Arizona silver belt., 1901-01-03
THE FINAL PLEA.
Case of Porto Rico and Phil
 lpplnes Submitted.
AMERICA IN 1900, ENGLAND 1776.
MT. Aldrich Draws Comparison Be- tween England's Taxation of the Colonies and Attorney Gen
 erals Attitude of Today
From the Washington Post.

From the Washington Post
 The closing argument in the Philip pines Porto Rico cases were made in the United States supreme court yes terday, and the cases were submitted for the final adjudication of the court. The crowds which have fl led the cham. Der since the cases were taken up were agtin on hand in re-enforced num- bers, entirely occupying the quarters reserved for the bar and the outer area for the public Many people ar rived early in the day to secure advan- tageous seat1. As the governments case had been closed by the attorney general, it ren n,ined only to hear the senior counsel in the Philippine case, Mr Charles II. Aldrich of Chicago, former solicitor general, who had one hour and half remaining of the five hours given to the plaintiffs.
 Mr. Aldrich had before him the plaintiffs brief and a volumiuous portfolio of notes, but he spoke freely, with only occasional references to them. At the outset he said he would contine himself largely to legal argu. ment, following the attorney generals points, and seeking to meet them, al, though he regarded much that the aC- torney general had presented as ir- relevant He spoke deliberately and seldom with any effort for dramatic force. He first directed his attention to the circumstances under which this government came into existence. the struggle for liberty, and the American protest against England's assertion of the taxing power over the American colonies. With this history before us, he said, it was a remarkable fact that the attorney general of the United States, over one hundred years after the great struggle which founded the American government, should come into this court and assert tax ing power more extreme than had been asserted by the most ardent de- lenders of England's taxing power over the colonies.
 JUSTICE MARsHALL's DECISION.
 Mir. Aldrich spoke of the decision nf Justice Marshall, in Loughborough versus Blake, as of decisive impOr- tance, and he stunned up the decision as bearing on the present conditions, as follows:
 That the power to tax, levy duties &C., extends to the entire United States.
 That the term United States em- braces our great republic, which is composed of states and territnries'
 That it is not less necessary, on the principles of our Constitution. that uniformity in the imposition of i'm posts, duties and excises should be ob served in the one than the other
 ''iJ follows from the above that the rights and obligatiOtions of the terri tory thus a part of the United States and the inhabitants thereof are meas ured and tested by the Constitutions
 As to the contention that the Philip pines were not part of the United States, Mir. Aldrich sad: ''If the islands ceded by Spain are foreign ter. ritory, then our country would have IS its commercial representatives therein consuls, who would perform the requisite official acts prescribed by our customs laws regarding shipments Of merchandise from any of these islands to any part of the United states The court takes judicial no tice of the fact that our government has no consals in the Philippines, and that when Spanish sovereignty ceased in those islands the United States con. suits therein were withdrawn, and that the consular agents of foreign powers tbenceforth were the accred- tied representatives of the respective foreign governments to the United States and our government signed the exequatur of such conSuls.
 SPANISH, IF NOT AMERICAN.
 What an anomaly 1t is to have Spain send i,s consus to the Philip. pines if. as contended, for the pur. poses Of revenue, they are still foreign territory! If they are not American territory they must be still Spanish, for it is not pretended that any other nation foreign to the United States has acquired any sovereignty over them, nor IS it pretended that the Philippine islands in the eye of inter. national law occupy the status of an independent nation.'
 Taking up the attorney generals contention that in ordaining the Con. stitution the reliance of the people was in part placed upon the sense of jus tice of congress, whose action is open to review at frequent elections. Mir ! Aldrich said that if this meant any u .L. ,,