[Footnote 1: Since this chapter was first published in 1909 as an article in the _Outlook_ magazine the specific question propounded in its title has been settled by the Supreme Court (_Flint v. Stone Tracy Co._, 220 U.S., 107). The paper is here reproduced, however, in the belief that its discussion of the principles of our dual system of Government is as pertinent now as it was before.] The most noteworthy enactment of the sixty-first Congress from a legal point of view, to say nothing of its economic and political significance, was the Corporation Tax Act. That Act, forming §38 of the Tariff Law, provides-- That every corporation ... organized for profit and having a capital stock represented by shares ... shall be subject to pay annually a special excise tax with respect to the carrying on or doing business by such corporation ... equivalent to one per centum upon the entire net income over and above five thousand dollars received by it from all sources, etc. The act goes on to require the corporations to make periodical reports concerning their business and affairs, and confers on the Commissioner of Internal Revenue a visitorial power to examine and compel further returns. The genesis of the act is interesting. The growing demand for more efficient regulation of the corporations, so pronounced during President Roosevelt's Administration, had foreshadowed such legislation. It remained, however, for President Taft to take the initiative and mould the shape which the legislation was to take.