When the udder has been emptied into their pail, the devastations of the cow in the public corn may be resumed—and they will not see her though she be as big as an elephant.

up, but they come down. force nor discrimination.

A tempest lifts things It has neither sustaining It draws no line between

things that ought to be reconstructed and things that should be utterly destroyed.

But before the commission we must have a zealous, sedate, educated, organized, non-partisan, public sentiment. That great patriotic middle body of our people-not a remnant-but the mass must become something more than a fire brigade. It is not enough to say that there must be no violencethe law must not only be obeyed, but it must be right. These and kindred reforms lag only because their supporters are not organized. There is no plan—no effective co-operation. The first step, in my judgment, is the organization of commissions, composed of able, wise and patriotic men, to take up these problems and to give their undivided time and their most solicitous thought to their solution. If there could be co-operation between the states it would be very helpful and would tend to promote another much desired end-harmonious legislation.

ILLINOIS INHERITANCE TAX CASES

Josephine C. Drake et al., Executors, &c., Plaintiffs in Error, v. Daniel H. Kochersperger, County Treasurer, &c., of Cook County, Illinois. No.425. Elizabeth Emerson Sawyer et al., Executors, &c., Plaintiffs in Error,v. The Same. No. 463.

Jessie Norton Torrence Magoun, Appellant, v. Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, as Executor, &c., of Joseph T. Torrence, deceased, and Daniel H. Kochersperger, County Treasurer, &c. No. 464.

GENERAL HARRISON'S LAST ARGUMENT BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES-MADE

ON BEHALF OF PLAINTIFFS IN ERROR AND APPELLANT IN SUPPORT OF THE CONTENTION THAT THE

ILLINOIS INHERITANCE TAX LAW IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL BECAUSE IN CONFLICT WITH THE PROVISIONS OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.

Washington, 1898.

May It Please Your Honors:

Before addressing myself to the line of argument which I have marked out, it may not be inappropriate to make reference to the suggestion of the attorney-general of Illinois-that this law might be held by this court to be unconstitutional

as to the third class, and sustained as to the other classes. We have in this law what was evidently intended to be a system of succession or inheritance taxation. This is one of several classes that the law defines and upon which it levies taxes. It is the class, if your honors please, least favored; the unfavored class in this legislation; a class described as "all others," after the two classifications that embrace kinship to very remote limits. It is mostly the stranger who is taxed by this clause. Surely the learned attorney-general would not ask this honorable court to conclude that the legislature of his state would desire that the residue of the statute should be maintained if this part were to be declared unconstitutional. Surely he would not be willing or have us believe that the legislature would have been willing that the unfavored classthe class the legislature was most anxious to tax and to tax most heavily-should escape, while the children and nearer relatives of the decedent are held to be subject to the operation of this law.

There is another feature of the law which, I think I would be justified in saying, after listening to these arguments and reading these briefs, is confessed by counsel to be unconstitutional. There is a feature of it that is not supported by any argument or by any citation which these gentlemen have presented to the court. They have entirely failed to

inform the court, either in the brief or in the oral argument, of the fact that this tax is levied upon gifts and conveyances inter vivos, if they are made in contemplation of death or to take effect after death. MR. MORAN: They are testamentary in char

acter

MR. HARRISON: Testamentary in character! Does this honorable gentleman contend that, when one is in life and in the full possession of his faculties, he has no natural right to endow a child by an executed gift or conveyance, taking effect immediately, in contemplation of his own approaching death, but that that act is to be rated and put upon the same plane with the gifts by will of which he has spoken? I know it has been a part of almost every law taxing successions that gifts made in contemplation of death are included. Because otherwise such a law could not be executed. But, does Mr. Moran contend that, being in life and in the full possession of one's mental powers and in the full control of one's property, one may not in contemplation of death take from one's safe a package of bonds and hand them to a friend in trust for the maintenance of a minor child, for whose support one's estate has been chargeable, upon the ground that the child has no natural right to such support? I understood that counsel, in response to a question of the court, admitted that the power of the owner

over property during life was absolute. If this be true and it is plainly true-where is there any authority, where is there any suggestion to be drawn from history or from legal principles, that would put any limitation upon the power of one who is nearing the limit of human life to make provision, by a division of his property, for those whom nature has made dependent upon him? How does the doctrine of a "bonus" for a privilege, as my friend puts it, apply in such a case as that? No right is exercised under the statute of wills or of descents of the state of Illinois or from any other statute. If both those statutes were repealed, the right to dispose of property during life would remain. I take it for granted that there is no answer to this suggestion, or it would have been made.

MR. MORAN: If it had been made earlier it would have been answered.

MR. HARRISON: This provision is written on the face of the statute, and no argument by which you have supported an inheritance or succession tax includes these transactions inter vivos. How could the state escheat such property? When the black-robed usher is seen on the distant hill, does a state of incapacity to dispose of property begin at once? Are men to be restrained from giving exercise to those natural affections with which God