tions is not observed with certainty and finality particularly with reference to those interests where property and human liberties are involved. Let us remember Pope's wonderful couplet, "For forms of government let fools contest, Lord Shaw in his recent address at San Francisco well said in speaking of the profession of the law: "Be anxious to promote the cause of Justice-sweet guardians of the doctrine of liberty. "Stand to these things. Hold to them. Make law master in its own house. Take no advice from those, whether they be high in estate or powerful in organization, or even governments themselves, that would ask you to let slip its cord or its chain. Keep firm in discipline; be honorable in your profession. There are such things, I know, as professional disbarment. That does not animate you, nor is there any motive of fear. There is something which is higher than all fear as a motive of human conduct for every lawyer in his profession. It is expressed by a dear old countryman of mine, when he says: "Where you feel your honor grip, PROTECT VENDEES Fortunately for the prosperity of the nation, tracts or parcels of land, as farms, urban or suburban lots, have always been available for purchase, and upon installment payments of the purchase price. This has enabled great numbers of persons to acquire and own real property, who otherwise would not, and has been a potent factor in increasing the number of the conservative, substantial citizenry of the country. The rights and security of contract purchasers are dependent, like those of all purchasers and incumbrancers of real estate, upon the character of the title to the lands they contract to buy, as well as to the rights and protection the law imparts to their contracts. Investments in land should be encouraged in all proper ways. Contracts for sale should have every safeguard the law can afford. They should be recordable in like manner as deeds or mortgages, and have similar effect as constructive notice. Where such contracts are not recordable by authority of law or where the right to record them is doubtful or uncertain, the legislatures should, by positive enactments, confer the right and give effect as constructive notice to the record when made. This is particularly essential to a just and proper safeguarding of the rights of vendees under contracts for the purchase of vacant and unimproved property, such as urban or suburban lots, the acquisition of which is sought for homesite or investment purposes, in all cases where unaccompanied by actual possession and occupancy of the premises by the vendee. HERE AND NOW Each kindly act we do toward men, He helps us climb the rugged road, So let us by our word and deed Bring heaven to earth with greater speed, -T. F. WHITTELSEY. EDITORIAL COMMENT Best of all the methods for bringing justice to the poor is the Public Defender. This position is filled by a competent lawyer, employed on salary by the city. His duties are the exact opposite of those of the Prosecuting Attorney. Instead of trying to get people into jail, he tries to keep them out. He sees to it that the innocent are not punished at all, and the guilty no more severely than they deserve. He gives to the poor a quality or service they could not afford to buy; his sole interest is in the cause of justice. This, in short, is applied civilization-applied where it was badly needed. One only wonders why the job was not thought of long ago. Los Angeles may claim the credit of being the first American city to employ a Public Defender; in the past ten years the experiment has also been tried in Omaha, Portland, (Ore.), Columbus, Richmond, Hartford, Minneapolis, New Haven and a few other places. When every town in the country has a salaried Public Defender, we will be a little better entitled to boast about America, the Land of Equality. In one of Hans Christian Andersen's stories, two rogues offer to weave for His Majesty a suit of extraordinary beauty, which, however, will be invisible to all who are stupid and to all who are unfit to hold their present offices. The rogues are awarded the contract and set to work with nimble fingers pretending to weave a fictitious fabric on empty looms. Courtiers and high officials visit the weavers and see nothing, but dare not say so, since such a confession would prove them dull or unfit for office. For the same reason the king pretends to see and to admire the invisible fabric on the empty looms, puts on the imaginary clothes, and sallies forth to exhibit them amid the hypocritical applause and fawning enthusiasm of his courtiers. "But he has nothing on!" said a child, who saw him from its doorstep. Four years have passed since our citizenship thought we could see this new and beautiful suit that was going to clothe mankind in a new mind and spirit. Perhaps because we did not have the vision of the child, the process of disillusionment has been slow. The ghost, at the lifting of whose palsied hand tribes and nations danced for so many years, is parading again upon the stage, selling his memoirs for gold and calling us to behold the beauty of the suit the rogues have woven for him. The child will still tell us that he has nothing on. The loom of time has left him naked. He has been accidentally buried alive, and even the dignity of a shroud is denied him. This fearful guest who parades is not even dressed in rude armor. He comes, not to daunt, but to disillusion us. From war, rogues, pestilence and the various calamities to which the troubled generations are exposed in their march down the centuries, no suit of beauty can evolve, no new world emerge. We cannot lay the ghost of these ancient sorrows until we give over anticipating good from them, and set to work gathering up the broken ends and weaving them into a new garment. But it is well for us to remember, and at anniversaries to call to mind the evils through which we have passed. An ancient writer says: "And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep His commandments or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knowest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee to know that man doth not live by bread only, but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." Rudyard Kipling has caught both the spirit and the accent of this great appeal: "God of our fathers known of old. Remember "all the way" is the injunction. It is not sufficient to retain the sweet morsels, using the recollections of brilliant triumphs and glorious victories to minister to our self-conceit. The dark days of severe privation and strenuous toil have also their lesson. When men or nations forget those days, then will they forget to bow in humility before God whose grace and guidance made success possible, and they will say in effect: "My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this success." The Hebrew root from which the word "remember" comes means "to prick" or "pierce," and reminds us of the time when rude marks were made to help the memory. These dark days have left a lasting impression on the life of the community, The stain pricked into the body, mingling with the blood, has become permanent, leaving an abiding record on the souls of men and the life of the nation. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW POINTS A statute requiring an insurance company to maintain on deposit with a state officer a certain amount in value of securities for the protection of its policy holders, becomes a part only to a limited extent of the contracts evidenced by the policies issued while it is in force. The statute does not give such policy holders any vested interest in any particular security, or in any particular amount or proportion of the securities. Hence, a subsequent act reducing the amount of the deposit is not unconstitutional. Alliance Mutual L. A. S. v. Welch, 26 Kan. 632. In a subsequent decision on this point rendered by a federal court in Kansas, it was said: "But it is contended that, notwithstanding the repeal of this law, (requiring a deposit) the policy holders existing at the time had acquired a vested interest in the securities being held by the treasurer which could not be affected by the repeal. "Whatever their right in this regard may have been, it was conferred by statute and by it alone. The Constitution of the state in force at and before the passage of the act of 1879, (Art. 12, sec. 1) that: 'Corporations may be created by general law, but all such laws may be amended or repealed! Policy holders of a mutual insurance company stand in relation to it much like stockholders of a stock company to their corporation. They are its members. They are not an independent third party, but are its living and acting members by and through whom the corporate entity acts, and it is only in an academic and technical sense that they are differentiated in theory from the corporation itself. To hold that a legislative regulation of insurance companies, which the exigency of a given time or condition of things requires should be changed, cannot be modified or changed without the consent of its members, would practically defeat all such legislation. The state that gives them being would be powerless to regulate them. "The constitutional power of the legislature to repeal the law in question must, in our opinion, be held to constitute a condition subsequent to which not only the Kansas Company accepted its corporate existence, but also subject to which its members entered into relations with it. The latter must have contemplated the possibility of an amendment or repeal of any law affecting their rights when it accepted its life from the state." Illinois Life Ins. Co. v. Tully, 174 Fed. 355, 98 C. C. A. 259. In 1913 the legislature of Oregon passed "An Act to provide for the incorporation and organization, regulation, liquidation and supervision of trust companies," etc. (Laws 1913, p. 721, c. 354.) Section. 1 of that act in part is as follows: * * The capital stock of every trust company now existing or hereafter incorporated shall be not less than $100,000; provided, however, that a trust company with a capital stock of not less than $50,000 may be incorporated in cities having a population of less than 15,000. * A corporation not complying with the act was prohibited to use as part of its name the words "trust" or "trustee", or to transact business as a trust company. A violation of the act subjected the offender, after notice, to a fine, and its liquidation could be effected. In a case involving two corporations, one (having power to insure titles) with a capital of "less than $50,000," and the other of $5,000, incorporated prior to the passage of the foregoing act, and which had used the word "trust" as part of their respective names, it was held that to compel them under the statute, to abandon the word "trust" upon which their commercial standing had been founded and their credit established through a long course of years, would be an unreasonable exercise of the police power. And the court said: "The same reasoning applies to the attempt to force them out of business unless they multiply their capital tenfold. The terms of the contract between them and the state were accepted by the state. To arbitrarily require them to increase their capital stock would be to violate the terms of its contract as much as if A. should agree to sell a piece of property to B. for $5,000, and when B. tendered the money the former should require him to pay $50,000. The exercise of the police power must be reasonable and have rational application to the peace, health and safety of the people, and must not violate any constitutional right. Primarily the exercise of the police power means regulation and not extinction. It would be properly applied in the present instance by such rules as would fairly operate to promote observance of their charter powers and responsibilities of the plaintiffs (the companies) without direct destruction or violation of their vested rights, but it would be unreasonable to enforce such regulation as would practically obliterate them or compel them to breach of their own contracts lawfully made." Pacific Title & Trust Co. v. Sargent, 73 Ore. 485, 144 Pac. 452. The legislature of Nebraska, on April 1, 1909, passed an act which made it the duty of certain state officers to fix a maximum schedule of rates of premium to be charged by any fidelity or surety company transacting business within the state, for each and every kind of bonds, contracts, recognizances, stipulations and undertakings. This act was held to deprive such companies of their property without due process of law in violation of the fourteenth constitutional amendment, and, therefore, void. It was the view that the business of fidelity or surety companies could not be a monopoly as individuals and partnerships could furnish bonds in competition with them, and make any charge or no charge for assuming such risks. And the public interest in the business of such companies did not differ from its interest in the business of any large mercantile or manufacturing company whose capital, experience, and facilities may enable it to have a widely extensive patronage, but such characteristics do not make the business one affected |