The overwhelming majority of writers on international law seem still inclined to advocate that states only be recognized as legal persons in international law. Since, however, neither the term “state” nor the term “legal personality” is unequivocal, it may well be questioned whether a conclusion reached by means of a mere combination of these terms is adequate to clarify the pertinent problems.

Through constant repetition, the unqualified designation of the state as the only legal person in international law became seemingly self-evident. Yet it should not be overlooked that the concept of the state is much older than the description of the state in terms of legal personality, since the latter terminology does not appear before the middle of the seventeenth century. There seems to be general agreement that Thomas Hobbes originated the usage of speaking of the “state” as a “person,” when he proposed to define a “body politic” as “a multitude of men, united as one person by a common power.”

These may be “the times that try men's souls,” as President Roosevelt recently told the nation, but they may also be the times when free and courageous men may push forward toward the better society of which Thomas Paine dreamed when he pleaded with the colonists for unity in the cause of freedom. When Paine first wrote those words 165 years ago, America had an opportunity to break away from the tyranny of Europe. But Paine was not content to win a war of independence for America alone. Like many today, he talked of world revolution aimed at the tyranny of the few over the many. He, too, argued that men—all men—should have an equal opportunity to shape their own destinies and the destiny of the world in which they found themselves. In an era when men are fighting to preserve and extend a heritage of freedom, it would be well to reëxamine the ideas of Paine, whose writings inspired men of his day in America, in England, and in France to work and to die that they might be free.

The vacancies on the Supreme Court caused by the retirement of Mr. Justice McReynolds and Chief Justice Hughes were filled by President Roosevelt during the summer of 1941. When the Court convened in October, Mr. Justice Stone, originally appointed by President Coolidge, became Chief Justice. Chief Justice White was the only other associate justice to be promoted to the Chief Justiceship. Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, and Attorney General Robert H. Jackson of New York took their seats as associate justices. Thus seven justices have been placed on the Court by President Roosevelt. Any idea, however, that these Roosevelt appointees conform to any uniform pattern of thought is belied by the fact that in the 75 cases in the 1941 term turning on important questions of either constitutional law or federal statutory construction, there were dissents in 36, and 23 of these dissents were by either three or four justices. No act of Congress has been declared unconstitutional since May, 1936, when the Municipal Bankruptcy Act was held invalid. Since 1937, the Court has overruled 20 previous decisions, mentioning them by name, while it has modified or qualified a number of others.

The course of affairs in the second session of the Seventy-seventh Congress can best be differentiated from that of all recent years if examined with the thought that the United States is in an “all-out” war. That was how the President presented the situation to Congress on January 6 in his annual message on the state of the Union. And that was the phrase frequently used throughout the year by Representatives and Senators as an argument for or against enacting controversial bills, delegating unprecedented regulative powers, or appropriating many billions of dollars to defray governmental expenses.

On the other hand, while all of the recommendations for legislation embodied in the President's message were designed to bring the war more quickly to a close, Congress was asked by the Administration at various times during the year for the enactment of measures not related to the defense program, as the proposals to “rid Congress of trivia” and for settlement of claims of American nationals against the government of Mexico. The House and Senate, likewise, of their own accord, troubled themselves with such matters as the repeal of poll tax laws, the right of Senator Langer to his seat in the Senate, and the so-called “Congressional pension bill.”

Michigan has a metropolitan problem, but by no means confined to the one area of Detroit, commonly thought of as Michigan's only metropolitan region. Other Michigan cities also have “growing pains” as their populations sprawl beyond their formal boundaries. The Motor City continues to suffer from this ailment, but the disease has taken a new form. Not only are the urbanites moving to the suburbs, but the suburbanites are moving to the rural sections. In the smaller cities, the ever-widening circle of dispersion has been straightway from the core city to the unincorporated township. Here the migrating urbanites have not first formed incorporated suburbs, but have established themselves as that new specie, “rurbanites,” at once dependent on the unincorporated township for governmental services.

The 1940 census indicates that Michigan cities are losing population, but that considerable growth is going on beyond their city limits. Second-class cities in Michigan display what is undoubtedly happening to corresponding cities in other states as well. While this state has in Detroit one of the much-studied and publicized metropolitan regions, it has forty-two cities with between 10,000 and 175,000 people. Notwithstanding a state-wide population gain of 8.3 per cent in the last decade, 30 per cent of the state's cities of 10,000 or more lost inhabitants, whereas only four counties out of eighty-three showed a decrease. It is significant, however, that the counties which underwent the most rapid growth were those with large urban centers. For example, Genesee county gained 7.5 per cent, whereas it county seat, Flint, which is also the third largest city in the state, lost two per cent. Jackson county showed an increase of nearly one per cent, while the city of the same name lost 11 per cent.

The Beveridge, Scott, and Uthwatt reports are all concerned with the widening framework of governmental action within which our free enterprise system operates. None of them is revolutionary. The Scott report has even been called reactionary. The Beveridge and Uthwatt reports are based on a generation of practical experience. In their attempt to infuse a few clear principles into future policy, these two great reports, in their different ways, point towards greater order and system, the smoothing away of anomalies, the filling in of gaps. Procedures which have served certain categories of people or certain localities, they attempt to make universally and equally available to all people or to all localities. They mark a decisive step in the passage from the fragmentariness that is inseparable from experiment to the universality that is characteristic of good government.

Sir William Beveridge's plan for social security is nothing less than an attempt to abolish want by redistributing income. He assumes that society has somehow to pay the cost of privation in any case, and therefore might as well do so consciously and deliberately through the instrumentality of government.