Attorney General. And if the legislature should seriously enact that judgeships of the Superior Court should be open only to veterans, and solely in the order of priority of application or of distinction in the late war, the absurdity, which exists equally in the law just condemned, would be patent even to the most misguided patriot.
The case against the law was also made stronger by the sixth article of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights. "No man nor corporation nor association of men have any other title to obtain advantages or particular and exclusive privileges distinct from those of the community than what arises from the consideration of services rendered to the republic." This the court, aided by the slightly different phrasing of the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776, whence the provision was taken, holds to mean services rendered as a condition concurrent with exclusive privileges, pointing out very justly that the other construction would justify a life peerage and similar grants of privilege. Taking everything together, then, the court has made its decision impregnable, although perhaps a little narrow in its insistence on all the aspects of the particular case. A law that a man must be installed in a public office requiring peculiar fitness, whether or no he was fit, could not and did not stand.
SELF-INCRIMINATING TESTIMONY. — A United States statute provides that no person shall be excused from testifying before the Interstate Commerce Commission on the ground that his testimony may tend to criminate him; but that he shall not be prosecuted or subjected to any penalty on account of any transaction concerning which he may testify. In Brown v. Walker, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 644, the Supreme Court recently held, five judges against four, that this statute is not in conflict with the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." The majority of the court was of the opinion that the guarantee against prosecution furnished by the statute amply satisfied the requirements of the Constitution. The only previous decision on the point, United States v. James, 60 Fed. Rep. 257, in the District Court, is overruled.
In the well known case of Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, a previous statute of similar purport, which had merely provided that no evidence given by the witness should be used against him in any criminal proceeding, was declared unconstitutional. The court went on the ground that the protection afforded by the statute was not broad enough, as the testimony might be used to search out other testimony to be used against the witness. Whether the wording of the Constitution required such a decision may perhaps be doubted. In several of the States similar statutes have been held not in conflict with similar constitutional provisions State v. Quarles, 13 Ark. 307; People v. Kelly, 24 N. Y. 74; Kneeland v. State, 62 Ga. 395. But at all events this particular difficulty is done away with in the later statute by the broad proviso that the witness shall never be prosecuted for the transactions concerning which he testifies. The majority opinion, by Mr. Justice Brown, treats the subject admirably inl all its aspects, and reaches what seems to be the sound conclusion.
The two vigorous dissenting opinions bring out, however, at least three possible grounds for disagreeing with the decision. Mr. Justice Field contends, in the first place, that the constitutional amendment was in- tended to protect the witness, not only from prosecution, but from
