In the case of Knowlton v. Moore (decided in May, 1900; 178 U. S., 41) and the other cases heard with it, there was involved the validity of sections 29 and 30 of the War Revenue act of June 13, 1898 (30 Stat., 464), which imposed an excise tax upon legacies and distributive shares arising from personal property. There was a double gradation of the tax, the tax in the first instance being determined by the degree of kinship, lineal descendants being subjected to one rate of tax, those of collateral kinship paying a higher rate, and those not related a still higher rate. The second gradation depended upon the amount of the legacy, a small legacy paying a lower rate than a larger onethe tax varying from 4 of 1 per cent to 15 per cent of the amount of the legacy.

The law was attacked upon three grounds: (1) That it was a direct tax and not apportioned as required by Article I, section 9, clause 4 of the Constitution; (2) if not a tax on property, but a tax upon the privilege of transmitting or receiving property, it was invalid because the privilege of inheritance is conferred by the States; and (3) it violated the uniformity clause of the Constitution. Article I, section 8, clause 1.)

The court overruled all these objections, holding the tax to be indirect; that Congress might impose the tax even though the privilege be granted and regulated by the States; and that it did not violate the rule of uniformity which was held to be merely geographic in its nature, the same rate of tax being imposed upon all legacies of the same class wherever found.

While Congress has since repealed the inheritance tax law, nevertheless the decisions are of great importance as establishing the principle that Congress, in seeking objects for taxation, may tax valuable privileges, however obtained, and in adjusting the burdens of government may apportion the tax according to the ability of the person on whom it is placed to bear the same.

Land Fraud and Timber Trespass Cases.

A very important class of litigation at the present time is that aimed to prevent and to punish frauds in the unlawful securing of public lands from the Government and the unlawful cutting of timber thereon.

Under the land laws a person may not enter more than 160 acres of land. Because of this fact, and with a view to securing large tracts for grazing purposes and for the timber growing thereon, which, in many instances, is of far more value than the land, large corporations and companies have undertaken to secure the lands by employing and inducing large numbers of irresponsible persons to enter the land and in so doing to make false affidavits in order to obtain patents, and upon obtaining patents to convey the lands to the corporations or other persons who have furnished the necessary money with which to pay all fees and costs, besides a compensation to the persons employed to commit the frauds and perjuries. In this manner large tracts of valuable public lands have been secured. So glaring did these frauds become that determined measures were adopted by the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interio co put a stop to them and to punish the offenders.

To this end special counsel, skilled in the land and timber laws, have been employed to prosecute such parties and to institute proceedings to cancel the patents wrongfully acquired. A large number of patents so acquired have already been canceled by the court, and suits are pending and are being pushed to as speedy a conclusion as possible to cancel patents to large tracts of lands. In addition a large number of indictments have been returned against the parties to the frauds. Some of the parties indicted have pleaded guilty and have been severely punished. The pending indictments will be tried as soon as a trial can be forced upon the criminals. These vigorous measures have had the effect of greatly checking the frauds practiced upon the Government in this respect in the past.

Another class of this litigation refers to the proceedings to recover the value of timber unlawfully cut from the public lands and to punish the offenders for their illegal acts. The timber

lands of the Government being in remote places it has been somewhat easy for the lumber and mining companies to steal and to cut up into lumber large quantities of timber taken from Government lands. This has been due in part to a lack of a sufficient number of agents to properly patrol the forests, and to a reluctance on the part of those having knowledge of the trespasses to furnish evidence to convict the guilty parties.

Under the administrations of President McKinley and of President Roosevelt vigorous measures have been adopted to put a stop to these unlawful practices. The Department of Justice, acting with the hearty cooperation of the Department of the Interior, has employed special attorneys skilled in the knowledge of the timber and land laws, specially charged with the work of bringing suits to recover the value of the timber stolen and of instituting prosecutions to criminally punish the offenders. This has had the effect of largely checking these trespasses. Many suits have been brought and large sums of money have been recovered. Other suits are pending and are being brought and are being pushed to as speedy a conclusion as is possible. In Montana alone suits are pending against great companies in that State to recover nearly $2,000,000, the value of the timber taken (unlawfully cut) from the public lands. Besides, a large number of persons have been indicted for willful trespass; some have been found guilty and punished and the trial of the other indictments will be had at as early a date as is possible.

Another branch of this litigation refers to the suits brought against a number of the Pacific railroads for cutting timber for use on their railroads. Under the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat., 482), Congress granted to any railroad desiring it a right of way through the public lands; and authorized the companies to take from the public lands adjacent to their right of way material, earth, stone, and timber necessary for the construction of the road.

Acting under this statute, the railroads have construed the word "adjacent" to mean any distance they may see fit to go for the timber, and have cut timber as far as from 25 to 50 miles distant from the line of their road. A number of suits have been brought against the railroads for timber taken more than two miles distant from their line of roads, and judgments have been recovered against them. And the Supreme Court has practically adopted this construction in the case of United States v. St. Anthony Railroad Co. (192 U. S., 524), decided in February, 1904; so that, hereafter, when a railroad goes beyond a two-mile limit in cutting timber from the public lands, in order to escape from being held a willful trespasser, it must show some special reason why the two-mile limit should not be held to apply. This decision will practically put a stop to these trespasses by the railroad companies.

Another direction in which the efficient work of the Department of Justice is shown is in the enforcement of the Lottery Law of March 2, 1895 (28 Stat., 963), the validity of which was sustained by the Supreme Court in February, 1903, in the case of Champion v. Ames, Marshal (188 U. S., 321). That act provides for the punishing by imprisonment for not exceeding two years, or by a fine of not more than $1,000, or both, of "any person who shall cause to be brought within the United States from abroad, for the purpose of disposing of the same, or deposited in or carried by the mails of the United States, or carried from one State to another in the United States, any paper, certificate, or instrument purporting to be or reperesent a ticket, chance, share, or interest in or dependent upon the event of a lottery, so-called gift concert, or similar enterprise, offering prizes dependent upon lot or chance;" or shall cause to be brought into, deposited or carried in the mail, or transferreed from one State to another, any advertisement of a lottery or other similar scheme or enterprise. The court held:

"Lottery tickets are subjects of tariff among those who choose to buy and sell them and their carriage by independent carriers from one state to another is therefore interstate commerce which Congress may prohibit under its power to regulate commerce among the several states.

"Legislation under that power may sometimes and properly assume the form, or have the effect, of prohibition.

"Legislation prohibiting the carriage of such tickets is not inconsistent with any limitation or restriction imposed upon the exercise of the powers granted to Congress."

The effect of this decision has been to render it next to impossible to traffic in lottery tickets.

The Oleomargarine Cases.

These suits, four in number, grew out of the attempt on the part of the manufacturers of oleomargarine to evade and defeat the provisions of the act of May 9, 1902 (32 Stat., 193), amending the original oleomargarine act of August 2, 1886 (24 Stat., 209), imposing a tax of ten cents per pound upon oleomargarine artificially colored in imitation of yellow butter. This legislation resulted from the great profits realized by the manufacturers and dealers in oleomargarine in fraudulently selling colored oleomargarine as and for butter, and is in harmony with the policy of Congress in imposing taxes upon those subjects best able to bear them.

The manufacturers resisted the payment of the tax of ten cents per pound upon the colored article upon the ground that the tax was confiscatory; that it was an attempted regulation and not a tax; and sought to evade and defeat the law in every possible way.

In the three cases which have been decided (on May 31, 1904) the Supreme Court held:

That the tax is an excise, which Congress had the power to impose;

That the only limitation upon the power of Congress to impose excises is that they shall be uniform throughout the United States; that this tax is uniform;

That it is for Congress to fix the rate of tax, and that it is not within the power of the court to inquire into the reasonableness of the excise, either as respects the amount, or the property upon which it is imposed;

That if Congress abuses its taxing power, the remedy lies with the people who elect the Congress, and not with the courts.

The court having heretofore held that the States may, in the exercise of their police power, absolutely probihit the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine colored to look like butter, because of the aptitude of that article to deceive the public into buying it as butter, it results that even if the effect of the tax of 10 cents per pound be to repress the manufacture of the artifically colored article, such repression violates no fundamental right, for the manufacture of artificially colored oleomargarine may be prohibited by a free government without a violation of fundamental rights; and

That the use of artificially colored butter in the manufacture of oleomargarine, although an authorized ingredient, constitutes an artificial coloration, and subjects the oleomargarine to the tax of ten cents per pound.

But the foregoing classes of cases do not embrace all that have been begun and successfully prosecuted by the Department. Also deserving of special mention are the suits arising out of the collection of the customs and the internal revenue, and the prosecutions for a violation of the laws relating thereto; of the suits brought for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the interstate commerce law; of the proceedings instituted and defended in the enforcement of the Chinese exclusion and the immigration laws; of the suits brought to forfeit and to restore to the public domain land grants in aid of the construction of railroads, the conditions of the grant not having been complied with; of the proceedings to forfeit and condemn as prize Spanish vessels captured in the war with Spain; and of the proceedings and prosecutions to enforce the law imposing taxes upon oleomargarine and other fraudulent imitations of dairy and food products.

Trusts-Enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.

The work of the Department in the enforcement of the Sherman Anti-trust law, which may be considered its most important work in recent years, is fully discussed in the chapter relating to trusts.

WORK OF THE POST-OFFICE DEPART

MENT.

Rural Free Delivery-Correction of Abuses in Second-Class Mail Privilege-The Investigations Instituted by Republican Officials and Their Results.

The business of the Post-Office Department is a reliable index to the general condition of the country and the postal receipts for the last ten years show conclusively that our people have been prosperous and our business more active since the return of the Republican party to power than ever before in the history of the country. The following table gives the figures of receipts for the years indicated:

The increase of nearly $70,000,000.00 in ten years shows a truly marvelous development.

Rural Free Delivery.

The responsibility for the introduction of rural free delivery belongs to the administration of President McKinley and its increase and continuance to the administration of President Roosevelt. The introduction of this service has proceeded with marvelous rapidity. At the beginning of the fiscal year 1899 there were less than 200 routes in operation. At the close of the present fiscal year the number in actual operation will be in excess of 25,000, bringing a daily mail service to more than 12,500,000 of our people residing in the rural districts.

At the present time complete service is established in one hundred and forty-two counties, in which all the people outside of the cities receive their mail daily by rural free delivery carriers.

The policy of rural free delivery is no longer a subject of serious dispute. It has unmistakably vindicated itself by its fruits. The practical benefits and the popular appreciation and demand have been decisively demonstrated. It has been made plain that this service is a potent educational force; that it brings agricultural life into far closer relations with the active business world; that it keeps the farmers in daily touch with markets and prices; that it advances general intelligence through the increased circulation of legitimate journals and periodicals, stimulates correspondence, quickens all interchanges, promotes good roads, enhances farm values, makes farm life less isolated and more attractive, and unites with other wholesome influences in checking and changing the hitherto prevailing current from country to city. The national value of these advantages is incalculable. They are not theoretical, but real, direct, and immediate. In diffusing them the beneficent agency of the Government is brought into the daily presence and thought of the people.

The appropriation made by the present Congress for the continuation of the service and its extension into districts where its introduction is justifiable was $20,816,600.00.

The Post-Office Department has also endeavored to extend the benefits of the rural free delivery service to remote districts

where the number of people is not sufficient to justify the establishment of rural free delivery, and to this end has arranged for the delivery of mail into boxes along the lines of 20,000 star routes, aggregating 249,000 miles in length, and over 500,000 people are having their mail delivered to them by the star route carriers in this way, and reports indicate that the service is generally satisfactory to those who are served.

The Investigations and Their Results.

During the year 1903 an investigation of the Post-Office Department was ordered by President Roosevelt. The investigation, by the Postmaster-General, was conducted under the immediate supervision of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General, who had about fifty inspectors detailed exclusively to aid in the investigation covering a period of eight months. The inception of this investigation is clearly set forth in the following extract taken from the memorandum of the President made after an examination of the report of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General:

"It appears that in December, 1902, Postmaster-General Payne and Congressman E. F. Loud, chairman of the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads, held various consultations regarding the postal service, and as a result of these interviews it was determined that as soon as possible after the necessary appropriations could be made by the Congress an investigation should be made of the service, both Messrs. Payne and Loud agreeing as to the need for the investigation and the time when it should take place. Accordingly, an increase of $5,000 in the appropriation bill reported in January was made for the express purpose of carrying on the investigation in question. The reasons for the increase in the appropriation were known only to the Postmaster-General, to Congressman Loud, and to Congressman Bromwell.

"Subsequently, some time in January, information was laid before me by Mr. Seckendorff tending to show improper conduct by Beavers, general superintendent of the division of salaries and allowances, and Machen, general superintendent of the free delivery system; and by Mr. William Allen White tending to show corruption by or under Tyner, Assistant Attorney-General for the Post-Office Department. First Assistant Postmaster-General Wynne also informed me that he had become suspicious of the integrity of both Machen and Beavers. After full consultation with Mr. Payne it was decided that Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General Bristow should make a thorough and exhaustive investigation of the charges in question and of all matters that might be developed in connection with them. Mr. Bristow's report is a record of as thorough a bit of investigating work as has ever been done under the Government. After this investigation had been in progress for about two months it became evident that legal proceedings would have to be undertaken against some of the offenders. Owing to the importance of the case it was deemed advisable that special counsel should be employed, and Messrs. Charles J. Bonaparte and Holmes Conrad were chosen for this purpose. Messrs. Bonaparte and Conrad, in their review of the report of Mr. Bristow, speak as follows: "We consider the report an exceptionally able, candid, and impartial review of its subject-matter and that it shows clearly reprehensible misconduct, amounting in many cases to crime, on the part of a number of public officials. It is a voluminous document, but this arises, not from prolixity, but from the nature of the matters discussed. * * * We heartily commend the report and deem its conclusions fully justified by the facts it sets forth; and while regretting in common with all patriotic citizens that the grave abuses of long standing which it reveals should have grown up in the Post-Office Department, we consider the exposure of these abuses and the attempts made to punish those responsible for them a work of the highest public utility, quickly and ably performed." In all that is thus said of the report of Mr. Bristow I cordially agree.

"The investigation made by Mr. Bristow discloses a condition of gross corruption in the office of the First Assistant PostmasterGeneral and in that of the Assistant Attorney-General for the Post-Office Department. In the case of the superintendent of free delivery, Machen, the evidence shows that his misconduct began