The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-12-09
ATTORNEY GENERAL HAS FEW REQUESTS
 FOR LEGISLATION
Only Changes He Recon nends Are Concerned With Machinery of
 Courts

1 Washington, Dec. 9-Attorney Gen.
 eral McReynolds in his first report as
 head of the law department of the government submitted to Congress to- 1 day, makes few recommendations for | legislation. The changes he urges
 have more to do with the machinery of courts than with the fabric of the low.
 On an antitrust legislative program
 the Attorney General was silent. He asked Congress for no amendment to the Sherman act, the rod his Depart
 ment uses to bring trusts to terms,
 and he points out no fault in its op- eratfon.
 President Wilson, however, intends
 to send a special message on the trust question to Congress in the near fu- ture, and that undoubtedly will em-
 body some of the attorney generals views.
 Attorney General McReynolds made it clear, however, that so long as he was head of the Department he would
 oppose court decrees, antitrust suits where the combination was dissolved into parts under the control of the same stockholders. That plan, adopt ed in the Standard Oil and Tobacco eases, he calls a fundamental defect and labor adds in the same connection '-my fixed purpose is to oppose any plan of dissolution which would leave the separate parts of the un- lawful combination under the control of the same set of men,
 The Attorney General offers a novel solution of the problem of superan- uated federal jud51es. Such judges under the Consti 4tion hold office during good behav our although they may retire at the Lge of seventy af- ter ten years servf @.
 I suggest" says the Attorney General, ian act providing that when any judge below the Supreme Court fails to avail himself of the privilege of retiring now granted by law, that the President be required, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint another judge, who shall pre- side over the affairs of the court and have precedence over the older one. This will insure at all times the pres ence of a judge sufficiently active to discharge promptly and adequately the duties of the court''
 MT. ~ McRaynolds suggests that clerks of U. s. courts should be ap- pointed for specified terms and sub- Ject to removal by the President for cause and asks that provision be made for a review by the Supreme Court of the now final decisions of the Court of Customs Appeal, on application only by the government.
 He approves the bill introduced by Representative Clayton giving the Su- PA C11O OOu1L POW0T- to pTOnUlgat6 rules for trials on the law side of fed era1 courts. He reminds Congress also of needs of changes in his office and an increase in the salaries paid He terms the present salaries ''nod- crate for the character and amount of work to be performed
 Coming to a review of the events with which his Department has been concerned for the fiscal year, the At torney General shows that when he took office 52 eases were pending un- der the Sherman law, and that since March 4 eight eases have been begun Investigations of complaints that the law has been violated pour into the Department by the score each month and come from all parts of the coun- try.
 ''In many instances" the report reads, 'the investigation has failed to disclose facts which would justify the institution of formal proceedings but notice of the activity of the govern ment has impelled officers of large in- dustrial corporations to curtail dan gerous tendencies The Bureau of l ands of cases of all kinds, those con- corning violations of the Sherman law and the national banking act av- erag1ng together more than fifty a | month";
 Through the Bureau of Investiga- ttons and a corps of local white slave | officers, the Department, the Attorney General says, has vigorously carried on the work of prosecution of offen- 1 ders and has helped suppress the 1 traffic. Out of the $475,OO0 allotted for the detection and prosecution of 1 crime $175,OOO has been set aside, for that work and the Attorney General 1 concludes "the departme feels that l very material progress has been made | particularly during the past year, in | suppressing the most vicious features | of this traffic.