The Manning Times

WHAT OF HIS ACTION
Will Justice Jackson's Opinion Affect Harrison's Nomination?
THE PENDING INCOME TAX DECISION
Why the Friends of the Ex-President Oppose the Hearing Before the Tennessee Jurist--Former Opposition to Him Recalled.

WASHINGTON, April 29.--The announcement that Mr. Justice Jackson will sit with his associates of the supreme court in the rehearing of the income tax case develops the fact that his opinion in the case will possess an interest for the politicians beyond the questions immediately involved. It may cut a figure in the contest--growing livelier now every day--for the republican nomination for the presidency.

Judge Jackson's Appointment.

Mention was made recently of the protest entered by a number of republican leaders against the appointment of Judge Jackson by President Harrison. They took the ground and insisted that the office should go to some member of their own party. It could only be in this way, they contended, that the appointment could be fully guaranteed. The party would be held responsible, and the party, therefore, should fill the office. There was no criticism of Judge Jackson in any wise affecting his professional equipment. It was contended that he was a good man and a good lawyer. But, being a democrat of thorough training and deep conviction, he must be expected to take a democratic view of public questions in general.

There would be a risk in this, these republican leaders said. They earnestly advised the appointment of a republican--one whose training had imbued him with convictions from the republican standpoint.

President Harrison, putting all of these suggestions aside, stood upon the simple proposition that politics must not be permitted to obtrude in matters respecting the bench, so he selected Judge Jackson, a democrat, to succeed Judge Lamar, a democrat.

The Present Interesting Points

There has now arisen one of those very interesting and important points upon which political parties divide. The republican party, as a party, is against the income tax. The democratic party, as a party, is for the tax. The supreme court, without Judge Jackson, is evenly divided on the question of the constitutionality of the law. Judge Jackson is called upon to cast the deciding vote. The law would stand without his vote, but public sentiment demands a majority vote of the court one way or the other. If Judge Jackson is in favor of the tax republican leaders who opposed his appointment will, it is predicted, at once revive the fact of their opposition and insist that had their advice been taken and a good sound republican selected the tax would have been overthrown.

These men are all anti-Harrison men as respects next year's presidential nominations of their party. The Jackson appointment was one of many to which they objected. They are organizing to oppose him again should the movement in his behalf for next year take formidable shape, and every circumstance susceptible of use against him is being tabulated and filed away.

But there is also the other side of the problem. If Judge Jackson decides against the tax it will be equally in the power of the Harrison men to claim for their favorite a share in the felicitation that will follow in republican circles.

Real Situation Not Affected

Nothing, of course, in all this will in anywise affect the real situation. Judge Jackson will pass upon the question without regard to politics, or the source from which his official commission came. Nor does the fact that he is a democrat signify. Judge Harlan, who is a staunch republican, voted to uphold the law, while Judge Field, who is a democrat, gave the law one of the most resounding blows ever heard in the supreme court chamber. Politics are undoubtedly barred in the court on the income tax proposition.