses and conferences, the making of treaties …

Les Gouvernements Ou États Non Reconnus En Droit Anglais Et Américain, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson tackles the subject of non-recognition of governments or states in English and American law: "Pour conclure, voici les propositions de l'auteur. La reconnaissance d'un Gouvernement or Etat etranger est exclusivement une question politique. L'existence d'un Gouvernement ou Etat etranger est exclusivement une question de fait.... C'est une chose deja grave que de voir d'une menace dans les conflits diplomatiques..."

Judges In The British Cabinet And The Struggle Which Led To Their Exclusion After 1806, Arthur Lyon Cross

Michigan Law Review

Among the anomalies in the queer and devious course of Eng- £ lish constitutional progress few have been more striking than the number of reforms which have been due to the Conservatives.. One of no little significance was brought about during that period of political stagnation-the era of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This was the exclusion of judges from the Cabinet, as the result of a political struggle in which the forces of opposition, though temporarily defeated, formulated a policy which was destined henceforth to prevail.