the Sugar Bounty case. In this case Congress passed an act making an appropriation for the payment of the claims of those persons who relying upon an Act of Congress providing for the payment of bounties had engaged in the manufacture of sugar. The bounty act was subsequently repealed but this appropriation had been made in order to tide over the sugar manufacturers who were regarded as having a moral claim against the government. The proper disbursing officer of the government acting upon the theory that both the original bounty act and the subsequent appropriation act were unconstitutional as appropriating public funds for a private purpose, refused to pay the bounty and a mandamus was asked to force him to make the payment. The lower court held the act to be unconstitutional and denied the motion. After this decision had been reached the plaintiffs in the suit sued the United States government in one of the circuit courts of the United States acting as court of claims which gave judgment for the plaintiffs and the case was brought by writ of error to the United States Supreme Court. That court believing that the case could be decided without entering upon a discussion of the validity of the original sugar bounty acts, affirmed the judgment of the lower court. It did so on the theory that the "debts of the United States" to pay which Congress may by the constitution levy and collect taxes include moral as well as legal obligations, saying: "Payments to individuals not of right or of a merely legal claim but payments in the nature of a gratuity, yet having some feature of moral obligation to support them have been made by the government by virtue of acts of Congress appropriating the public money, ever since its foundation. Some of the acts were based upon considerations of mere charity." It is, of course, a far cry from claims of this sort to old age, accident and sickness pensions and it is doubtful if the moral obligation upon which such payments have been based could be so extended as to include a moral obligation of the government to its needy classes. Yet that obligation has from time immemorial been recognized in the laws of England and this country with regard to poor

relief. Furthermore, if it is said that the granting of old age, sickness and accident pensions is an unwarrantable extension of the activity of the federal government it may be answered that such action is no more of an extension of that activity than the grant of bounties for the encouragement of manufacturing which is subject to state rather than to federal regulation, or than the grant of money to educational institutions, which is provided by the Morrell act, or the gratuitous distribution of seeds to farmers.

Finally, it is to be remembered as the court says in closing its opinion in this sugar bounty case: "In regard to the question whether the facts existing in any given case bring it within the description of that class of claims which Congress can and ought to recognize as founded upon equitable and moral considerations and grounded upon principles of right and justice we think that generally such question must in its nature be one for Congress to decide for itself. Its decision recognizing such a claim and appropriating money for its payment can rarely, if ever, be the subject for review by the judicial branch of the government."

It must therefore be said that there is at least some ground to be found in the decided cases and our legislative precedents for holding that pensions in case of old age, sickness or accident which are payable to indigent persons only may be provided for by the Congress of the United States. Even if this is not the case it would be difficult to find a judicial remedy by applying which the courts could interfere. The two cases from whose opinions quotations have been made would seem to indicate that the courts of the United States will not interfere to prevent the expenditure of public funds. And if the pensions were to be paid out of the proceeds of taxes which were levied for other purposes as well as for the payment of these pensions the taxpayer could not bring the matter up through contesting on this ground the constitutionality of a tax which from other points of view was constitutional.

If a precedent is desired for the distribution by the national government of public property to the needy classes in order

to subserve some social end conceived of as desirable, one need only point to the policy which has for so many years been followed by the government in its laws with regard to the public lands. Originally the public domain was regarded as an asset to be used to pay the public debt and a portion of the current expense of the government. Later on, viz., in 1830, it was used to encourage settlement through the plan of preemption in accordance with which bona fide settlers were permitted to take up land to a maximum amount, viz., a quarter section at the minimum price of $1.25 an acre. Still later, viz., in 1862, the Homestead law was passed. Under this land might be acquired for nothing by a five years' occupation which might be commuted at stated periods by the payment of a regular purchase price. Finally from the beginning of our history land was granted outright either to specified classes of persons such as soldiers, or railway companies, or for specified purposes, as in the case of the swamp land grants. The purpose of the government was two-fold. It was first to develop the resources of the country; it was second to secure a class of small proprietors in the belief that such a class made a good economic basis for democratic government. Public property was granted to private persons not merely to develop the country but to offer greater equality of economic opportunity to the less well endowed classes of the community, and no attempt was made to declare unconstitutional the action of the government. It is, of course, true that Congress gets its power to legislate with regard to the public lands from a special clause in the constitution but its discretion as to the purposes for which this power may be exercised is no greater than it is as to the purposes for which the power of taxation may be used.

Who in view of the history of the public domain will venture to say that the constitution limits the power of Congress to dispose of the public funds as it sees fit in order to promote what it considers to be the "public welfare of the United States" to provide for which the constitution specifically says the taxing power may be used?

Our conclusions then as to the constitutionality of old age, accident and sickness pensions are, assuming that the courts do not change their view:

1. Such pensions when provided by state action are not prohibited by the 14th amendment or any other provision of the federal constitution, particularly if they are confined to indigent persons.

2. If not confined to indigent persons they are unconstitutional under the ordinary provisions of the state constitutions.

3. Even if confined to indigent persons they are probably unconstitutional under the ordinary provisions of the state constitutions, although there is some reason for believing they might be justified as a form of outdoor poor relief.

4. There is much ground for the belief that such pensions, particularly if confined to indigent persons, might constitutionally be provided by the federal government.

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS IN LIBERIA.

GEORGE W. ELLIS, F. R. G. S.,

K. c.1

Liberia will long be a source of permanent interest to the government and people of the United States, not only because it was founded and fostered by American citizens, but because there is going on there in the interest of the African races one of the unique struggles in modern state-building, in an endeavor to perpetuate in West Africa a government fashioned after the American democracy in which liberty shall be limited and regulated by law.

Under the most unfavorable circumstances the Liberian people have entered upon a grave and stupendous undertaking. The high political ideas and principles which they represent, the ardor and fidelity with which they have maintained them for nearly three quarters of a century against European opposition and in the midst and in the presence of the overwhelming numbers and dissimilar civilization of their African kinsmen, entitle them to the sympathetic consideration and good will of all liberty-loving nations.

The Liberians are now engaged in a national campaign; and in January 1911, a president was nominated who for the next four years will have the responsibility and the direction of Liberian affairs. And in view of the revival of American activity in that republic and our natural relation to it, a brief sketch of some of the main features of present political conditions in Liberia may be of some passing interest at this time.

For the exercise of the political authority and jurisdiction

'Mr. Ellis was for eight years Secretary of the American Legation to Liberia. Among other articles published by him, relating to Liberian affairs, are the following: Education in Liberia (National Bureau of Education); Justice in the West African Jungle (The Independent); Dynamic Factors in the Liberian Situation (The Journal of Race Development).