Sacramento daily record-union., 1883-10-24
THE GREAT aMIRAcLg woRKsR.

In another column we print Suggestive
article from the leading Democratic editor
of the day. and one of the most incisive of
journalistic writers. He has the courage
of his convictions, and does not hesitate to
speak to his party as the truth dictates
but he stops short of the full scope of his
subject. What Mr. Henry Watterson has
to say OF the overshadowing evil of " too
much legislation is unquestionably true.
With as it is no new subject. We have
more than once pointed out the harmful
ness OF encouraging the tendency to run to
legislation as the great panacea for all the
supposed ills of the body polite, and the
cure.sn for the grievances of individuals,
good, false and imagined. But tie remarks
of Nh Watterson, which are fully abreast
with the intellectual movement OF the age,
are significant of more than the truth of the
utteranoes he makes. They indicate that this
leader n his party perceives the necessity
for calling the organization from the path
in which it has shown disposition to wan
der, led by the false and delusive popular
ity of species of communism that would
erect State legislation into paternslism
that should do for men that which they
should do for themselves
It is quite clear that here is battle
ground to be early fought over, and the
outcome must establish the limit of legis.
Iative interference with the purely indi-
vidual concerns of men. The short-sighted
wits who assume to direct parties in the way
they should go, look upon legislation as the
great miracle worker" 1t is the one
sslve for all political wounds; with this
they would treat the entire system of SO.
ciety and regulate all the material affairs of
citizens. Professor Sumner has expressed
the thought that the modern reformers
who food the country with ideas they seek
TO mold into laws, that men may be forced
TO take doses they would else reject, pro.
ceed upon the theory that something is al
ways the matter with society and that they
have discovered the only remedy for the
disease. What makes the matter all the
worse is the fact to which Professor Perry
40 pointedly refers-thAt in our country it
has not been considered, as general thing,
that knowledge OF economic science is e
requisite for the legislator. The absence
OF it, he adds, has never been deemed a
disqualification, as it should have been.
The fact is, we have not risen to level
with the truth that politics is science,
demanding special knowledge, and that po-
itical economy is study no legislator can
omit. Our history of legislation is full of
crude and artificial efforts to thwart natural
processes and interfere with the operation
of the laws of economics. Instead of at
tempting to restrict the limits of State
activity to proper bounds, in the matter of
legislation, the aim has been to enlarge
them beyond all reason.
The quotation Mr.. Watterson makes
from Spencer is apt, though written thirty
years ago. Mr.. Spencer saw even then
the direction in which mankind is driving,
and ,iiscerned the disposition of society to
turn TO the legislative arm and the pater
nal functions of government for the relief
chat individual energy itself should give.
That this disposition should tend TO estab-
ish state of society in which men, from
constant leaning on government, shall reach
A condition in which there will be total
absence of self-helpfulRess, goes without
saying. Professor Amos, in his political
treatise, finds it necessary to refer to this
disposition and to warn US against the
multiplication of laws and the endless gen.
sration of legal and administrative mech
anism. We are working popular pro-
jects into law in this country with railroad
speed and recklessness begot of spirit
which forebodes for US much of coming i'll.
Ibether there is to be marked out any
.st--Is X She " trespasses upon human lib