STATE OF NEW YORK OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL ALBANY To the Legislature of the State of New York: In conformity with the requirements of section 66 of the Executive Law, I have the honor to submit herewith the annual report of the Attorney-General for the year ending December 31, 1921. Dated January 1, 1922. CHARLES D. NEWTON, [3] Attorney-General. INTRODUCTION TO ANNUAL REPORT. One of the outstanding features of the litigation handled by the Attorney-General in the year 1921 was the so-called Soldiers' Bonus Case involving the constitutionality of the law enacted by the last Legislature to provide by a bond issue a State bonus to men and women who saw service in the World War. An action was brought to test the validity of the act. I defended, as constitutional, the statute under which the bonds were issued. The Appellate Division unanimously held that the law was constitutional. The case was appealed to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals decided, by a vote of five to two, that the statute violated the Constitution of the State of New York. Since the statute was held only to violate the State Constitution, no appeal could be taken to the United States Supreme Court. The case attracted great public attention and was discussed to a considerable extent in the law journals. GAS RATE CASES Twenty suits were brought, either in the Federal or State Courts, to have declared unconstitutional the various acts of the Legislature fixing gas rates. Fourteen were tried and two being tried. One, the Consolidated Gas Co. v. Newton, was argued in the United States Supreme Court in November. Some idea of the magnitude of the work involved in these cases will readily appear, when attention is called to the fact that the record in the case of Consolidated Gas Co. v. Newton et al., in the United States Supreme Court, consists of over 20,000 printed pages, while the brief of the Attorney-General in that case before the lower court, consists of 460 printed pages. The case of Brooklyn Union Gas Co. v. Newton et al., consists of 7,706 pages printed. RAILROAD RATE CASES On October 20 and 21, 1921, there was argued in the United States Supreme Court, the case of The State of New York v. The United States and The Interstate Commerce Commission. This involved the validity of the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission made in November, 1920, increasing all passenger fares for travel within the State of New York 20 per cent and adding a Pullman surcharge of 50 per cent which accrued to the |