560 THE FORUM yielded all it can, and that a study of the gospels in the light of modern psychology yields fruitful supplementary results. Lest the word "psycho-analytic" in the title should arouse suspicions of blasphemy, it should be said that Monsieur Berguer's treatment of his great theme is marked by the utmost reverence. "This life," he says, "constitutes, we are convinced, the point of departure and the most powerful force that has ever been given to human individuals to assist them in effecting the sublimation towards which they aspire... . The life of Jesus is an affirmation and a demonstration of the sublimation of the human instincts towards the divine. Jesus, we may say, had discovered in the depths of himself what God was. In receiving, in its plenitude, the influx of life which made of him a human person, it was natural for him to say 'Father.' This vital influx, this inner urge of energy which the psycho-analysts have named the libido, Schopenhauer the will to live, and Bergson the clan vital, Jesus felt, differently no doubt but in the same sense, as the Father.” Monsieur Berguer's knowledge of psychology sheds suggestive light on the crises of Jesus' life, his youthful experience in the Temple, his baptism and temptation, his transfigura-, tion, his passion and death; on his teaching and miracles; and on the stories of his birth and resurrection which he treats from the point of view of the psychology of the early Christians. This study, evidencing knowledge and reflective thought, contrasts refreshingly with the popular rhetoric of Papini. HELEN D. WOODARD. Guedalla is that man. He walks into the most august presence and bursts into hilarious laughter, not just to show that he is unawed by the presence or that he is a thoroughly modern young man, but because he is genuinely amused. He thinks, too, not all the time but often enough to strike a fair average, and he thinks originally. He has any amount of that agreeable quality, which we must hasten to name once more before the excellent word becomes quite worn out by over use,gusto. Also he writes crisply, easily, and with that skilful use of figures that is one of the higher and too little appreciated virtues. 'Having launched his wicked paradox, he tilted his hat and, seeing an epigram in the distance, strolled jauntily off up a side-issue, as an essayist should." The American critics are "always trotting up and down the paths with an anxious eye and a basket full of the dangerous-looking instruments of literary horticulture, stopping every minute to bend over a bed of young novelists or tie up a drooping reputation, prodding the subsoil with an inquiring fork, or taking a selection of promising young plants into their own charming conservatory to tell them (from the lecture platform) just how they are growing.' If you care to meet the gentleman, read MASTERS AND MEN (Putnam's, $2.50). It is a collection of short essays, disquisitions, character sketches, of all sorts and conditions of people: ministers of state, novelists, "A Few Foreigners," Dean Inge, Mr. Chesterton, the Sidney Webbs. Unlike most collections of essays it will bear consecutive reading; you go through it with cumulating rather than decreasing joy. It will also bear reading aloud. You will probably find, when you think about it in the cool light of the next morning, that the number of ideas it conposed, but after alltains is smaller than you had at first sup MARGARET L. FARRAND. Northampton, Mass. Who in this issue of THE FORUM challenges the right of the Supreme Court to act as virtual ruler of the country Senator from Pennsylvania, who defends the Supreme Court and believes that it performs a necessary function as umpire Vol. LXXI MAY, 1924 園 No. 5 SHALL WE CURB THE SUPREME COURT? THE I-LABOR AND LAW JACKSON HARVEY RALSTON HE real ruler of the United States is not Congress but five members of the Supreme Court. This writer advocates a constitu men REËMINENT among the institutions of our country, for the learning and integrity of tional amendment to curb its power. its members, stands our Supreme From the time of the Dred Scott case Court. Its enemies confess that it is to the recent Child Labor Law its decisions bave wrought many a beyond the touch of corrupt motives, social injustice. In passing upon and often the court has demonstrated the latest social learning the Court, its fearlessness. Yet it is composed of in a world of sunlight and electricity, bas with whale-oil lamps gone men not free from the faults of their down into the graves of more than a fellows, even on the bench, bundred years ago to garner wisdom possessed of love of power, and tenafrom men who died in ignorance. cious of what they believe to be their rights. It is of some of the results of these natural human frailties that we have to speak. It has been the fortune of the times that many of the most important laws relating to labor and social reform have met with the legal condemnation of the Supreme Court. The reaction on the part of the labor and progressive public has been against the Supreme Court to such an extent that, more powerfully than ever before, an agitation has sprung up against the power of the Court which is exciting the attention of both bench and bar. The attention of Congress has been evidenced by the presentation of a half-dozen bills designed to curb the courts, and doubtless many more will follow in the present session. The existence of judicial power to set aside legislative acts was from the moment of the formation of the Federal Government questioned or denied, and precedents in Colonial days or before the establishment of the Constitution were scanty and usually doubtful, while sometimes the courts questioned or denied the existence of such power in them. Upon the first notable announcement, in 1803 of the existence of the power in the case of Marbury vs. Madison the line was clearly drawn between its advocates and opponents. Later, in 1857, in the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court by its declaration that the Missouri Compromise, enacted by Congress in the spirit of peace, was void, intensified instead of settling a political dispute, and inflamed the country to such an extent as to hasten if not render inevitable a civil war. The Supreme Court therein planted itself in the very pathway of a great social reform and for the time made right unattainable. The Dred Scott case made millions feel that the Supreme Court possessed in its claimed jurisdiction a dangerous power, and thinking people commenced to believe, if they had not appreciated the fact before, that it was unwise that a few men, divorced from the people, should control the political destinies of the United States. In 1870 the Supreme Court by a vote of five to four declared that the legal tender acts of the time of the Civil War were void. True it is that on a rehearing this result was reversed, and the acts which in 1870 were unconstitutional were in 1871 approved under the Constitution. The wabbling course of the court, however the final result may be regarded, undeniably lowered its dignity. Passing over the intervening cases we come to the income tax decision of 1895. Here we find a court finally standing five to four against the law, - an act of Congress designed to make wealth contribute a small share of its gains to the government which had enabled private individuals to grow at least well-to-do. Again the Supreme Court, in its protection of wealth as more important than life, which in a time of stress could be taken by conscription, subjected itself to severe condemnation. This, too, was through the exercise of a power not clearly given it by the Constitution. Later years have intensified the situation, and many events have occurred to weaken the prestige of the court, which has almost uniformly stood in the way of the working out of social reform and advancement. Lest these may seem the words of |