mediately by the conditions which determine the general purchasing power. Any condition that raises the general purchasing power, and therefore the demand for goods, will call into existence as an incident to the production of the goods more capital. Any condition that decreases the general purchasing power, and therefore the demand for goods, will throw capital out of use and curtail its production. As the amount of capital is determined by the extent of the demand, so is the kind of capital determined by the nature of the goods demanded. If the demand for flowers, fruit and other goods of a short production period predominates, then the capital for producing goods of this kind will come into existence. If the demand for travel predominates, then more durable capital such as railroads, steamships and hotels will be produced.

What then is the real function of saving? The object of saving in the vast majority of cases is to provide a fund or income for future use, usually for the late period of life. What one saves is purchasing power, or in other words due bills upon the community's stock of goods. In actual society, instead of all people saving at the same time, as in the assumed case, some are saving and others are consuming without producing, or consuming more than they produce. Those who save lend their surplus purchasing power to those who cannot at the time save. In the case of children, invalids and some other non-producers, the purchasing power is given instead of loaned. In either case the purchasing power (leaving hoarding out of account) is simply transferred from the savers to other members of ✔ the community, who demand the goods that the savers might have demanded. In an ideal society free from legal monopolies, saving would not curtail demand in the least; neither would it increase demand in the least. It therefore would have no effect upon the formation of capital. Suppose that nobody saved in expectation of retiring from business voluntarily or otherwise. Suppose that all the members of the community produced all their lives, and all their lives lived up to their income. This would be the plainest possible case of a complete demand for everything produced; and if all legal monopolies could be abolished, the greatest possible amount of wealth would be produced, and the maximum amount of capital would come into existence and remain permanently. The amount of capital could not be increased one iota by such a people changing their habits in the direction of saving for future use. The only effect would be that the purchasing power of the savers would be transferred temporarily to others, in time to be returned to the savers or their heirs.

River Forest, Ill.

L. G. BOSTEDO.

LOCAL VS. STATE CONSTABULARY.

In politics, as in industry, there is a constant conflict between tendencies toward centralization and toward decentralization. The coming legislative sessions promise a renewal of this struggle in various states, and even in Congress. How far changes in industrial and social conditions call for a readjustment of former landmarks, is strikingly illustrated by the suggestion, recently abandoned for party reasons, to take from the cities of New York the appointment and control of the city constabulary.

The political significance of this proposition is apt to be lost to view and obscured in the discussion of the constitutional principles involved. The proposed constabulary law is not without precedents. Boston, St. Louis, Fall River, Baltimore, San Francisco, Detroit and Denver, as well as numerous cities in Ohio and Kansas, have police not of their own choosing. Numerous decisions of state and national courts seem to show clearly that at the present time the appointment by states of local police commissioners is a question merely of political and social expediency, and not of constitutional right. Nevertheless, every successive encroachment is bitterly opposed and chiefly on constitutional grounds. What these grounds are is clearly set forth in a case recently argued before the Supreme Court of the State of Rhode Island. A restatement of that case, the arguments of counsels and the decision of the court may throw some light on the issue presented to vest the appointment of city police in a state authority.

In January, 1900, a bill was presented to the General Assembly of Rhode Island "to establish a Board of Police Commissioners for the City of Newport." This board was to be appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate, and was in turn to appoint the chief of police. The bill was continued until the May session and passed May 31, "after a duly advertised and one of the largest attended public hearings held in recent years, at which hearing the Mayor of Newport was present and spoke." 1 Three commissioners were appointed, and on June 18 a chief of police was named.

The city of Newport et al. protested that the bill was unconstitutional on seven counts. The essential objection was that "The act throughout infringes the rights of local self-government in the State of Rhode Island, enjoyed and preserved from the settlement of its first four towns to the adoption of its constitution, which the constitution recognizes, and on which it is built."

This involves the view, to adopt the language of the court, that "“independent towns, governing themselves in all respects, formed 1 Brief for respondents.

3 Bill of Complaint, Newport Mercury, July 21.

the colony, in doing which they gave up none of their rights of selfgovernment, that they never have given them up, and hence such rights are retained by the people." This view was clearly passed upon by Chief Justice Stiness in rendering the decision for the court. He traced the evolution of Rhode Island from a group of four independent local sovereignties in 1647 to a colony in whose general assembly power was concentrated by the charter of 1663. From 1663 to 1900 the assemblies had repeatedly passed laws affecting particular towns or cities. This evidence was adjudged to outweigh the unwritten theory of local self-government and to refute the claims of the petitioners for local independence. "The legislature has evidently assumed that local officers will not do their duty," said the Court, and ". . . our conclusion is that the right of a city to the sole control of its police force has not been so reserved as to make unconstitutional the appointment of a chief of police by commissioners," as contemplated by this act.

In support of the bill were cited numerous opinions handed down by justices of various state courts and of the United States courts, of which the following were the most important:

1. "A Municipal Corporation . . is but a department of the State." Barnes vs. District of Columbia, 91 U. S. 544; Mt. Pleasant vs. Beckwith, 100 U. S. 524; Williams vs. Eggleston, 170 U. S. 310; Metropolitan R. R. Co. vs. District of Columbia, 132 U. S. 8.

2. "The police perform state functions and are state agencies and instrumentalities." Burch vs. Hardwick, 30 Grattan (Va.) 34; Chicago vs. Wright, 69 Illinois 326; Cobb vs. City of Portland, 55 Maine 383; Kelly, Administrator, vs. Cook, Supreme Court, Rhode Island, October 27, 1898. General Laws Rhode Island, Chap. CII, Section 17; Beer Company vs. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25-33.

3. "Acts creating boards of police commissioners are constitutional." 1857 (New York City), People vs. Draper, 15 N. Y. 544; 1867 (New York City), People vs. Shepard, 37 N. Y. 286; 1860-1900 (Baltimore), Mayor vs. Police Commissioners, 15 Md. 376; 1861-1900 (St. Louis), State vs. County Court of St. Louis, 34 Mo. 567; 18651900 (Detroit), People vs. Mahoney, 13 Mich. 500; People vs. Hurlburt, 24 Mich. 81, 103; Park Commissioners vs. Auditors, 28 Mich. 236; Allor vs. Wayne, 43 Mich. 76; Metropolitan Police Board vs. Wayne Auditors, 68 Mich. 580; 1876-1900 (Ohio), General Law, State vs. Covington, 29 Ohio 113; 1885-1900 (Boston), Commonwealth vs. Plaisted, 148 Mass. 386; 1888-1900 (Kansas), General Law, State vs. Hunter, 38 Kansas 581; 1894-1900 (Denver), Trimble vs. People, 19 Colorado 196.

University of Pennsylvania.

WILLIAM H. ALLEN.

PERSONAL NOTES.

AMERICA.

Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.-Dr. Roland P. Falkner', the editor of the ANNALS, has been appointed Chief of the Division of Documents in the Library of Congress, and entered upon his duties October 1. His services in connection with the ANNALS and the general work of the Academy are commented upon by his successor in a signed editorial, which appears in this issue.

Dr. Falkner was born April 14, 1866, at Bridgeport, Connecticut, where his father, the Rev. Dr. John B. Falkner, was then rector of Christ Episcopal Church. In 1869 the family moved to Philadelphia, and it was here that Dr. Falkner was educated in the public schools, and where, after graduating from the Philadelphia Central High School, he entered the University of Pennsylvania, taking the then newly established course in the Wharton School of Finance and Economy. From the University he graduated, in 1885, with the degree of Ph. B., and immediately went to Germany, where he studied Political Economy and Philosophy, at the Universities of Berlin and Halle, taking the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the latter institution, near the end of the year 1887. He thereupon went to Paris, where he spent three months in studying Political Economy at the Collège de France. While at Paris, he made a special study of the schools for higher commercial education in that city. While still abroad he was appointed Instructor in Accounting and Statistics, at the University of Pennsylvania, upon announcement of which he returned to Germany and spent the summer semester of 1888 at the University of Leipzig, engaged in the study of Germau Commercial Law. His work as instructor at the University of Pennsylvania began in September, 1888, with which institution he has been connected for twelve years, until the date of his resignation to accept the appointment to the staff of the Library of Congress. He was made Associate Professor of Statistics in the University of Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1891, at which time he declined a call to the Professorship of Political Economy, at the Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

During this period of academic work, in addition to teaching, Dr. Falkner made frequent contributions to the scientific literature in his 1 See ANNALS, vol. iii, p. 510, January, 1893.

chosen subject, and was conspicuously identified with two important pieces of public service:

First, as statistician to the sub-committee to the Committee of Finance of the United States Senate, which was charged with the investigation of prices and wages in the United States. The materials for this work were gathered largely through the agency of the United States Department of Labor, but the analysis of the figures was confided wholly to Dr. Falkner, who began the work in the fall of 1891. The results were the well-known Aldrich Reports, devoted, respectively, to "Retail Prices and Wages " (three volumes), and "Wholesale Prices, Wages and Transportation" (four volumes). The report is, perhaps, the most important contribution of its kind to the history of prices and wages in the United States, which has been made by our government.

Second, in the fall of 1892, Dr. Falkner was appointed secretary of the American delegation to the International Monetary Conference, at Brussels, where he also acted as one of the secretaries of the Conference. The translation of the official French text of the Proceedings, published as a part of the American report, was prepared by Dr. Falkner and Mr. Smith, the English secretary.

Since 1893 Dr. Falkner has pursued, uninterruptedly, his academic work at the University, though he has taken considerable part in various scientific societies, and especially devoted himself to the interests of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Among the other scientific societies of which he is or has been a member may be mentioned, the American Statistical Association, the International Prison Association, Pennsylvania Historical Society, International Criminal Law Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Economic Association, of which he was vice-president from 1896 to 1898; the National Conference of Charities and Correction, etc. Perhaps the most significant of all was the honor conferred upon him in 1894, when he was elected a member of the International Statistical Institute, whose membership is limited to two hundred, drawn from all parts of the world.

Some idea of the wide scope and broad sympathies and the indefatigable industry, as well as the rich results which have characterized Dr. Falkner's busy career, may be obtained from a glance at the appended list of his more important published writings. No biographical note, however, nor mere list of achievements, can adequately express the genial personality and the intellectual vitality which have so endeared him to his colleagues and associates in his past work, and which bespeak for him large results in the difficult work which he has undertaken.