cise is necessary in a proper case, was decided at a very early day by the Supreme Court of the United States. In the opinion written by Chief Justice Marshall, it was said:

So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either de cide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

The constitution declares "that no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed."

If, however, such a bill should be passed, and a person should be prosecuted under it; must the court condemn to death those victims whom the constitution endeavors to preserve?

"No person," says the constitution, "shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."

Here the language of the constitution is addressed especially to the courts. It prescribes, directly for them, a rule of evidence not to be departed from. If the legislature should change that rule, and declare one witness, or a confession out of court, sufficient for conviction, must the constitutional principle yield to the legislative act?

From these, and many other selections which might be made, it is apparent, that the framers of the constitution contemplated that instrument as a rule for the government of courts, as well as of the legislature.3

If the Constitution, when construed and interpreted by the courts, is found not to be in accordance with the will of the people, it is their privilege and right to change it. In fact, this has often been done, for instance, an early decision of the Supreme Court of the United States held that suit could be brought against a State as against an individual. The people of the States considered this an infringement upon state sovereignty and the Federal Constitution was promptly amended so as to forbid such suits.5

Only a few years ago the same court decided the particular form of the federal income tax Congress attempted to impose was invalid, but in 1913 the Constitution was amended by the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment, and a new and valid income tax law was enacted.6

No one, and least of all the judges who have rendered these decisions, regarded such amendments as a slight or reflection upon the The court merely construed and declared the meaning of the

court.

law as it was written. Indeed, it has been the common practice for courts, in thus declaring the invalidity of a statute, to point out just what was necessary and could be done to render it valid.

Nor must it be thought that our courts have attempted to arrogate to themselves the right to pass upon the necessity or wisdom or utility of any law which the legislative department, in the exercise of its discretion might law fully enact under its constitutional power.

A very long line of decisions has marked the boundaries beyond which no court passes. The fact that a law is new or novel, affords no ground for its objection. The necessity for the law, its wisdom, its usefulness and the benefits to be derived from it, are all for the judgment and discretion of the legislature. A judge may think a law useless or foolish; he may think it unwise, and positively harmful, but unless it can be shown to be repugnant to some specific provisions of the Constitution, the court must enforce it.

The courts do not, to the slightest extent, attempt to exercise a veto power, nor to interfere with the policy or discretion of the legislature. They only determine whether the statute is contrary to the Constitution, and, therefore, beyond the power confided to the legisiature.7

7 Cooley's Const. Lim. 7th Ed. p. 236;

Lommen v. Minneapolis Gaslight Co. 65 Minn. 196;

Interstate Commerce Com. v. Illionis C. R. Co. 215 U. S. 452.

FIRST ABSTRACT OF TITLE

Two thousand and more years ago there were creditors and debtors just as there are today. Originally the loans were not of money, but of actual commodities.

The earliest loan safeguarded by an evidence of title according to modern investment standards and of which we have any record, was made in 430 B. C. It consisted of thirty bushels of dates, secured by the land of the debtors. The clay brick on which it was recorded was dug up in the ruins of Nippur, Mesopotamia, by an archaeological expedition of the University of Pennsylvania.

Translated, the inscription on the brick reads as follows:

"Thirty bushels of dates are due to Bel Nadin Shun, son of Marashu by Bel Bullitsu and Sha Nabu Shu, sons of Kirebit, and their tenants. In the month of Tashri (month of harvest) of the thirty-fourth year of King Artaxerxes I, they shall pay the dates, thirty bushels, according to the measure of Bel Nadin Shun in the town of Bit Balatsu.

"Their field, cultivated and uncultivated, their fief estate as evidenced by a memoranda of title ownership, is held as a pledge for the dates, namely, thirty bushels, by Bel Nadin Shun. Another creditor shall not have power over it."

THE PHOTO COPY MACHINE-AN ASSET

TO THE ABSTRACTER

By Lester L. Sanks, Kansas City, Missouri.

A few title men have been interested in the application of photography to legal records for a number of years, but there has been no general interest in the subject until recently. These pioneers in the use of photography for record work were abstracters using it for making copies of records in starting an abstract plant or the making of the daily "take offs."

The recent developments in the art of photography have opened another field of usefulness that is of interest to title men-namely, the recording of instruments.

From the earliest days of photography it was realized that this was the one way to make accurate copies. In 1802 Thomas Wedgewood and Sir Humphrey Davy published a method of copying paintings. This method was also used to "delineate profiles or shadows of figures, the woody fibres of leaves, the wings of insects and the images produced by the solar microscope." Nothing ever came of this process, however, because there was no way to make the pictures permanent. As knowledge and skill were gained in the art, new uses were found for it, and in 1901 Henry Leffman, making a speech before the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, said:

"When the systems of transcription were inaugurated, the possibilities of photography were not only unknown, but were quite unsuspected. At the present day the art of duplication of writing or drawing has been brought to high degree of perfection. Several methods are known by which such reproduction can be accomplished rapidly, accurately and cheaply. Nor is the work confined to the copying of well-made originals consisting of black lines on a white ground; even old yellow manuscripts on parchment can be reproduced with vividness not appreciably inferior to the originals. "Briefly, I propose that for all documents which are to be copied for record a negative shall be made either of full-size or somewhat reduced, if thought permissible, and from the negative prints shall be made by the best process. The negatives are not to be kept, hence the same glass can be used a number of times. The paper must be of the best quality, especially as to its resistance to decay. There is nothing in the problem that is uncertain or indefinite. Photography of this character can be carried out independently of the weather or time of day; permanent pictures can be made and control can be exercised over the work at all points. With regard to wills, I propose that even if it be thought necessary to keep the original document the public should be allowed access only to the photographic copies, which should be bound in indexed volumes."

It would have been very expensive and difficult to have carried out his ideas at that time. A "negative" of the instrument would have had to have been made on a glass plate, and a "positive" copy made on paper for binding in the records. This would have meant

the establishing of a photographic studio in every Recorder's Office and the employing of a skilled photographer. These difficulties were eliminated when the photo copy machine was perfected about 1909.

The Photo Copy Machine takes pictures directly upon the surface of sensitized paper and the picture is developed and fixed within the machine, thereby eliminating both the expensive plates and the dark room. This machine is so simple in operation that in some cases it is operated by the negro porter. It was designed primarily for the abstracter to enable him to make absolutely accurate copies of the records at small cost, but the large industrial firms and life insurance companies were quick to grasp the possibilities of making cheap and accurate copies, so that this class of users far outnumbers the abstracters that use it.

The original Photo Copy Machine used only one side of the paper and was adapted for recording work because books made by it would leave every other page blank. Another machine has been perfected in recent years, however, that takes a picture on both sides of the same sheet of paper in one operation. This is the machine that is generally used for recording.

The abstracter now has two types of photo copy machines from which to choose. Generally speaking, where the abstracter desires to copy the records and file the copies according to the description of the land conveyed, so that the copies will also be the tract index, the machine using only one side of the paper is best adapted to his needs. If, however, he already has a tract index and desires to file the copies according to the book and page number, or bind the copies in books, the machines using both sides of the paper would best meet his requirements.

With the advent of photographic recording, another profitable field was opened to the abstracter. Some abstracters have made a contract with the County Commissioners to supply the Recorder with a photo copy of every instrument filed in the office. This arrangement is satisfactory to both parties because the Recorder is assured of an absolutely accurate record at a cost considerably less than the cost of records made by the manual method, and the abstracter is paid enough for the copies to enable him to make an extra copy for his own files and still make a profit on the whole transaction. This method really gives the county a duplicate set of records, in case the courthouse burns and the records are destroyed because the abstracter has a facsimile of each record in his

files. The advertising and prestige that would naturally accrue to the abstracter doing the photographic recording for the county are items worth considering.

Aside from the actual recording there are other profitable fields open to the abstracter owning a photo copy machine. The making of certified copies of the record is one of them. The transcription of old records, so that the copies may be used by the public and the originals laid away, is another. Where a new county is formed of one or more existing ones or where the boundaries of a county have been changed, there is an opportunity for the abstracter to secure a contract to copy such portions of the record of the parent county as affect real estate in the new one. These things, especially photographic recording, offer the abstracter the possibility of a steady income aside from the regular abstract business.

It will pay the live, up-to-date abstracter to carefully consider the possibilities of photography and its application to legal records.

A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

If we owe to our fathers a constitution which has been a model for everything of the kind framed since its ratification, we also owe to them some demonstrably absurd theories, set forth in the Declaration of Independence, which have been the foundation of false conceptions, both of individual and public right. Indeed, it may be necessary to frame a new Declaration of Mutual Dependence, in which the opening statement would be somewhat to this effect:

Earnestly desiring equality under the law, we recognize that no two individuals can possibly possess like moral, intellectual and physical qualities, but that all of them are charged with certain inalienable responsibilities, the sum of which we call citizenship.

There is no need here to discuss historically the unsound French philosophy, derived from Rousseau, Diderot and the Encyclopaedists, upon which Paine and Jefferson built. The vice of our whole political system is that it is struggling for a material equality which cannot, in the nature of things, exist. If we could imagine it ordained, for a moment, by some omnipotent power, it would be changed beyond recognition in twenty-four hours, unless that power, by the same ordinance, abolished original sin. We talk of "ideals" without realizing that a true ideal must be based upon a reality. The sculptor's vision of perfection presupposes a real human form, without blemish. And what is more important, it implies