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Show -21- systems of State taxation, the possibilities of amelioration and economy realizable through an alert use of the Compact Clause call for more inten- sive study, as part of a disciplined attack upon the entire tax problem. We have passed in rapid review the concrete occasions which have evoked resort to compact, and the facts of life to which they were addressed. From this resume it appears that the instances for which compact was found serviceable fall into two broad types of situations. First, controversies *^ between two or more States that abstractly may be fit subjects for litiga- tion but which, because of the nature of the issues - the range, the in- tricacy* the technicality of the facts - make a court a very ill-adapted instrument for settlement; the second class comprises situations which are ^/ wholly beyond the process of adjudication. Boundary controversies, one would suppose, furnish the most familiar opportunity for judicial action* But when a boundary controversy concerns two States we are at once in a world wholly different from thai/ of a law- suit between John Doe and Richard Roe over the metes and'bounds of BlacJcaci;©. The scale of the litigation, for one thing, makes a heavy drain upon the Supreme Court?s time and* therefore* affects the quality of judgment which the Court is capable of exercising - a powerful consideration as the pressure upon the Courtfs energies becomes one of the most obvious as well as: one of the subtlest factors in its work.87 Again* the political implications of the °7a summary story of the progressive impact of business upon the re- sources of the Supreme Court doim to 1880 was thus put by Ex-Justice Strongs "In 1801* when John Marshall was appointed Chief Justioe of that courts the number of oases brought into it for adjudication was only ton. The entire number during the five next following years* including both-writs of error and appeals* was only one hundred and twenty* or an average of twenty-foxtr each year. Thence forward the business of the court increased slov/ly until* in the period between 1826 and 1830* the aggregate number of cases brought into it was-two hundred and eighty-nine - the average being about fifty- eight a year. In 1836* when Roger B. Taney succeeded Marshall as Chief Jus- tice* the number was only thirty-seven. From 1830 to I85O* the increase was also very gradual. Within the five years ending with I85O* the number of cases brought into the court* including those • doclosted and dismissed without argument* was-three hundred and fifty-seven* or an average of seventy- one a year* The court was then able to dispose of its entire docket during a session of three months. But* since the year 1850* the increase has been much more rapid. Within the five years ending with 1880, the number of mew cases has been nineteen hundred and fifty-five* averaging more than three hundred and ninety-one each year. This exhibits, certainly*-a very remark- able increase* serious in its consequences." Strong, The Needs of the Supreme Court (1881) 132 N. Amer. Rev. 1*37. For the last forty years the increase of business has been even more marked. The steady increase in pressure during the last decade has been authoritatively set forth in th« testimony of Mr. Justice Van Devanter as Chairman of a Sub«Committee of the Court seeking legislative r elief \ "The summary shows ^at from 1913 to 1923 th« number of new cases coming into the court increased from 526 to 720* and that the number of cases disposed of during those years in- creased from 597 in 1913 to 765 at the October, 1922* term." Hearing |
