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Show H N"e eri heless. all our states do ob- jHf such decrees when they are handed : ,V- down. They do so not through fear SmM of any force that the court possesses 1ft MM but solely because of the moral fort HkIrH of public opinion. FOR 1 SAMPLE '0r xsu,1P''- within a very recent Ft-JljfW time the stale of Virginia sued the, ffjnttfl state of West Virginia for a sum iSrKB amounting to upward of 110,000,000. FwriSI Toe supreme court handed down a t&iiSl Judgment In favor of Virginia If Vv.es KSjjSl Virginia had not chosen to pay. the, iKjcjjBH supreme court would have been help- , EgKfl le.-s to enforce the decree. jHjwaMl In this very case, after a decree 'WJiWBl against West V irginia had been I Sdfcjjjffl' handed down, there was a period H when very real concern was felt lest; EMhfW West Virginia should refuse to obey: SKffW and should take the position of pub-1 B licly flo iting the supreme court of I H the united Statea During this period a good dsl of though; was given to whether any way cOuld be devised to ineinnt or )-i'inlsh such a contempt of the court's decree If it should occur. There g no way jnherert In the law, but there was much speculation as to whether aoine from the !aw some rsv OOUld not be foin1 for visiting upon a contemptuous defendant, stato the unplsaaant reaulta of that moral force whli b the court necessarily had to rely upon. In this case howevar W est trginla ed the decree of the court The U'est Virginia legislature tO"k appropriate appro-priate action. Konds were Issued, an 1 I th Judgment was paid I hi i ase is i iled to illusl i-;ite how i the supreme court of the l ulled '. States functions In disputes between states, h js true that lio years ago the very first decree that the supreme court of the United States handed ' down in a dispute between two suites j was wholly Ignored lv I he defendant state, which In thai case happened to be Georgia. That, however, was a mere accident In the growth .ind development de-velopment of the supreme court to the 1 point where Us dignity and moral force is the equivalent of any army In all the cases since this one, thc 'defendant state has obeyed the decree de-cree and has done so. not through fear of armed force but wholly be-, 6aUM of the moral force of the de. io. and of the public opinion behind it NO IRMf D row I K The advocnles of the proposed su-l 1 preme court of the world, so to .speak, claim that what happens between ulatc-K within the Jurisdiction of supreme court would also happen a-' Pelwen nations within the jui idn : nn of the new court. They do not propose pro-pose to give to this new court ariyi Armed powder to enforce Its decree 1 They ilaim (hat the moral force of the dear ami of 'he public opinion be- hind it would be enough If vmi replj that theoretically. U would noi be enough, their answer Is that thej 'I" not concede this to be so; and th.it If it should be so., there is nothing in t.. don about It. 'I his article doe not purport t" 'treat the subject except in tli- mol Incomplete, tentative, and possibly, even inaccurate way The plan in e: , inn Lentantlye' to be accurate or defi- nlle about it However. It Is not practicable prac-ticable to be as detailed In ah article .designed to aid popular understanding! as in a tec hnical discuaio t law-1 yen But the heart of the idea liesi in thl analogy between the supreme COUrt Of the Inlted Stales .end the proposed supreme court of the world. I Copyright IV20 by the New York Evening Post lnc 00 |