Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-25
FOR UNIFORM LAWS.
Work Cut Out for the Commission
ers Who Will Discuss
WILLS MARRIAGES AND DIVORCES.
The Need for Harmonious State Legisla.
ton on These Subjects.
INSOLVENCY LAWS 70 BE LOOKED INTO

50 far been appointed by the Governors
several Legislatures to inquire into and re-
port to their bodies next winter the proper
methods to secure uniformity of State legis-
lation, especially on the subjects Of in
solvency, construction and probate of wills,
marriage and divorce, will meet conformity
in general body to-day at the Grand Union
Hotel
There has been for some time past an
earnest agitation to secure uniformity of
State legislation on these and kindred sub
jects, the burden and inconvenience of the
workings of the widely different State
statutes thereon having long been deeply
felt and widely recognized, but there has
hitherto been no successful effort made to
rectify these evils.
The State of New York inaugurated the
present movement by the passage by it's
Legislature of an act authorizing the Gov
ernor to appoint three Commissioners to in
vestieate the subject and recommend meas
ures of relief to the Legislature at its next
session. This was followed by the Legisla-
lures of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, Delaware and Michigan, and the
Governors thereof have appointed three
Commissioners for each State in accordance
Herewith.
Who the Commissioners Are.
The Commissioners for the State of New
York are Henry L Beekman. President, of
New York, ex-Corporation Counsel of New
York; Irving Browne, of Albany, of the AL
bany Law Journal, and William L. SNYDER,
OF New York, lawyer and law writer; on the
part of Pennsylvania are Ovid +. johnson,
President of Philadelphia, lawyer and law
author; Hon. Charles R Buckalew ", of Blooms
burg, ex-United States Senator, and Robert
E Monaghan, of West Chester, lawyer, who
takes the place of ex-Chief Justice Agnew,
who declined the appointment on account
OF i'll health; on that of Massachusetts,
Edmund n. Bennett, President, of Boston,
dean of Boston Law School; Leonard A.
Jones, of Boston, editor of American LG1U
Reyiep and law author, and F. j. Stimson,
of Dedham, author of American Statute
Law" on that of New Jersey are Richard
Wayne Parker, of Newark, Chief Justice;
G. D. W. Vroom, of Trenton, Chancellor,
and Otto Crounse, of Jersey City, LAWYER;
on that of Delaware are Hon. Thomas F.
Bayard, President, of Wilmington, ex-Sec-
retary of State; George V. Massey, of Dover,
lawyer, and A. P. Robinson, of George
town, lawyer; and that of Michigan are
John w. Champlin, President, of Grand
Rapids, e1-Chief Justice of the State Su-
preme Court; c. NJ. Cutcheon, of Detroit,
member of Congress, and A. c. Maxwell,
Of Bay City, lawyer. These appointments
evidence the high character of the Commits
sioners who are to convene in general body
to-day, and a recognition by the Governors
Of the several States represented of the i'm
portance of the work entrusted to them. 1t
is expected that there will be full attend
ance Of the Commissioners present, and the
meeting being held at the time of the meet
ing of the American Bar Association at
Saratoga, will attract to its sittings many
Of the best legal minds of the country.
The Probating Of Wills.
The statutes of the several States on these
subjects differ very much in different States.
The laws thereof bearing upon the construc-
tion and probate of wills present phases as
variegated as the shifting colors of kaleido-
scope. In Florida q testator must be 81
years of age, in Idaho he may be IS, in Illi-
nois testator must be q and a testatri1 18,
In some States a married woman is ham,
pered as to the disposition by will of her
Ieparate estate, in others she has full power
10 dispose, subject only to the common law
or statutory rights of her husband. The
systems of probate are also diversified. The
law of Connecticut requires three subscrib-
ing witnesses to will, that of New Jersey
requires but two, while in Pennsylvania
the statute treats q will as properly pro-
bated that has been proved by two non-sub-
scribing witnesses; in Louisiana a woman
cannot be witness to a will, in Pennsyl-
vania she can. The laws as to nuncupative
Wills are in instances entirely different in
adjoining States, SO also in the matter of
holograph wills.
Public policy calls also for uniform State
legislation in the matter of the civil con-
tracts of marriage. The laws passed in
some States to restrict the solemnization
of marriage rites to lines of proprietv have,
to great extent, proved futile in results,
because of the more liberal rules governing
the like question in neighboring States
Parties wishing to get married living in
States where licenses to do so must be taken
out with wise regulations regarding the
same, may cross over the line into adjoining
States, where no such regulations obtain,
and make the restraining enactments prac-
tically dead letter, so far as they are con-
cerned. There are about 20 States whose
statutes render intermarriages between
the races void, and it has been held
that where citizens of one of these States
temporarily go out off its territory into that
OF another State in order to have the cere-
mony of such marriage performed, and
return to their domicile, such marriage is
absolutely void within the limits of the
State to which they have returned In
some States cohabitation, with public ac-
knowledgment as man and wife, is recog-
nized as having the effect of a legal mar
riage; in other States such cohabitation is
not recognized as having such legal effect.
Uniformity of State legislation on this ques-
tion would go far toward settling the legiti-
macy of issue and lines of inheritance, and
would certainly be very desirable
Divorce Laws Badly Mixed.
There are no two States of the Union
whose divorce laws are alike in every de-
tail and yet there is no subject of State leg
isIation that more directly concerns the
people of all of the States in their social
and domestic relations. The assimilation
in the divorce laws of the different States is
are not decreed at all; in New Jersey six
causes for divorce and nullity exist; in
Mississippi and Montana there are seven;
in Florida, Louisiana and Maryland eight;
in Texas nine; in Dakota, Indiana, Maine,
Michigan, Missouri, New York, North |
Carolina and Pennsylvania ten; in
Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Hi
nois, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio and
Rhode Island eleven; in Arkansas, Califor- |
MIA Delaware, Kansas, Massachusetts,, Ten |
nessee, Vermont and Wisconsin twelve; in |
Georgia, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ore |
gon and Virginia thirteen; in West Vir-
gina fourteen and in Kentucky nineteen.
The length of time of domicile of parties |
applying for divorce and the rules, regula- |
tions and modes of procedure vary greatly |
in different Statea Statistics show that |
from 1867 to 1886, 1923, ZIG DEGREES in divorce
were issued in the United States, nearly |
one-ffth of which were decreed in States in |
which the psrties had not been married and |