OCR Text |
Show WHITE SLAVE RULING. The decision of the United States supreme court in the Diggs-C'aniinetti case will cause universal surprise. It has been taken for granted generally that congress, when enacting the white slave law, was aiming solely at commercialized commer-cialized vice. Even tho supreme court assumes that such probably was the intention in-tention of congress, but it declares that i is bound by the rule of law which holds that whero the terms of the act are plain a court cannot consider the intention in-tention of the lawmakers. The court investigates in-vestigates the intent of the legislators only when the terms of the law are ambiguous am-biguous or obscure. It is remarkable that the lawmakers at Washington, while striving to suppress sup-press only what is generally known as the "white slave traffic," should have so framed their law as to mako it apply (dearly and unequivocally to a much wider field. This in itself probably sets a record. In his dissenting opinion Justice Mc-Kenna Mc-Kenna draws a distinction between commercialized com-mercialized vice and "occasional" immoralities im-moralities such as those revealed in the j Diggs-C'aminetti case, but this part of his opinion, however important it may be, fades into triviality compared with his discussion of the possibilities of blackmail black-mail under the law as it is construed and upheld by the majority decision. Traffic in blackmail will become as prevalent as the wdiite slave traffic unless un-less congress changes the law. That there will be a demand upon congress to so modify the law that it will apply only on-ly to . genuine white slave cases goes without saying. |