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The Green Bag
he was a self-made man, who became a political figure of national importance, whose influence was always exerted in support of wholesome ideals, and whose life, in the words of the Minneapolis Journal, "has left Minne sota a legacy which she can never lose." Edward Flint Brown, who had practised law in New York for more than forty-five years, died September 26. He was seventy years old, and was born in Sebago, Cumber land county. Me. Mr. Brown was a graduate of Yale in 1863, and afterward spent a year in the Columbia Law School. For five years he was an examiner of candidates for the bar, and he was a member of the Committee of Character of the Bar Association. Later he acted as an examiner for the State Board of Law Examiners. He was well known as a reformer. James M. Flower, for many years one of the leading lawyers of the Northwest, died Sep tember 3, in California. He was born March 10, 1835, at Hannibal, Oswego County, N. Y., but removed with his father and mother to Wisconsin in the fall of 1844. He entered the preparatory school of the Wisconsin Univer sity, and graduated in its second class. He was selected as clerk by the commissioners appointed to revise the Wisconsin statutes, and later served as police justice of Madison, Wis. In his law practice he was entrusted with the care of important corporation litiga tion, and for forty-two years he practised in Wisconsin and Illinois. Col. Joel B. Erhardt, president of the Lawyers' Surety Company of New York, died suddenly September 8, of heart failure, at the Union League Club, New York City. He had been United States marshal for the southern district of New York, and Collector of the Port of New York from 1889 to 1893. Working his way as a youth through the University of Vermont, his first position after leaving college was as a school teacher at Upper Jay, Pf. Y., where the school was practically run by a strapping big bully. Young Erhardt's first act was to take off his coat and give the bully a thrashing, while the other pupils looked on and applauded. Edmond Kelly of North Mountain, Nyack, N. Y., formerly counsel for the Princess de Sagan, died in New York October 4. He was graduated from Columbia in the class of 1870, and was a classmate of Seth Low. He removed his law office to Paris, where he became known as an authority on inter national marriages. He was counselor to the United States embassy in that city and also represented the Eauitable Life Assurance Company and the Panama canal interests. His real life work was socialistic rather than legal, however. He was the author of "The Tramp Problem," "Evolution and Effort and Their Relation to Religion and Politics," now used as a text-book at Harvard, "Gov
ernment and Justice," and "Government; or Human Evolution." Colonel William R. Morrison, for many years a leader in the Democratic party and a veteran of the Mexican and Civil wars, died in Waterloo, Ill., September 29. Familiarly known as "Horizontal Bill," he was born in Monroe County, Ill., in 1825, and was edu cated in the public schools and at McKendree College. He took his seat in the 38th Con gress, December, 1863. He failed of re-elec tion, and practised law from 1865 until 1873, when he again entered Congress. In his career in Congress he was widely known as an advocate of radical tariff reduction. The bill of 1884 embodied the famous "horizontal" reduction scheme. It was defeated by a slender majority. In 1885 Mr. Morrison was defeated for election to the Senate by John A. Logan. President Cleveland ap pointed him a member of the Interstate Com merce Commission in 1887, and he served until 1897, for the last six years being chair man of the commission. The Administration Program with Regard to Interstate Commerce President Taft outlined the amendments to the Sherman act and interstate commerce law which he would ask Congress to enact, in a speech at Des Moines on September 20. His more important remarks are retained in the following greatly condensed abstract of his speech :— "One of the defects of the present interstate commerce law is the delay entailed by liti gation in the court over the correctness of the orders of the Interstate Commerce Com mission. It is proposed now by a number of gentlemen of my cabinet who have conferred with some members of the Interstate Com merce Commission to create a separate inter state commerce court of five members, which shall sit in Washington and which shall be the only court to which petitions to set aside or nullify the orders of the Interstate com merce Commission can be made. I am strongly inclined to think that such court, except that an appeal ought to lie from it to the Supreme Court, will serve the purpose of expedition and the despatch of business in respect to the orders of the Commission. "A second change in the interstate com merce law ought to give to the commission the power to hear and entertain complaints against unjust classification of merchandise for transportation. It is proposed now to authorize the commission to postpone the date at which a new rate classification is to take effect, provided that within thirty days of the date of the order a complaint be filed that such rate of classification is unreasonable or unjust. I am inclined to think that this is a fair change in the provisions of law. "A third amendment should provide that the commission may, by order, suspend.
