The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-10-13
LAW AND ITS ENFORCEMENT.

To frame law and to enforce it afterward
are two very different things. The former
may be easy enough; the latter only too
often, is very difficult. 1t is not wisdom to
say that law not enforced is worse than no
law at all. A law allowed to become dead
letter would better be repealed, but statute
imperfectly enforced is in that degree better
than no regulation whatever The decalogue
is an excellent set of laws for the guidance
of mankind and the preservation
is set at naught, despised and violated at
every point ten thousand times a day. So
long as human nature is imperfect, so long
as temptation is stronger than virtue, will
laws, human and divine, be broken and dis
honored But law at last must prevail To
this end, 10 deter the vicious and wicked,
penalties are attached and these are enforced
or neglected, according to the temper and
inclination of the people who make them
That is, our courts enforce or ignore
written statutes in a manner they
think will meet the approval
OF the people. The inclination is to slight
severe and unusual laws, and this is almost
without exception when no popular pres
sure is brought to bear in their support To
give a law vitality and make it effective, its
necessity must be recognized by at least
fair working majority of the people who
have it in their power to make and unmake
it. The people must feel that their personal
welfare is nyo lived in its maintenance. 1t
were idle to pass law against polygamy in
Utah if it be left to Mormons to
enforce it, 1t would be equally
futile to frame statute in China forbidding
the people to worship any but the true God.
The excellence of a law is no measure of its
success. The people must be educated up
to it. or it is of little avail. A great many
would like to see the ten commandments
embodied in temporal laws, but it would be
vain to do So since there are not enough
who would take int rest in their enforce
ment. Some of the offenses therein pro-
scribed are likewise condemned by human
laws AiOidhiIy 40 pronounced d5'iiiSVj OoO
it is extremely rare that it is proceeded
against. The time is coming, possibly, when
mankind will rise equal to a demand for
the enforcement of scriptural law by courts
of justice. That time, however, is not yet,
1t would have been a bootless piece of work,
prior to 1860, to have passed measure manu-
hitting the slaves of the South, and it might
have been the means of deferring their deliv-
ing among loyal men against the policy of
emancipation. But the issues of war soon
made the idea popular and the great mass of
the people came to the support OF the proc
lamation and the subsequent constitutional
provisions. Then, and not until then, was
emancipation possible
Plainly there is time for all things-a
time to dance, time to sing, time to enact
laws Speaking in judicial sense, it is yet
an open question whether it is wise to enact
prohibitory statutes. Beyond question there
is very strong sentiment against such laws.
Does anybody suppose that prohibition could
be enforced in indianapolis? The law as it
now is, broad in its latitude, is not
enforced. Even police and judicial officers
wink at Irregularities, and in some things
openly consent to deliberate abrogation
of statutory requirements The reason is
that a strong sentiment favors such leniency,
or, at least there is no strong and effective
sentiment that reprobates it. The police of
Indianapolis allow all saloons to keep open
until midnight, despite the fact that the law
provides that they shall close at IL. This is