NEEDED: A LEGISLATIVE CLEARING HOUSE FOR OUR COMMONWEALTH
D., Delos O. Kinsman, Ph.
NEEDED: A Legislative Clearing House for our Commonwealths By DELOS O. KINSMAN, Ph. D. Author of "The Income Tax in the Commonwealths of the United States." WHEN our forefathers took it upon...
...For illustration, the commission, while carrying on such general work as necessity may dictate, might center its study upon the banking laws of the forty-six states...
...New industries and new methods have given rise to new relations which press persistently for a right adjustment...
...But what of the present...
...This acknowledgment is made in the establishment of legislative libraries, the appointment of numerous temporary investigating committees and the establishment of permanent commissions with investigative as well as administrative powers...
...In a very real sense, present society is machine made...
...of the manifold rights and duties of capital and labor, producers and consumers, trusts and monopolies...
...WHEN our forefathers took it upon themselves to ensure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare through the operations of a democratic government, their social problems were few and simple...
...The results of this comparative study of legislative, administrative, and judicial procedure should be arranged in a form most useful to the states and, together with comments and conclusions, placed at their disposal...
...It is a truism that if organized society is to endure and prosper, justice must be maintained and the general welfare promoted...
...Neither an economist nor a publicist, he is required to frame adequate laws for a most intricate industrial society after a few weeks or months devoted biennially to its study...
...Wants were limited, production primitive, and the home almost self-sustaining...
...For the defects in present legislation, the transient lawmaker should not be condemned...
...The student of comparative state problems is constantly surprised at the ignorance of one state regarding the experiences of other states...
...Besides the convenience and educational value of such a commission or bureau, it would be a source of great economy...
...and even his ancestors speak to him not from a tomb but a phonograph...
...voices of friends a thousand miles distant disturb his quiet...
...The productive energies of man were engaged largely in a struggle with nature for the necessaries of life...
...No longer do oxen draw his loads, but locomotives which have multiplied his muscles by a million...
...The success of this, the federal principle, is at stake...
...If the Teutonic spirit of individualism is to continue to give the Midas touch to our industries and simultaneously call forth the noblest qualities of manhood in our citizens, then must a more perfect scientific knowledge of social relations and a more discriminating sense of justice guide the state in its regulation of business...
...A New Age of Industry HE READILY sees that this new world of things is the creation of a new age of industry, an age whose language, to him, is largely unknown and whose complex relations are hopelessly bewildering...
...Then and not until then would uniformity be encouraged...
...With few exceptions, he has devoted his best energies to a task, well-nigh impossible, because of the complexity of the problem and the limited time at his disposal...
...This work should be accompanied by a critical study of the administrative systems, both general and special, employed by the several states...
...The citizen desiring to be law-abiding and patriotic finds it difficult to respect such legislation...
...By such devices have some of our states attained in certain fields of legislation a degree of success not reached heretofore...
...In short, he finds himself in a new world of things...
...Only so far as they succeed, do they justify their existence...
...Much of the work of the commission or bureau could and should be carried on in cooperation with state legislative libraries and commissions...
...Since, because of changed conditions, the legislator of recent years can not look backward for guidance, he must look sidewise...
...The desire to apply labor to raw material with the greatest possible economy has given rise to the division of labor, the introduction of machinery, and a remarkable advance in discoveries and inventions...
...This should not be...
...The ablest intellects are now engaged in the removal of obstructions to industry, whether they be material or legal...
...Indeed, numberless opportunities for service would be easily discovered, such as calling the attention of proper officials to the results of valuable investigations made by individuals and commissions bearing upon subjects concerning which the official desires information...
...his fireplace a gas range...
...Then, too, the same simple society having existed for centuries, the makers of law had for use a fairly perfect legal code, the product of all past political experience...
...His tallow dip has become an electric light...
...Its establishment, also, would aid greatly the present movement favoring uniform state legislation...
...The commission or bureau, although composed of men who are masters of the theory and art of law, should seek only to be a most intelligent and useful servant of our commonwealths...
...A Means of Securing Uniform Legislation THAT the commission may exercise its powers unhampered, it should be free from the domination of federal authority or the authority of any one or more of the states...
...and the home-grown viands which graced his table have been replaced by the products of two hemispheres...
...Thus has the desire for profit created a new industrial world...
...Briefly set forth, the duties should be to gather, with care, the laws of the several states...
...or again, the carrying on of such investigations in foreign countries as might be of direct value to our states...
...Desired information could be easily and promptly placed before committees and officials without the expenditure of time and money which present methods make necessary...
...a world full of the most intricate economic and social problems, involving questions of corporate organization and management...
...Then, too, the roundabout methods of modern industry have complicated the creative process and multiplied the number of hands applied to the production of an economic good and have thereby increased the opportunities for fraud and dishonesty...
...So sometimes by foul, often by fair means the scepter of this great commercial age has passed to these new born kings of industry, who by control of the machines that manipulate society are able to destroy or to build up...
...His struggle for existence is now little with nature and much with machinery and men...
...Yet this age is not born of chance...
...These laws would be brought together, a detailed comparative study made of them including their administrative provisions...
...Conditions continue to increase in seriousness...
...Something of a more effective and more permanent nature must„ be provided...
...His fellows, comfortably visiting in parlor or drawing room, fly past him at a mile a minute...
...Two mathematical problems possessing the same answer are not of equal simplicity...
...then by cooperation with state legislative libraries or commissions or by personal investigation the efficiency of the law in each state determined...
...Indeed, may not the efficiency of such a central commission or bureau ultimately result in the establishment in each state of an organization which will cooperate in this proposed scientific study of state legislation...
...The commission would first secure a law, by either adopting one found in successful operation or by framing a composite law which would be carefully followed, studied and modified until it established justice, as nearly as possible, in a given relation or set of relations...
...If the experiments of each were known to all, many a costly venture could be avoided...
...If the states fail to perform their duty, the federal government, so far as constitutionally permitted, must and will step in and do the work...
...since he can not profit by the experience of his predecessors, he should profit by the experience of his contemporaries...
...The compilation would be accompanied by a carefully prepared commentary and recommendations...
...his well a water main...
...homespun has been laid aside for factory-made clothes of the latest cut...
...The age is marked, industrially, by the turning of the face of the laborer from the soil to society...
...Such services, it is to be hoped, would be of great value to the states in their effort to establish and maintain justice...
...There is another and final reason for assisting the states to solve their problems...
...It has been ushered in by forces operating in accord with established economic and social laws...
...But the conditions out of which these results are to be established are greatly altered...
...Likewise, the establishment of justice in a simple society may be a comparatively easy task for the average lawmaker, while the establishment of equal justice in an exceedingly complex society would test the intellectual powers of the most able...
...Pursue any oneWf the many phases of legislation common to the several states and ft quickly appears that each state strikes out along original and independent lines quite regardless of the other states...
...The consequent demand for capital and adminstrative efficiency has caused the single entrepreneur to be superseded by the partnership and the latter to give way with even greater promptness to the business corporation...
...While social and economic relations are growing yearly more complex, our state laws controlling these relations continue to be framed by legislators who are given little opportunity to become acquainted with the increasingly complex questions they are called upon to settle...
...The framers of the federal constitution, for the first time in history, provided for a divided sovereignty...
...while the advantages of large-scale production have caused a phenomenal growth in the size of the industrial unit...
...arrange them by subjects...
...When the proposed legislation is enacted by any state it would be followed in order to determine such changes as experience may dictate...
...An El Dorado of natural resources, unlimited human wants pressing for satisfaction, and an ingenious Yankee are the raw materials out of which it has been created...
...A foundation, provided by some benevolent person or persons so deeply interested in the establishment of justice as to impose no restrictions, it is believed, would place the work most completely beyond the reach of embarrassing influences...
...An examination, first hand, should be made of the different systems in operation that the success or failure of each may be fully understood in order to discover the most effective methods of law enforcement...
...But these make-shift methods can not suffice...
...No one more than the legislator is ready to acknowledge that the old methods of law making, unaided, are insufficient to meet present needs...
...Besides carrying on the work above described, the central commission should give, upon request, prompt expert assistance and advice to the various departments of our commonwealths...
...and that governments are established to this end...
...Assist Lawmakers by Legislative Clearing House THERE is urgent need for the establishment of a central commission or bureau which shall serve as a clearing house, so to speak, for the political experiences of the forty-six states...
...The several states are so many political laboratories...
...A commission or bureau, by aiding the states to attain greater efficiency, would check the increase of federal power and so assist in maintaining a proper balance between state and federal authority...
...for it is clear that failure must attend uniformity of inefficient legislation...
...Th« essential duties of the state remain constant—the administrationvOf justice and the promotion of the general welfare...
...Our modem life in its growing complexity forces increasingly difficult problems upon the legislator...
...But the end is not yet...
...By it, each state is to exercise full jurisdiction over questions wholly within its territory, while the central government exercises jurisdiction over interstate relations...
...Likewise, the court reports should be studied to determine as nearly as may be the position of the couits upon the various forms of legislation...
...Lawmaking Now a Difficult Task BUT WHAT has this rapid and unprecedented change from a most simple to a most complex economic and social order to do with the functions of the state...
...Such a highly specialized society can not exist without most complex systems of production, transportation, communication, exchange, and distribution...
...A Rip Van Winkle falling asleep in the days of our fathers and awaking now would unhesitatingly pronounce the world bewitched...
...A keen conscience, a little knowledge, and a code born of the remote past are no longer adequate to regulate the new order of things...
...He seeks to gain his livelihood by manipulating the former and bargaining with the latter...
...These experiments instead of being of lamentably little use, might be of inestimable value...
...then with her valuable experience and favorable geographical position, may she not tome day justly pass to the leadership in the greatest cf all political movements—the federation of the world...
...One may be solved by a child, while the other may tax the powers of an experienced mathematician...
...Thus has the man behind the industrial machine become more powerful than the man behind the gun...
...Is it any wonder that laws are upon our statute books, so imperfect that enforcement is often impossible, or, if enforcement is attempted, they are carried into our courts only to be declared inconsistent or even unconstitutional...
...If it succeeds then will America demonstrate that sovereign states can unite in a great and peaceful union...
...This, with present facilities, he is not doing...
...of corporate powers and privileges...
...then uniformity...
...Transactions were between man and man, and the principal function of the state was the enforcement of the decalogue...
...Equipped with a keen sense of justice, an empirical knowledge of the common life and simple economic operations, and such a code, the problems of the lawmaker were comparatively simple...
...while the mad rush of competitors to economize power and materials and eliminate space and time has constantly tempted them to take advantage of these opportunities...
...For this movement to succeed, its motto must be first, efficiency...
...or the maintenance of a library filled with works which would be of special value to state officials in the performance of their duties...
...analyze and study, by comparative methods, the relative merits of those covering a given subject, noting especially their success or failure to embody the correct principles underlying the subject...
Vol. 2 • May 1910 • No. 18
