Special Exemption Research Articles

The Role of Political Leadership in the Passage of Oregon's Migratory Labor Legislation

M IGRATORY FARM WORKERS have been called America's Forgotten People. ' Although their plight has been dramatized by John Steinbeck2 and Carey McWilliams,3 public policy in America has excluded them from protection under both federal and state laws enacted for the benefit of most of the workers.4 A tribute to the farm bloc and rural overrepresentation is the failure to declare agriculture a hazardous industry and hence under state compulsorary industrial accident laws, to extend the federal fair labor standards act regarding minimum wages and maximum hours to farm workers, to protect the right of collective bargaining for farm workers, and to provide unemployment compensation for them. Add to these special exemptions for agriculture the highly controversial Mexican farm labor program5 and it is evident that enactment of five laws to aid farm workers by the 1959 Oregon legislature represents a unique political event meriting some analysis. The thesis of this case study is that the Oregon action was primarily the result of astute political leadership, rather than party or group activity. Recognizing that agriculture plays a diminishing economic and political role and that the more adequate apportioning of the Oregon legislature6 is important, the facts of this case study clearly reveal the significance of individuals in shaping public policy. The term politically able is used to indicate the ability to understand the political forces and political processes of a situation as well as the ability to create and grasp opportunities for political action.

The Diploma in Advanced Studies in Physics at Manchester University

The Diploma in Advanced Studies in Physics and Allied Subjects was instituted at Manchester University in 1958. Its original purpose was to provide a one-year postgraduate course in physics as an alternative to the traditional postgraduate research work, which leads to the degrees of M.Sc. or Ph.D. In its first year this course was sufficiently successful that it was decided in 1959 to require all research students and Advanced Course students in physics to take the Diploma during their first year, unless granted special exemption on the grounds of previous postgraduate experience.

Bicentenary of Lagrange, 1736–1813

As stated in our issue of January 4, on January 25 occurs the bicentenary of the birth of the celebrated French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange, a senator of France, a grand officer of the Legion of Honour and a count of the Empire. A born student, Lagrange was gentle and timid in manner, reserved in society, detested controversy, and for the greater part of his life was never in really robust health. Yet by the methodical use of his time and the exercise of his genius, he accomplished an amount of work, seldom, if ever, exceeded by any individual, while his “Mecanique Analytique” has been called one of the most remarkable monuments of human genius. To Sir William Rowan Hamilton, the “Mecanique Analytique” was “a scientific poem”. The first thirty years of the life of Lagrange were passed in Turin, his birthplace; the next twenty years in Berlin and the last twenty-seven in Paris. As a young man he set out to visit London, but his journey was interrupted by sickness. He was the correspondent or associate of many of the greatest Continental men of science, such as Euler, D'Alem-bert, Clairaut, Legendre, Laplace, Borda, Berthollet and de Morveau, and it was the last who, when in October 1793 a decree banished all persons not born in France, secured special exemption for Lagrange so that he might complete some calculations on the theory of projectiles.

The word ‘Sorex’ in C.I.L. I2, 1988, 1989

My attention was called to these two inscriptions in reading a chapter of Professor L. R. Taylor's book (soon to be published) on Local Cults in Etruria. Professor Taylor mentions the inscriptions in her discussion of the hirpi Sorani, members of a Faliscan family, who walked through fire at the annual sacrifice to Apollo on Soracte. Pliny tells of the special exemptions granted this family on account of their priestly service. The word hirpus is interpreted as wolf. In the two inscriptions cited in my title the word sorex is found, following the title haruspex (or haracna) referring to two men with the cognomen Clipearius. It has been recognized as probably connoting some priestly title, but I believe that no attempt has been made to interpret it. I suggest that as certain other families from the neighbourhood of Falerii had the hereditary title of Soran Wolves, so the two Clipearii had the title Shrewmice.

Woman Suffrage Opposed to Woman's Rights

Equal suffrage awaits a trial. Woman suffrage as tried in the United States is the most unequal division of responsibilities imaginable. The voting woman has retained most of the special rights and exemptions accorded her under man-made laws, while she has failed to discharge the obligations which the voting man assumes with the elective franchise. The vote of the man is a sort of contract to support the verdict of the ballot box, if need be, by the jury box, the cartridge belt, the sheriff's summons. The voting woman is exempt from these obligations. She is a privileged voter. While she may have political power, she does not have political control. Stability of government demands that the control of government should remain in the hands of those who can be held responsible for results. Frederick Harrison cautions us that Men, and only, are entitled to political control since, in the last resort, it is their muscular force which has to make good and defend it. Certainly it is unequal suffrage while women retain the exemptions demanded by their physical nature, and exercise political power without political responsibility. Such inequalities menace the stability of the state. Some venturesome enthusiasts declare that women wish no special rights, no special laws, but wish to be treated as the are. But such consistency as this is rare; it would be a brutal interpretation of woman's rights to insist that the hard-won body of legislation, which protects woman because she is the potential mother, be abolished and the vote given to woman in exchange. Yet this and this only is equal suffrage. To treat women exactly as men is to deny all the progress through evolution which has been made by an increasing specialization of function. Woman suffrage in its last analysis is a retrogressive movement toward conditions where the work of man and woman was the same because neither sex had evolved enough to see the wisdom of being a specialist in its own line.

Laws Regulating Practice—American Academy of Medicine.

Easton, Pa., Nov. 18, 1905. To the Editor: —I regret that an error of statement has crept in the otherwise most excellent synopsis of the report on the Laws Regulating the Practice of Medicine, read by the undersigned at the meeting of the American Academy of Medicine, as found in your issue of Nov. 18, p. 1596. last sentence, reading: The report favored having osteopaths represented on state medical examining boards, has its foundation in the discussion of the report. report made no reference to the personality of a board of examiners. Its contention was that the general law should provide a test for all who wish to practice medicine, under this or that vagary, whether osteopathy, psychopathy, or what not, instead of, as at present, permitting special legislation, or special exemption; that this test should be on certain foundation subjects, and a special and limited license be