be affected by the Long Sault decision because the grants have expressly or by implication thrown the control of navigation into the hands of private corporations, need not be particularly inquired into. Suffice it to say that the decision creates doubt as to whether some of the grants recently made which are similar in character to that made to the Long Sault Company, may not, under the principle announced in the decision of the Court of Appeals, be made the subject of attack, since many of these grants, by implication no less strong than that made by the court from the Long Sault charter, seem to have conferred upon the grantees control of navigation. XII THE TOBACCO TRUST DECISIONS 1 THE decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Tobacco Trust cases 2 mark the opening of a new phase in the enforcement of the Interstate Commerce and the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. They also set at rest three highly interesting and important constitutional questions never before presented to the court. The first of these questions relates to the extent and character of the inquisitorial power of a grand jury under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. That amendment provides that no person shall be held to answer for an infamous crime "unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury." It was claimed that by this provision the powers of a grand jury were limited to those possessed by that body under the common law, and that it could only act after a bill of indictment had been submitted to it. That it had power, in the absence of a specific charge, to inquire whether a crime had been committed and, if so, who committed it, was vigorously denied. The Supreme Court, however, unanimously held that, under the practice almost universal in this country since the adoption of the Constitution, a grand jury has broad inquisitorial powers, and that upon knowledge acquired either by the observations of its members or by the evidence of witnesses, it may indict, even though a specific charge against a particular person has not previously been before it. Authority is thus given for a general 1 Reprinted from the Columbia Law Review of June, 1906. 2 Hale v. Henkel and McAlister v. Henkel, decided by the United States Supreme Court, March 12, 1906. investigation by a grand jury when it receives information from any source which points to the probability that some crime has been committed, even though the criminal and the exact circumstances of the criminal act are not known either to the prosecuting officer or to the grand jury itself. The second point decided by the court is that an officer of a corporation may not, in its behalf, plead a privilege under the Fifth Amendment upon the ground that his answers may tend to incriminate the corporation. This conclusion is based upon the view that the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination is personal to the witness and may not be asserted in behalf of another. It was also decided that the Immunity Act of 1903 applied to a proceeding before a grand jury, and prevented a witness from asserting the privilege of the amendment in his own behalf, the act affording him full protection from prosecution on account of anything that he should testify to. The remaining point settled by the decisions is that the production by an officer of a corporation, under a subpoena duces tecum, of documentary evidence belonging to the corporation may not be objected to, except in case of an abuse of the writ, either on the ground that under the Fifth Amendment such evidence would tend to incriminate the corporation, or that under the Fourth Amendment such compulsory production would constitute an unreasonable search and seizure of the effects of the corporation. It was said in support of this conclusion that there is a reserved right in the government to require a corporation to disclose whether it has abused its privileges and franchises enjoyed in connection with commerce among the several states. That questions like these have not been decided be |