Sacramento daily record-union., 1883-10-24


have to go back before we can go forward.
In the matter of excessive legislation we
certainly may pause, If we shall not, in
deed, "go back" as the English philoso-
pher suggests, who added that societies,
throughout their whole organizations,
grow and are not made. We OF America
are indulging in a manufacturing process,
and legislation is the artificial means we
employ. 1t cannot be doubted that the re-
suit will be as artificial as the agency.
The facility with which crude ideas, i'm
practicable schemes, patent plans for
thwarting immutable laws of trade, COM
merce, industry and energy, and to reward
the indolent, the envious and the selfish,
are made into laws and enforced, is alarm
ing to the thoughtful man and the lover OF
republican institutions.
Mr.. Watterson expresses the belief that
the Democratic party is equal to the occs-
sion that demands modern Moses to lead
this people out of the slavery Of miracle
working legislation. Lofty as is his sentl-
ment, he unfortunately over-estimates the
courage and the capacity of the agency he
invokes to the mighty task of working a
successful revolution in this matter. Its
past history does not indicate that it is the
agency demanded in the new revolution.
We say revolution, for we have so far
committed ourselves to the doctrine
that legislation is specific for all the
ills of society, that individual liberty
and freedom of conscience as to govern
mental policies and property rights, have
but small guarantees against the dogmatic
verdict of majorities which are obtained
in support of the new popular ideas OF the
functions and duties of government,
through indifference and by the most fall
lacious modes of reasoning and delusive
promises regarding the wonders legisla-
ton will work. It is openly proposed in
this country, and to certain degree 1t
has been reflected in our laws, to substi-
tute for human energy schemes that will
appropriate its results for the benefit OF
those who have not been industrious and
enterprising. The result of all this Mr.
Watterson has pointed out. With the
destruction OF self-relisnce people must
become weaker, less capable of supplying
their own needs, and more prone to de-
maud of others that they shall contribute
to their keeping. The theory that the
Government is for the protection of the
weak against the usurpations Of the strong,
has been so contorted as to frequently read
that government is the vehicle for legisla-
ton to limit human activity on the part of
the vigilant and far-seeing, that the slow,
indoIent and foolish may reap the rewards
the first achieve by individual effort
Amos has well said that at this time
government is on trial and required to
Justify its retention of a hold upon any part
of human activity, and to justify it upon
precisely such grounds as would supply alog-
ical test of the justice of any other usurpa-
tion on human liberty. Alexander Winch.
ell was not so greatly radical as has been
charged when ne declared that the com.
munistic spirit is gaining firm foothold
in the United States, and that it threatens
to introduce chaos into the social fabric.
This tendency to rush into legislation to
put vitality into schemes to reform society
and give life to the wild imaginings Of
modern reformers and philsnthropic ex-
tremists, is born of the baser spirit of
communism. Mr.. Watterson hesitates to
say it, but none better than he realizes that
the party to which he now cries halt has
more than any other catered to that spirit,
and more than any other courted that sup
port, and the companionship of the men
who propose to revolutionize society
by regulating nearly all individual
affairs. This spirit, which at
first was content to manifest itself in
private and voluntary organizations, is now
bold enough to demand that its schemes
shall take on the forms of law. The
strongest evidence of this is found in the
disposition to legislate much and concern
ing all imaginable things in the disposi-
tion to belittle the Courts of justice and
irrationally criticiae their DEGREES; in the
disposition to advance incompetency to
law-making duties and privileges in what
Winchsll terms the dissemination against
brains !" in the effort to distribute the
benefits resulting from individual efforts
among those who have no part in their
products in the advocacy of schemes to
protect one class at the expense of another,
as illustrated in the tariff legislation in
the disposition to antagonize those natural
allies, capital and labor in the growth of
the doctrine of Proudhon, that property is
theft p in the tendency, while controlling
the ambition of the wealth power, aud oppos-
ing the drift toward plutocracy, to go to the
other extreme and make the Government
the -taker for every individual in it.
The LAW oP LIBEL.
A New York Court has been called upon
to define newspaper libel again. A city
paper published an article based on an affi-
davit used in a Court trial and filed in
case at issue. For this the publishers OF
the journal were sued. The Court decided
that the freedom of the press is guaran-
teed by constitutional provisions, and laws
to abridge it which contravene these are
of no effect. the press has right to dis.
cuss public questions, and to comment upon
proceedings in public tribunals, and to refer
to public records. But, said the Court, the
gressest exercise of caution will not wholly
prevent a libel from being occasionally
a L