CONTEMPTS OF COURT 321 HEARINGS BEFORE THE 888 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, OF THE DECEMBER 7, 8, 9, AND 11, 1911 SIXTY-SECOND CONGRESS WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1911 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C., Thursday, December 7, 1911. The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Henry D. Clayton, chairman, presiding, a quorum being present. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen of the committee, on the 16th day of August last this committee adopted the following motion: That this bill H. R. 13578, to define and punish contempts of court] be made a special and continuing order for consideration and hearing thereon by the whole committee, beginning on Thursday, December 7, 1911. This meeting to-day is, therefore, called for the express purpose of considering the bill H. R. 13578 and all other bills on the same subject. You will find copies of these bills before you. Bills relating to this subject have heretofore been considered in both branches of Congress. For instance, Hr. Hill, a Senator from New York, reported favorably in the Fifty-fourth Congress, at the first session, on April 30, 1896, Senate bill 2984, dividing contempts of court into direct and indirect contempts and defining the same; also afterwards, in the Fifty-fourth Congress, on January 18, 1897, Mr. Ray, who was then chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House (he is now one of the United States district judges in the State of New York), reported favorably a substitute for the Senate bill 2984, known as the Hill bill, on this subject of contempts.. The Ray bill or substitute also divides contempts into direct and indirect contempts and follows some of the ideas of the Hill bill. I may say that it follows all of the ideas of the Hill bill substantially, but it enlarges upon the Hill bill, particularly in the matter of the provisions for the trial of indirect contempt cases. I have before me a copy of the report which Senator Hill made in the Senate on the bill I have referred to, and also a copy of the report which Mr. Ray 3 |