Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1916-10-19
700 CASES BEFORE
SUPREME COURT
Full Bench Now at Work on
National Litigation.

Washington, Oct. 9.-With the
participation of the new associate
justice, John H. Clarke of Cleveland,
Ohio, successor to Justice Hughes, on
the Supreme court bench, full
bench for the first time in almost a
year, will hear motions and argu-
ments and decide cases.
More than 700 cases await disposi-
ton. About 200 have been filed since
Court adjourned last June. Many
government antitrust dissolution
suits under the Sherman law, entail
ing probable new interpretations of
that act, are to be argued during the
coming term OF first Importance
among them are the governments
suits against the so-called Harvester,
Steel, Coal, Moving Picture, Kodak,
Bill Posters, Shoe Machinery, and
Great Lakes Towboat TRUSTS
Argument is expected during the
week on the first of these-the fed
eral attack against the alleged an
thracite monopoly of the Reading,
Lehigh Valley, Central Of New Jer-
sey and other railroads. The govern
ment lost the cases in the lower
courts, as it did the dissolution suit
against the United States Steel Cor
pOration, which will be reviewed lat
er.
The antitrust suit against the In
ternational Harvester Company is to
be re-argued. Other important cases
set for re-argument are to test con-
stitutionality of the Webb-kenyon
liquor law, the migratory bird act;
the Underwood tariff acts clause CIV
ing five per cent discount on mer-
chandise imported in American yes
sells under the most favored nation"
treaty provisions, involving refund
claims of $26,00O,000; Oregon laws
providing for minimum wage for
women and a 1O-hour day for men;
Louisville, KY, ordnance segregat-
Mann white slave" act as to it's ap-
plication to cases having no element
of commercialized vice. This latter
question is raised in the celebrated
Diggs-Caminetti case.
Europe's war also has brought
new questions before the court. The
| first is over possession of the British
liner Appam, brought into Norfolk
! by German prize crew and ordered
by Federal Judge Waddill returned
to the British owners.
Other important questions to be
passed upon are suits from West Vir-
ginia and Utah challenging legality
of the United Mine Workers organ
ization; Blue Sky laws of Ohio,
Michigan and South Dakota designed
to protect investigators from wild
cat'' securities; interpretations of
the income tax law; validity of the
North Carolina liquor and Alabama
domestic corporation tax laws; pros
ecution of the United States District
Attorney H. Snowden Marshall of
New York for alleged contempt of a
Congressional investigating commit
tee; federal water power rights on
public lands; railroad land grants in
Oregon and California, and numer-
Gus railroad cases entailing further
application of the Hepburn, commod-
tiles clause, employers liability and
other acts affecting common carriers
as we'll as interstate and interstate
rate regulation.
A case of special interest to rail-
roads, to be re-argued, Is over the So
called railway mail pay adviser"
suits, to determine basis for COM
putting compensation for transporta-
ton of mails.
The court now has unaer advise
ment, with decisions expected short
ly, cases testing constitutionality,
for the first time, of workmen's COM
pensation laws, and their applica-
ton, of Washington, New York, Iowa
and New Jersey.
Other cases in which opinions are
pending involve validity of Missouri's
short haul" clause, prohibiting rail-
roads from charging higher freight
rates for a short than longer haul;
application of Massachusetts and
Texas foreign corporations excise tax
laws; power of federal judges to sus
Pennsylvania suits against railroads
for heavy damages for failure to de-
liver cars to shippers.
While the court opens its new
term with more than 700 cases upon
it's docket, and approximately one
year behind in its work, much great
er speed in disposing of cases is ex-
pected. A new law enacted just be-
fore Congress adjourned, it is be-
lieved, will reduce the number of
cases heard by the court by from 25
to SO per cent. This law will cut off
appeals in bankruptcy, employers
liability and cases from the Philip
pines together with many from state
courts, except with consent of the
higher court, instead of at the op-
ton of the lower courts or litigants
as at present. 1t does not, however,
curb the courts power to order re-
view of any case. The new law also
adds another week to the Supreme
Court term, requiring that it con-
vene the first instead Of the second
Monday in October. and limits filing
Of appeals to the high court to three
months instead Of allowing two