The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1875-04-24
SOME EyILsANDrmEIR REMEDIES.

"A long TecOBnlZeu eNll III oui AIhcii-
can system of government is the too
| frequent and often irharmonious
change If the laws. Every intelligent
man, to say nothing of the bench and
bar, has long been sensible of the fact.
With annual sessions for five years I'M
der our present constitution, the evil
has more than doubled in magnitude.
| Before the laws of one session are
known or even possessed by third of
the bar, the legislature is again at work
tinkering, patching and scratching
out. Thus the people are practically
kept in ignorance of the laws they are
required to obey. AS Il partial remedy
for the evil, and the only one attaina-
BILE, until we get new constitution,
our representative in the thirteenth
legislature introduced II provision for
printing much larger edition of the
general laws, that portion of the
people at least might possess
them. While advocating retrench-
ment wherever wise, he
earnestly argued that money judi
ciously expended to place the laws in
the hands of the people was in the true
line of reform and retrenchment, be-
cause it tended to the production of
content in the country and the preven-
ton, of crime. But a false economy-a
penny wise and pound foolish theory
defeated the measure, and to-day not
one-ffth of the lawyers in Dallas pos
sess the laws of that session, and not
one voter in a hundred of the five
thousand in the county has them. Such
a combined policy-annual sessions
and u mere handful of the laws printed
for officers Only-not only keeps the
people in ignorance of their rights and
duties, but leads to confusion, distrust,
errors and often to crimes, through ig-
norance of the law, by good citizens.
Under a new constitution the first
grand remedy will be found in abolish
ing annual sessions and restoring bien-
NAL ones. Secondly, in combining leg
is!ation, us near as practicable, under
constitutional limitations, to general
laws, whereby one-half the time of
each session ought to be curtailed.
Thirdly, by limiting, through the con-
stitution, the duration of sessions, be-
You'd which the pay of members shall
cease. And fourthly, by publishing
such number OF the laws OF each ses-
sion of the legislature as to enable the
people, whenever they desire to do SO,
to possess copies, the only means by
which freemen and voters can be in
diligently kept acquainted with the
laws under which they live. Expen-
ditures for this purpose-the money
coming from the pockets of the people
to Garry en- their government-will al
ways bring back ten-fold its value in
the fruits of intelligence, contentment,
respect for the law of the land, and edu-
eating the great body of the people up
to the true plane on which self-govern-
ing freemen should ever stand.
With these good, conservative and
elevating principles firmly engrafted
upon our organic base, new era will
dawn upon our state. Laws will then
only be changed after fair trial to meet
the public will and the public welfare,
and the representative will come to
have a rational accountability to his
constituents. The people will come to
be wiser and more just censors ON their
representatives. Being themselves
familiar with the laws, they can intel |
ligently judge of the wisdom of
changes made from time to time.
Under such system, as most marked
and benificent result, to be desired by |
every friend of democratic institutions,
each individual citizen will come,
more and more, to realize the RESPONSE I
bilities that rest upon him as a compo /
nent part of the commonwealth. AS 1
sured that he IS no longer, as now, a
mere waif, floating In the mists of a
political fog, he will stand forth among
equals, In a government of his own
choice, commanding both his respect
and his affection, and thus, by natures
law of equivalents, he will be in every
sense a better citizen.
The fruition of such influences will
be citizenship from which can, at all
times, be selected with certainty good
jurors, good officers, good teachers and
good road overseers. In the gaze of
such a people public servants will
never have the hardibood to outrage
public sentiment All the allurement
will be on the pinnacle Of virtue, in
viting them to ascend higher on the
road to official purity.
We commend these thoughts, In all
to the people Of Texas. For
Ibree years we have been gradually re-
covering lost ground and lost rights.
some have worked with zeal inspired
By hope, others have fingered by the
Tayside as if ali were lost. Yet we are
1n the ascending scale. Much has
1een achieved.
The crosning act remains to be