The first Legislature of the new State of Oklahoma is called to meet December 2d, 1907.

Miss Jesse Pardoe, the accomplished deputy clerk of the Territorial Supreme Court will be continued one of the deputy clerks by the new incoming clerk. Her competency, fitness and faithfulness to the duties of the office make her almost indispensable, especially at this time. Her untiring zeal, fidelity and accommodating manner to all patrons of the office will long be agreeably remembered. Mr. Campbell's courtesy in retaining her is unqualifiedly appreciated by every member of the Bar.

While there is universal satisfaction with the appointee to the Oklahoma Western District, the friends of Judge Burford regret that he should fail to receive the appointment for which he was, by years of faithful study so well qualified to fill; especially at the view taken by the President that a man a little past fifty, should be considered too old for the place-a view extraordinary for a man of President Roosevelt's caliber; and in view of the fact that some of the leading Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States are old enough to be father to Judge Burford. Surely the President does not contemplate their retirement. Most of the leading cases now in the reports of Oklahoma, are the well reasoned opinions of Judge Burford; some of which have been made a part of the annotated reports in the Ameri can and English Annotated Cases. The faithful services of Judge Burford, extending over a number of years as Chief Justice of Oklahoma, will live, and remain a lasting monument to his memory.

The ambition of every first-class lawyer today, is to own a complete set of The Federal Statutes Annotated. Perhaps no other large set of law books ever published, secured in so short space of time, such extensive popularity as this monumental compilation.

THE

OKLAHOMA

LAW JOURNAL

VOL. 6.

EDITED AND PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY

D. H. FERNANDES, GUTHRIE, OKLAHOMA.

December, 1907.

No. 6.

UNIFORMITY OF LEGISLATION.

By W. O. Hart, of the

New Orleans Bar.

(Continued from page 180, of the November Number.)

What is known as the trust evil is the greatest of the times, and the trust is a great evil because the States, which create corporations, and without whose encircling arm and protection a corporation can do no business, are deprived of control of corporations through the usurpation of federal courts. The words of Thomas Jefferson were prophetic, but the prophecy has been fulfilled:

The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners, constantly working underground to mine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our Constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and Supreme one alone."

When I speak of the Federal judiciary I speak of system, and not of individual Judges, because there is no Judge within my acquảntance, either personally or through study, against whom individually a word may be said, though we of the south in times past could not always say this; but it is the system against which I speak particularly as applicable to what are euphemis

tically termed foreign corporations. Imperceptibly, and perhaps unintentionally, the fact is that the corporations believe that they own the Federal Courts, for I do not think in one case in a thousand, where a corporation is defendant, that is brought in the State court, does the corporation allow the case to be tried there, if it may be removed to the Federal Courts. A corporation goes into a State other than that of its creation to do business; it receives for its officers, its agents, and its property, every protection from the State. The Federal Government as such renders it none. It calls upon the State for police protection, for fire protection, and for protection through the criminal courts, and yet, when suit is brought against it to enforce one of its contracts, or to respond for damages for wrongs committed, it immediately takes from the State, through its courts, the right to adjudicate the issues presented in the case; and to say that this is done because the State Courts will not do justice to the corporation is a disgrace to the man who utters it. If the corporation feels it cannot get justice in the courts of a State then it should stay out of that State and not do business therein; but any right which the foreign corporation may be entitled to under the Constitution and laws of the United States, which is paramount to any State law, no State can deprive it of, for the United States Supreme Court sits in Washington to prevent just such errors. Take the street railways of most of the cities, which are now leased or owned by foreign corporations. Without the consent of the State where they do business they could not lay a foot of track or run a car for five minutes, and yet the corporation takes upon itself to say whether or not, when sued, it will allow the State Courts to retain jurisdiction of the case, or whether it will take the case to some other forum. State control and supervision over corporations can never be complete until the Federal Courts are de

prived of all jurisdiction over corporations, jurisdiction which the Constitution does not give, and which should never have been usurped. To what does the judicial power of the United States extend? Section 2 of Article 3 of the Constitution says: "Between a State and citizens of another State, between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State claiming land grants of different States, and between a State or the citizens thereof and foreign States, citizens or subjects"; and for the purpose of the present discussion, all we need to do is to determine what "citizen" means. Again referring to Bouvier we find:

"In American law, one who under the Constitution and laws of the United States, has a right to vote for representatives in Congress and other public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people."

Of course, if matters as now drifting are carried to their legitimate conclusion, a corporation may meet the definition of Bouvier, and we may have a corporation for Congress, Supreme Court Justice or President. But does anyone believe-can anyone conscientiously say— that the word "citizen," in the article of the Constitution just quoted, meant anything more or less than it said? It meant a person, a being made in the Divine image, and not a corporation, which has no soul.

The great Marshall, the expounder of the Constitution, in the well-known case of Bank of the United States vs. Deveaux, 5 Cranch. 16, said: "A corporation aggregate cannot, in its corporate capacity, be a citizen." This is common sense and reason, and it is a great pity that it was ever departed from. The corporation involved in that case was a corporation created by the laws of the United States, and yet the jurisdiction of the Court was held to be determined by the citizenship of the members composing the corporation, and that the corporation itself was nothing with reference to the jurisdiction

of the federal courts. We note that in many of the affairs of the day the dollar is put a bove the man, and, by the United States Courts taking jurisdiction over corporations as citizens, the thing is put above the individual. As to corporations, the Court presumes that the incorporators are citizens of the State of the formation of the corporation, but as to partnerships the Court will not take jurisdiction unless every partner may sue or be sued in the Federal Courts.

The dissenting opinion of Mr Justice Daniel in the case of Covington Drawbridge Company vs. Shepherd, 20 Howard, 234, must commend itself to all. It is as follows:

"In dissenting from the Court in this cause it is not designed to reiterate objections which in several previous instances have been expressed. I will merely remark, with reference to the present decisions, and to others in this Court, numerous as they are said to have been, that they have wholly failed to bring conviction to my mind, that a corporation can be a citizen, or that the term citizen can be correctly understood in any other sense than that in which it was understood in common acceptation when the Constitution was adopted, and as it is universally, by writers on government explained. without a single exception."

When we read this opinion, brief though it be, but every word breathing with logic, it is almost impossible to believe that the Court could ever have held otherwise, and could have overruled, as it did in 2 Howard, 497; 16 Howard, 314, and 20 Howard, 227, the decision of Chief Justice Marshall in the Deveaux case. It is worthy of note that Marshall had ceased to be a member of the Court before the overruling began.

In the case of Ohio and Mississippi Railroad Company vs. Wheeler, 1 Black, 286, the learned reporter, evidently from his legal education. not in sympathy