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Show -85- has "bred frequent embarassments, and at the time of the Mafia lynchings brought us to the verge of war with Italy. Our government at Washington sedulously disclaims responsibility, but volunteers indemnity. Neverthe- less international law, which is the world*s sense of right and justice, does not serenely tolerate the spectacle of a civilized state holding it- self irresponsible for the lives and property of citizens of foreign states. We may not always buy peace with a gratuity, but only at the price of inter- national justice. Interstate compacts, in the third place, may appropriately provide for the exercise of such powers, neither delegated to the nation nor prohibited to the states, as would be unjust or ineffective in their operation when wielded by the states separately without reference to each other* Such a subject is the taxation of personal property.) especially cor- porate property, by a uniform interstate rule, imposing the levy, either at the situs of the property;> the place of doing business3 or the place of corporate origin, and preferably the first, but at all events in not more than one of these places. Nor should delinquents be permitted to escape just taxation by refuge in a friendly state. Another such subject is that of marriage and divorce* The interstate conference have undertaken in part to remedy the evils of migratory di- vorce o and to reform divorce procedure in other respects. A few states have followed their recommendations. But the results are as yet meagre. It is amazing but true, that a man may have wives in two adjacent states, cohabit with both* and still violate the law of neither state. The integ- rity of the family unit5 the vital cell of the social organism, wherein lie the issues of the future, is of national and enduring consequence. Happily the sturdy morality of our people repairs the chaos and anarchy of our laws touching marriage and divorce. Some legal private rights are becoming recognized as affected with a paramount public interest. The fathers deemed them immune from regulation. The power to protect such rights has not been delegated to the nation, and while not prohibited to the states, is utterly beyond the grasp of a single state to effectuate. This is partly because such rights affect equally aid regardless of state lines, the people of the entire country. It is part- ly also because the states, disabled from shaping and insuring a common policy for the common benefit, adopt selfish individual policies at the expense of their neighbors© There are unassailable state incorporation laws from which their parent derives all the benefit, while other states suffer all the inconveniences- Industrial disputes loom large, to be met, on the one hand by merely negative judicial interdict, and on the other hand by settlements and ar- bitrations patched up through the personal influence of a party leader or of a popular chief executive. Again, to check the waste of our national substance in riotous living* and to express the contrition which hard times engender, another extra- |
