WILLIAM H. TAFT

either House showing that the act did not in fact pass in the precise form in which it was so authenticated. These cases attracted wide attention. The Solicitor General par ticipated in the argument of all of them. In the Behring Sea case the principal argu ment was made by him. He prepared the brief in that case and in the Tariff cases, and it is agreed that they are monuments of tireless energy and research. It is not usual for the Solicitor General to participate in the trial in the lower courts of cases in which the Government is con cerned, yet Mr. Taft, believing that, under the construction given certain sections of the Tariff Act in the "Hat Trimmings" cases (Hartranft v. Langfeld, 125 U. S. 128; Robertson v. Edelhoff, 132 U. S. 614), vast sums could be saved the Government by the judicial establishment of the rules which should determine whether silks in certain form and combination should be regarded as hat trimmings or not, appeared with John R. Read, United States Attorney at Phila delphia, and W. P. Hepburn, then Solicitor of the Treasury, before Judge Acheson and a jury in two cases (Meyer v. Cadwalader, 49 Fed. Rep. 19, 26, 32), and for nearly a month tried the questions out. As a result of the rulings and verdicts in these cases and settlements based on them, many millions of revenue were saved to the Government. These "hat trimmings" cases are illus trative of what clearness of thought, appli cation, persistence and thoroughness will accomplish in the practice of the law against the weight of discouraging prior rulings apparently insurmountable. Judge Taft's reputation among the judges and the great lawyers in this wide field was now completely established, and when, under the act creating the Circuit Court of Appeals, a new Judge was to be appointed in each circuit, President Harrison, himself a lawyer of consummate ability, whose discernment had long since discovered the judicial qualities of the Solicitor General,

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appointed him to the Judgeship in the Sixth Circuit. This was in March, 1892, and for eight years, associated at different times with Howell E. Jackson and William R. Day, both afterwards appointed to the Supreme Bench, and with Horace H. Lurton and Henry F. Severens, present incum bents, all of them great judges, he con tributed his full share to the strength of a court of recognized character and capacity. It was his fortune to be called to preside over many important 'cases and some of especial moment involving the constitu tional, industrial, and partly social questions then and now dominating in the public mind all other matters of governmental administration and power. Such were the Ann Arbor Railroad case in 1893 (Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Ry. Co. v. Pennsylvania Co., 54 Fed. Rep. 730), the Phelan case in 1894 (Thomas v. C. N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co., 62 Fed. Rep. 803) and the Addyston Pipe case in 1898 (U. S. v. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co., 85 Fed. Rep. 271) and others. The importance of these decisions requires consideration at some length. Engineers of the Toledo & Ann Arbor Railroad were on strike. Rule 12 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, to which they belonged, required members of the Brotherhood, engineers of connecting roads, to refuse to handle the cars of that road until the strike was settled. Injunction was sought by the Ann Arbor Railroad against the connecting roads on the ground that refusal by them to haul complainant's cars was an interference with its right and duty to transport interstate commerce, and a mandatory order against Chief Arthur of the Brotherhood was asked, requiring him not to enforce that rule. Judge Taft shows clearly that, under the law, a temporary mandatory order was the only remedy which could prevent irreparable injury to interstate commerce, and that the nature of the service performed by engineers on railroads carrying commerce between the states was of such a