991 in common. "The validity of agreements providing for community ownership," declared Justice Hughes, "with renunciation of individual rights of property during the continuance of membership in the community, where there is freedom to withdraw, has been repeatedly affirmed." The legal sanction for several communal societies, such as the "Separatists, the "Harmony Society" community 2 of Pennsylvania, and the "Oneida Community" of New York, is set forth. Viewing the matter "solely as a business undertaking," the Court found nothing subversive of law or public policy in such a community arrangement, and quoted with approval the New York Court of Appeals' characterisation of the Oneida Community, the "basic proposition" of which was said to be 3 .. the absolute and complete surrender of the separate and individual rights of property of the persons entering it; the abandonment of all purely selfish pursuits, and the investiture of the title to their property and the fruits of their industry in the common body, from which they could not afterwards be severed or withdrawn except by unanimous consent. It was fashioned according to the Pentecostal ideal, that all who 1 Goesele vs. Bimeler (14 Howard's Reports, page 589). 'Schwartz vs. Duss (187 U. S. Reports, page 8). Burt vs. Oneida Community (137 N. Y. Reports, page 346). believed should be together and have all things common. It was intended to be in fact, as they frequently styled themselves, but a single family upon a large scale with only one purse, where self was to be abjured and the general good alone considered. THE CHAPTER XIII "SEPARATE-COACH" LAW AND THE SLEEPING CAR CONSTITUTIONAL aspects of the perennial problem of equality in transportation accommodations for the white and African races, were before the Supreme Court at the end of 1914, in a controversy 1 involving the so-called "Separate-Coach" law of the State of Oklahoma. A day or two before this law was to go into effect five negro citizens of the State applied to the Federal courts for an injunction against five railroad companies, to restrain the companies from complying with the provisions of the statute. They asked for this on the twofold ground, in substance, that its plan of separate, but supposedly equal, facilities for the two races, was repugnant to the "commerce clause" and to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The United States Circuit Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which is one of the Western Circuits, sustained demurrers to the bills filed by the complainants and ruled adversely to their right 'McCabe vs. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. (235 U. S. Reports, page 151). to stop the taking effect of the statute upon the allegations made by them. When they brought their complaints to the Supreme Court, that tribunal without dissent affirmed the action of the courts below and held that the suit could not be maintained. Justice Hughes wrote the opinion of the Court, and declared a result concurred in by all his colleagues. The social, political, or ethnological expediency of the Oklahoma "Separate-Coach" law, of course, was not passed upon by the Supreme Court or written about by Justice Hughes. The question before the Court and before him was the legal and constitutional question of the correctness of the challenge that the statute, in its tenor and practical workings, would impinge upon rights assured by the Federal Constitution. Members of the Court, in passing upon a statute enacted by a State, may feel the measure to be very wise and salutary, yet unconstitutional; or they may deem the measure to be highly unwise and inexpedient, yet unproscribed by the fundamental law. Questions of expediency have to be left to the Legislatures and Governors, and questions of infringement of fundamental right have to be faced, without expression of independent judgment as to the social wisdom of the measures under consideration. No doubt some of the members of the Supreme Court would have voted for, and others would have voted against, the "Separate-Coach" law had they been sitting, in December, 1907, as members of the Oklahoma Legislature; but as Justices of the Supreme Court, the men from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Wyoming and California voted in unison with the men from Louisiana, Georgia and Tennessee, in holding that the five negroes who started the suit had not made out a case for redress under the Federal Constitution. Upon one phase of the provisions of the statute-in relation to Pullman and dining-car facilities-Justice Hughes reached a conclusion that the plan sanctioned might operate to deny to African citizens the equal protection of the laws and so entitle persons actually aggrieved to bring their complaints to Court. As to this aspect of the matter, Chief Justice White and Associate Justices Holmes, Lamar and McReynolds evidently found themselves more fully in accord with the outcome reached than with the reasoning, and so concurred "in the result." The statute under attack required each railway company to "provide separate coaches or compartments, for the accommodation of the white and negro races, which separate coaches or cars" shall "be equal in all points of comfort and convenience." At passenger depots, "separate waiting-rooms," likewise with equal facilities, were required. The statute, moreover, provided that the term "negro," as used therein, should include every person of African descent, as defined by the State Constitution, and |