| Show ae emotion motion ic mistaken for wisdom in a large proportion ion of legislation ion BY U S Seri sentor stor george president 0 of the amerian bir aima ja if I 1 were asked to name t the he A characteristic which more than auy any other distinguishes our present day political institutions I 1 am not sure that I 1 should not answer ails the passion for making laws there aro are 48 small or moderate sized legis legislative lati ve bodies in tho the united states engaged a good deal of the time and one very large national legislature working overtime at this amiable occupation their habitual output being not ot far from fifteen thousand statutes each year the p prevailing rev ailing obsession seems to be that statutes fes like the crops enrich tho the country in proportion to their volume unfortunately for this notion however the average legislator does not always know what he is sowing and the harvest which frequently results is made up of strange and unexpected plants whose appearance is as astonishing to the legislator as it is disconcerting to his constituents this situation I 1 am bound to say is not wholly unrelated to a more or less prevalent superstition entertained by the electorate that previous training in legislative affairs is a superfluous adjunct of the legislative mind which should enter upon it with the sweet inexperience of a bride corning coming to the altar As rotation in crops if I 1 may return to the agriculture figure improves the soil so rotation in office is supposed to improve the government the comparison however is illusory since the legislator resembles the farmer who cultivates the crops rather than the crops themselves and previous experience even of the most thorough character on the part of tho the farmer has never hitherto been supposed to destroy his availability for continued service I 1 think it was the alie late mr carlyle who is reported to have made the rather cynical observation that the only acts of parliament which were entitled to commendation were those by which previous acts of parliament were repealed I 1 am not prepared to go quite that far though I 1 am prepared cosay to say that in my judgment extraordinarily an large proportion of the statutes which have been passed from fro mAime time to time in our various legislative bodies might be repealed without the slightest detriment W to the general welfare the trouble with much of our legislation is that the legislator has mistaken emotion for wisdom impulse for knowledge and good intention for bound judgment he means well is a sweet and wholesome thing in the field of ethics it may be of small consequence or of no consequence at all in the domain of law he means well may save eave the legislator from the afflictions of an accusing conscience but it does not lot protect act the community from the affliction of mischievous and meddlesome statutes |
