Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-07
INCOME TAX REHEAR|NC Argument Begun Before the Full Bench Yesterday. MANY NOTABLES LISTENED. MT. Justice Jackson Was the Observed of All
 Observers.
LAWYER GUTHRIE OPENS THE BALL
sents His Side of the Case-Assistant Attorney-General Whitney Re-
 plies for the Government.

Washington May 6.-The reargument | of the income tax case began in the su- preme court of the United States in the | presence of an assemblage of lawyers | and the laity that. as on the occasion of the original argument, more than ex- hausted the accommodations of the small chamber in which it was heard.
 For the first time since last November there was full complement of justices
 on the bench. and all nine of the large l leather-covered arm chairs behind the desk that separates the court room from l spectators were occupied.
 | MT. Justice Jackson, the youngest | member of the court save one, was at the extreme right of the chief justice, and was naturally the observed of all | observers. He took an active interest in | the proceedings, and there was appar- l ently nothing to warrant the expecta- | tion that he might not be able to under | go the fatigue of the hearing.
 Among those present in the court room were the various counsel engaged in the l case or interested in the result Messrs.
 Joseph Choate Ex-Secretary B. H. Bris- | tow, Clarence A. Seward, William D. | Guthrie, David Wilcox, J. M. Wilson, l Sam Shelabarger, Attorney-General Ol- ney, Assistants Whitney, Dickinson and | Conrad, Representative McMill1n dhe author of the income tax law). Senator Mitchell of Oregon, Hon. John A. Kasson | of Iowa, Ex-Speaker Crisp (who is in | the city on his way home from visit to New York), x-Postmaster-General Don | M Dickinson. Richard Watson Glider, | and many ladies, who have from the first manifested unusual interest in the cases. sper of preceded by the announcement of opin- | ions in several cases none of them, with probably a slight exception, of general | interest or importance. This occupied l forty minutes, so that it was well on. to> wards 1 o'clock when W. D. Guthrie | opened argument for the petitioners, ' Messrs. Hyde and Pollock, who seek to enjoin the directors of the Farmers Loan and Trust company and Continental i Trust company of New York from pay | ing the tax on dividends declared on stock of those corporations, and in so do- | ing attacked the constitutionality Of the | law.
 l The chief justice said "In these cases | appellants made application for a re- | hearing as to those propositions upon | which the court was equally divided, whereupon the attorney-general pre- sented a suggestion that if any rehearing were granted it should embrace the whole case. Treating this suggestion 1 as amounting itself to an application for 1 a rehearing and not desiring to restrict | the scope of the argument, we set down | both applications to be heard today be- | fore full bench which the anticipated presence of our brother Jackson happily 1 realized enabled us to do. No further argument will be desired. We were l obliged, however, to limit the number of | counsel to two on each side, but as to | the time we await the suggestions of counsel"
 General Olney yielded to MT. l Choate, who said that he believed five | hours would be sufficient for their side of the case.
 The chief justice announced that the l court would grant so much, counsel for | the government, of course, to occupy l the same amount of time if they desired. | J. M. Wilson of counsel for John C. Moore, who sued in the courts of the District of Columbia for an injunction
 restraining Internal Revenue Commis- sioner Miller from executing the law, asked permission to file an additional brief in that case, which has not yet been decided by the supreme court.
 In submitting the petition for a re- hearing MT. Guthrie said appellants in- vited and faced the criticism of many of the opponents of the income tax, who saw in the opinion decision in favor, in part, at least, of those who denied the legality of the act. Counsel felt that a great constitutional controversy ought not to be permitted to transform itself into a test of shrewdness.
 It was their duty to bring about as speedily as possible a final end to all these controversies that must ensue if
 the decision continues to stand as that of divided court. There was a doubt
 not so much as whether congress had
 power to tax, but as to it's method of
 taxation. The decision in this case
 should settle finally and forever the
 great constitutional question brought before the court, and counsel took 1t upon themselves to see that the decision
 should not be undermined.
 Mr. Guthrie then called the attention
 of the court to the instances where per-
 sonal property was particularly referred
 to, in order to show the court that the
 people understood that taxes on per-
 sonality were not included in the term
 "direct taxes" Marshall, in the Vir-
 ginia convention, explained the term
 "direct taxes when he said: '"The ob-
 jects of direct taxes well understood, they are but few-lands, slaves, stock of all kinds and a few other articles of
 domestic property"
 Mr. Guthrie also quoted from debates
 in the conventions in North Carolina,
 New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and others, to show that the people did
 not understand or consider 'that the