The courts are not bound by the opinions of attorneys concerning what is a reasonable charge for legal services rendered. Same. A fee of $225.00 for securing a copy of a decree entered in another state and procuring the transmission by the clerk of the court of the money paid in to him in satisfaction of the decree, to which the complainant's right had not been questioned. is so excessive as to justify the attorney's disbarment. People ex rel. Chicago Bar Association relator vs. The Nat. Corpor. Reporter. A finding will not be disturbed where evidence was conflioting, and it could not be said with any reasonable degree of certainty that the chancellor erred. Smith vs. Rader, 162 S. W. 799. Trial by the Court.-Where a cause is tried to the court, its findings are entitled to the same weight as a verdict. Goldsmith v. Murry, 138 P. 187; and J. I. Case Threshing Mach. Co. vs. Lyons, 138 P. 167 (Okla.) Note What is full Payment.-Evidence that the principal due on a note, where no evidence was introduced as to the payment of the interest does not entitle the defend. ant to demand that a verdict be directed in his favor, or that the whole debt is paid. Turner vs. Osborn, 64 So. 721. When the purpose of Congress is stated in such plain terms that there is no uncertainty, and no construction. is required, it is unnecessary to inquire into the motives. which induced the legislation. The only province of the courts in such a case is to enforce the statute in accordance with its terms. U. S. ex rel. Texas Cement Co. v. McCord. Limit of State Power.-A state can not directly or indirectly restrict the National Government in the exercise of its legitmate powers, nor can a state in any way pun. ish a crime after the President of the United States has pardoned the offenders. Eugenic Law Unconstitutional The case of Smith v. Board of Examiners of FeebleMinded, 88 Atlantic Reporter, 963, involves the validity of a law entitled "An act to authorize and provide for sterilization of feeble-minded (including idiots, imbeciles and morons), epileptics, rapists, certain criminals and defectives" (P. L. N. J., 1911, p. 453). Acting thereunder, the Board of Examiners ordered that the opera tion of salpingectomy be performed upon Alice Smith, an epileptic inmate of a state charitable institution, as the most effective means for the prevention of procreation. The New Jersey Supreme Court held that the statute in question, in so far as it applied to epileptics, and only to those confined in certain public institutions, was based upon a classification that bore no reasonable relation to the object of such police regulation, and hence denied to the individuals of the class so selected the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States. The court stated, however, that it was dealing with the stat ute as far as it applied to epileptics only, and showed their unwillingness to broaden their language beyond the necessities of the particular case. The Law Students Helper. Judge Stillwell H. Russell, the recently appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma dropped dead, two days ago, (May 16th, 1914.) caused by a stroke of apoplexy. He had just entered his chambers when he fell to the floor. The Bar will miss him and greatly regret his sudden and sad ending. A new appointment to fill his place will doubtless be made in a few days. HUMOR. Rastus had caught Sambo red-handed. "Ah'm gwine hab yo' arrested foh stealin' mah chickens, yo' Sambo Washin'ton-dat's jess what ah'm gwine to do," said Rastus. "Go ahead, niggah," retorted Sambo. "Go ahead and hab me arrested.. Ah'll mek yo' prove war yo' got dem chickens yo' seff!" This was effective to stop prosecution. Waked the Wrong Man.-Pat was known to be a very sound sleeper. He registered at a hotel with the understanding that he was to be awakened at an early hour. That night the moment he began to snore, a couple of his waggish friends entered the with powdered lampblack and gently blacked his face. At four in the morning the night clerk nearly battered the door to awake him. Pat jumped out of bed turned the electric light and at a glance saw himself in the dresser glass in front of him, and exclaimed: "Stop bangging you blackgard. You've awaked the wrong man!" The Solace of Law. The New York pedestrian, says the Cleveland Plain Dealer, took his time in crossing Broadway. He knew his rights and meant to assert them. Just the day before a learned judge had declared from the bench that pedestrians were not required by law to avoid vehicles in the streets. The pedestrian had read this decision and knew the statutes were on his side. He advanced smartly. The next moment he was scraped by a motorcycle, jostled by a taxicab, hit by a runabout, bumped by a touring car, and run over by an auto truck. He wrote to the learned judge from the hospital detailing the facts. And the learned judge wrote back: "You acted strictly in accordance with the law.' The Law Student's Helper. THE OKLAHOMA LAW JOURNAL EDITED AND PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY D. H. FERNANDES, GUTHRIE, Oklahoma. VOL. 12. June, 1914. No. 12 THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF TAXATION IN THIS STATE. By Hon. Ernest E. Blake. (Continued from page 450 of the May Number.) It is not my province in this document to discourse on any of the reasons of this, beyond the system of raising the revenue, and some of the critisiseable elements in the matter may now be presented. One is the percentage system as an encouragement to the Assessor, wherewith he is enabled to realize readily a large assessment and corresponding salary from the visible properties, while permitting the invisible to escape an intelligence which was intended to be aroused and rewarded. A second arises from the practice of the Assessor in violating his oath, and the law, and hiring non-descript assistants to help him figure from the map all that he thinks that local pride or personal sentiment or purpose may stand. Another is, that the entire estate in the visible property is valued from the map, regardless of the value of the nominal owner's property interest therein, that is, what he owns and can sell. In the case of Savings & Loan v. Multnomah County, the Supreme Court of the United States held the mortgagee's lien on lands to be an estate taxable advalorem to the mortgagee where the land was situated, regardless of the situs of the debt, notes, or the mortgages. This much for the mortgagee. In the Foreign Held Bond Cases, it held, that: "The mortgagor's debt was in no sense his property, but was the other fellows." The percentage assessor, however, cares naught for this. The whole value of the farm, or lot, without consultation or listing, is charged up, and sometimes the whole value of the mortgage to the mortgagee, thus taxing the mortgagor with what he has not, as well as the mortgagee with what he has. Most of the time, however, the mortgagee has managed to escape, but, fearful that he would not, our last interesting legislature, which was so uncertain as not to know when it adjourned, promulgated Chapter 246 of the laws of 1913, announced as a direct attempt to exempt the money owner from taxation. The excuse for this promotion was to induce cheap money, but, in view of the fact that interest rates are still 12 per cent., or worse, and mortgage values lower, it is easy to see that the legislature got all the "Cheap money," if there was any, and that the land owner has the cheap real estate, and high tax. Why the legislature did not exempt the title owner or mortgagor from taxation on what he has left, and thus add to the land values of the state and make it easier for the land title holder to pay his interest, is not publishei in the "cheap money" argument. Some of you must lo some thinking for yourselves. In the Santa Clara cases the Federal courts held such exemption of mortgagors to be a discrimination, and in contravention of the "equal protection" clause of the constitution and void, and in the L. & N. cases it was held that such an unequal burden was a denial of the "due process" clause. In all cases the courts have held that the intentional omission from the tax rolls of a class of taxable properties imposed a greater burden upon the owners of other properties, and voided the entire tax as well as all proceedings to enforce same. The first rule of uniformity is to tax all owners of property alike, and if in this state the loaner can be exempted from taxes on his investment, it follows that any other class, if sufficiently |