Collections

For Me, Robert H. Jackson is Alive

As one without a law degree and with no credentials as a historian, it is a great honor for me to pay a layman's tribute to the most eminent alumnus of the Albany Law School: Robert H. Jackson. He is justly famous as one of the most eloquent Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, but perhaps no judicial comments have ever equaled his opening and closing statements at the Nuremberg trials. His determination to make those trials reflect our highest principles of justice and morality is incomparable. Robert Jackson has been gone for fifty years, but his legacy lives on. With new and different war crimes trials on the front pages of every newspaper, Jacksonís legacy takes on ever more powerful meaning.

Problems of the Federal Tax Bar

The American Bar Association's Committee on Taxation wisely has called those lawyers engaged in tax practice to meet and consider their common problems. In addition to difficulties which vex the general profession, tax practice presents some of its own. Need for a clearing house for the exchange of views, and a voice to speak for the tax bar is so apparent that I hope you may perfect at least a preliminary organization and perhaps a section for the purpose.

Address before the New York State Bar Association

The legal profession may justly claim much credit for the making of our government. American Democracy may justly claim a large part in making the prestige of the legal profession. No other people have submitted so generally to lawyer leadership. We have held all of the judicial and many of the legislative and executive offices.

People’s Business

Mr. Edward E. Loomis, who wrote on "Taxes and Labor" in the December FORUM, dislikes taxes- apparently all taxes. Emotionally, I am in sympathy with him. From childhood we hear about death and taxes as the twin evils all must face. Nearly all revolutions have been contributed to by a hatred of taxation.

Is Landon Constitutional?

The constitutional issue, which threatened at the beginning of the campaign to be of major importance, was for a time evidently recognized as a hot potato by both sides and was generally ignored In his last few speeches, however, Governor Landon has again, perhaps rashly, brought the issue into the limelight. Particularly in his Detroit speech on October 13 the Republican candidate devoted most of his remarks to criticism of what he called President Roosevelt's usurpation of legislative power, and of his readiness to ignore or to defy the power of the courts.

Interest of the Department of Justice in Section 77B

The successful operation of the recently enacted corporation reorganization provisions of the Bankruptcy Act is a matter of interest and concern to the Department of Justice as well as to all other agencies interested in the proper administration of justice. The hopes held out by these sections that speedy, inexpensive and reasonably equitable reorganization of embarrassed corporations shall be possible is in the hands of the bench and bar.

Are We Going Broke? A Debate of National Finances (America Has Only Scratched Her Resources)

Of course no thrifty-minded person views an increase of the public debt with satisfaction, and no sensible official favors spending public funds to a greater extent than conditions imperatively require. It is equally true that no influential person should disregard or discount the factors in the present situation which give reason for confidence in our present national financial soundness and stability.

Rich Get Richer

As the figures of tax collections have become available, it has become apparent that the present administration inherited in 1933 a tax structure that, in terms of making that burden proportionate to ability to pay, had become out of balance even by the standards adopted during the preceding administration....

The Liberty League and the Constitution

Under the sponsorship of the "American Liberty League", James M. Beck lately lectured the Bar, by radio and by pamphlet, on "The Duty of the Lawyer in the Present Crisis". His speech was an indiscriminating attack upon the legal advisers of this Administration, and the duty which he urged upon all lawyers was, "We must defeat the sappers and miners of the New Deal, who are insidiously undermining the very foundations of the Constitution".

Equity in the Administration of Federal Taxes

Of the legal relations upon which the corporate and individual clients must seek advice, none is more vexing than those created by the tax laws of local, state and national governments. Lawyers can no longer remain aloof from the tax problem as one that is trivial, nor can they abandon the problem as an accounting problem, nor can the corporation or family adviser turn it over as an independent and disconnected problem for the specialist. Taxation is not a separate problem but is interwoven with every problem or relationship that involves acquisition or disposition of property.