TABLE XLIV (pt. 2).—Amounts appropriated and paid for defendants under sentence to workhouse Juvenile court without jurisdiction in cases of nonsupport of wife and minor children. Boys: White.... Total... 1 17 All work permits approved and issued by the juvenile court for children between the ages of 12 and 14 years are after investigation by, and recommendation from, the Department of School Attendance and Work Permits. All work permits for children between the ages of 14 and 16 years are directly issued by the Department of School Attendance and Work Permits. TABLE XLVI.-Ages of children granted permits TABLE XLVII.-Parental condition and whereabouts of children granted permits No. 102 FLORIDA v. MELLON AN ARTICLE REPRINTED FROM THE CORNELI. LAW QUARTERLY, VOL. XIII, No. 3, APRII, 1928, ENTITLED THE "STRANGE CASE OF FLORIDA v. MELLON" BY ARTHUR W. MACHEN, Jr. PRESENTED BY MR. BRUCE MAY 3 (calendar day, MAY 11), 1928.-Ordered to be printed UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON THE STRANGE CASE OF FLORIDA v. MELLON' ARTHUR W. MACHEN, Jr. The Supreme Court of the United States throughout its history has set an example to other courts of last resort by resolutely refusing to express its opinion on questions not before it, or not necessary for the decision of the case in hand. No small part of the respect in which that tribunal is held by the bar is due to its adherence to this rule, even in cases where laymen would be apt to think a settlement of some important question on the merits would be a more patriotic course than a decision on some technical point of jurisdiction or the like. In no class of cases has this self-imposed rule of judicial ethics been more scrupulously observed than in those involving the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States. For example, the court has repeatedly gone to great lengths to construe a statute in such a way as to avoid deciding a constitutional question.* So far as the writer recalls, only once-prior to 1927has the court after holding a case to be not properly before it either for lack of jurisdiction, defect of parties or any similar cause, proceeded to announce its decision on a constitutional question sought to be raised on the merits; and the results in that single exceptional case-Dred Scott v. Sanford were not such as to encourage a repetition of the experiment. But in 1926, the State of Florida asked the Supreme Court for leave to file a bill against the Secretary of the Treasury to restrain him from enforcing in Florida the Federal estate tax law of that year, on the ground that the provision for "credit" of State inheritance taxes up to 80 per cent of what the Federal estate tax would otherwise be-a provision almost identical, except as to the amount of the allowable credit, with the corresponding section of the revenue act of 1924rendered the act unconstitutional. The application was opposed on the ground that the State as such had no interest in the question, and was therefore not entitled to file the bill. The interest of the State, according to the allegations of the bill as interpreted by the Supreme Court, was sought to be vindicated on two grounds: (a) That the State is directly injured because the imposition of the Federal tax, in the absence of a State tax which may be credited, will cause the withdrawal of property from the State with the consequent loss to the State of sub 1 Read before the Lawyers' Round Table of Baltimore, Nov. 5, 1927. Of the Baltimore Bar. U. S. v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, 29 Sup. Ct. 527 (1909); U. S. v. Standard Brewery, 251 U. S. 210, 219, 40 Sup. Ct. 139 (1920); Missouri Pac. R. R. v. Boone, 270 U. S. 466, 471-2, 46 Sup. Ct. 341 (1926); Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273, 277, 35 Sup. Ct. 383 (1915); U..S. v. Jin Fuey Moy, 241 U. S. 394, 401, 36 Sup. Ct. 658 (1916). 19 How. 393 (U. S. 1856). |