When the entire constitution is not to be revised, special amendments are adopted by the legislature, in many of the States, and submitted to the people for acceptance or rejection. In some of the States only a majority vote is necessary to pass a resolution making a proposal of amendment, but in most States it takes the vote of two-thirds or threefourths of the members of each house. Some States require that the resolutions be proposed by two successive legislatures before they are acted upon. At some regular election the people ratify or reject at the polls the amendment so proposed by the legislature, special majorities of the popular vote being sometimes required.

The third method of amending a constitution that of the initiative and referendum-operates by a certain per cent. of the legal voters (eight per cent. in Oregon, for example) proposing the amendment by petition. The proposal is submitted to popular vote and is made part of the constitution if upheld by a majority of the voters. A notable feature in the later development of the State constitutions is the tendency of the new democratic spirit to refer everything to the direct vote of the people.

Some States have made frequent changes in their constitutions, others but few, there being on the whole a strong conservative tendency. This tendency should be, of course, and

usually is, a feature inherent in the very being of such an instrument. The name "constitution " itself means a body of law by which the government is constituted and given organization and functions. Frequent changes, therefore, as well as the introduction of too great a number of subjects which belong more properly to private law through statutory enactments, regulating the relations of citizens to each other in their private capacities, are not in accord with the nature of the instrument and scarcely fall within its legitimate province. province. Nevertheless, the constitution makers of to-day, particularly those of the newer States admitted to the Union in the last forty years, have shown a most marked tendency to make numerous changes and to treat a great variety of subjects in this instrument. It is undoubtedly true that respect for the State constitutions would be greater if the changes were fewer and that the changes would be fewer if respect were greater. Mr. Bryce went so far as to say that, although a constitution is the fundamental and supreme law of the State, its provisions are no better observed and enforced than those of an ordinary statute; but this is very much to be doubted at present, whatever the facts were in 1889 when The American Commonwealth first appeared.

So far as concerns unrestricted proposal of amendments by a single legislative action and the adoption of

amendments by the vote of a majority of the persons voting thereon, there is an undoubted tendency toward the easy amending process. The development in quite recent years has been to make amendment still easier by giving to the people the power of initiating amendments. The constitutions which illustrate best the easy amending tendency tendency are those of California (1897), Florida (1885), Georgia (1877), Idaho (1889), Louisiana (1898), Maine (1819), Maryland (1867), Missouri (1875), Michigan (1908), North Carolina (1875), Oregon (1906), South Dakota (1889), Texas (1875), Utah (1895), Washington (1889), and West West Virginia (1872). To this group might be added Colorado, Kansas and Montana, which restrict the legislative proposal of amendments; also South Carolina, which provides for popular proposal and vote upon amendments. The States whose constitutions are least flexible, requiring a popular vote greater than that of a majority of all persons voting upon the amendment, are: Alabama (1901), Arkansas (1874), Illinois (1870), Indiana (1851), Minnesota (1898), Nebraska

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(1875), Ohio (1851), Oklahoma (1907), Rhode Island (1842), Tennessee (1870), and Wyoming (1889). With them should be classed Mississippi (1890) and New Hampshire with its requirement that an amendment receive two-thirds of the vote cast upon the question of its adoption or rejection. Where, in addition to the requirement of a majority of all votes at an election, there are other restrictions upon the amending process, the alteration of a constitution often becomes practically impossible. This is true of Tennessee and to a smaller extent of Illinois and Indiana, owing to their special combinations of limitations.*

* F. N. Thorpe, The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters and Other Organic Laws (7 vols. compiled and edited under act of Congress, 1906); James Bryce, The American Commonwealth; R. L. Ashley, The American Federal State; Charles Borgeaud, Adoption and Amendment of Constitutions in Europe and America; J. Q. Dealey, Our State Constitutions; H. Hitchcock, American State Constitutions; William B. Guitteau, Government and Politics in the United States; J. A. Jameson, Constitutional Conventions; Judson S. Landon, The Constitutional History and Government of the United States; E. McClain, Constitutional Law in the United States; James Schouler, Constitutional Studies; J. B. Phillips, Recent State ConstitutionMaking.

advantage to any particular person, or corporation, firm, or locality, or class of traffic.* It forbids the charging, under like circumstances, of a larger sum for the shorter than for the longer haul over the same road. It prohibits the pooling of freights and the division of earnings, requires publicity of rates, and confers upon the Interstate Commerce Commission, created by act of Congress, power to carry out its provisions. This act was amended by the acts of 1889, 1891, 1893, 1903, 1906, and 1910, each representing an addition to the organic growth of the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. Of these the most important are the Elkins Act of 1903, which prevents unjust discrimination in railroad charges; the Hepburn Act of 1906 which first gave really effective force to provisions that were merely tentative in preceding acts; and the MannElkins Act of 1910, which extends the duties and jurisdiction of the Commission both as to carriers formerly subject to law and to other agencies of transportation and transmission. Although the passage of these laws was fought both by trusts and railroad companies, the result has been that the railroads have grown stronger each year, and the rigid prohibitions as to rebates and free passages had an immense effect in improving earnings. The laws that restrict freedom of action throughout the whole rail

*See pp. 35-36, ante. See also chapter on Interstate Commerce by Professor Huebner, ante.

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road system, as to its administration, have created vastly improved economic conditions.

The Commission has power to inquire into the management of the business of the common carriers engaged in interstate commerce and to obtain all necessary information for destroying the rebate system and other discriminations, so as to put all shippers on a basis of equality. The Commission is not given the general rate-making power, however, though it can name a reasonable rate for a particular service and adjust overcharges. It also has authority to suspend proposed rates pending investigation as to their reasonableness. On the other hand, where circumstances require swift action, certain rates may be established on short notice. It is required by law to report to the Attorney-General all violations of the interstate commerce laws.

The Commission supervises also steamboat lines doing an interstate. business in connection with the railroads under common control, and includes supervision of the interstate commerce of express companies, sleeping car companies, telegraph, cable, and wireless telegraph companies, and pipe line concerns transmitting commodities other than water or gas. The Commission has supervision of railroad accidents, and investigates all such accidents on its own initiative. Congress had adopted the policy of forcing upon railroad corporations the use of safety appliances to reduce ac

cidents to a minimum. The Block Signal and Train Control Board, organized by the Commission, has charge of investigating the thousands of devices that apply to signals, coupling of cars, ties, rails, switches, automatic train control, non-telescoping devices, and inspection of locomotives. Under the provisions of the Erdman Act, a member of the Commission may be appointed by the President to coöperate with the Commissioner of Labor with a view of settling any differences that may arise between railroads and their employés. This law has proved of great benefit to the parties concerned in settling many disputes by arbitration.

Anti-Trust Legislation.

An aggregation of several industrial organizations of a similar kind under a single control is denominated a trust. The trust was preceded by the combination, which was a feature of industrial development from 1872 to 1882 and which aimed simply at similarity of action between the corporations included therein in maintain

ing a fixed price, limiting territory, the output of goods, sales-combinations, or profit-sharing arrangements. Combinations were generally held to be illegal at common law and the majority of the States created laws penalizing them. They were superseded in the 80's by the trust. A more ad

*In this connection see the chapter on Trusts and Industrial Combinations and Associations, ante.

vanced form of trust, and its successor in most cases, is the holding corporation, which differs in certain respects from the usual type of trust. Its property consists of a majority of shares of stock in various corporations, its directors voting the shares held by it at the meetings of the subsidiary corporations and receiving the apportioned dividends. A holding company is a corporation of corporations, which, by virtue of holding a majority of the stock in each, elects the directors of all and through them operates the individual corporations in the interest of the holding corporation.

The legal status of the holding corporation is highly complicated, since it operates under two conflicting jurisdictions, each supreme in its own field.

- those of the State and Federal governments. Many of the States, under the leadership of New Jersey, have made laws legalizing holding corporations under certain conditions, but these are subject to Federal control only in so far as they interfere with interstate trade.

Public opinion demanded that the pernicious activities of the trusts be

curbed, and the first law on the subject (known as the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and entitled "An act to protect commerce against unlaw ful restraints and monopolies ") was passed by Congress and signed by the President on July 2, 1890.* This Act declares that every contract, combina

*For complete text see ante, pp. 46-47.