Sacramento daily record-union., 1883-10-24
TOO MUCH LEGISLATION.

The great miracle worker of the present
day is legislation, and not the church. As
we have lest our faith in the supernatural
power of the priesthood we have turned to
the Government, and have endowed the
lie yislative departments with wonder-work-
ing influences which are not second to those
credited to the church in the dark ages.
In popular conception nothing is impos-
sible to legislation, and nothing is too in
significant to deserve special treatment.
We want the law to regulate all CONNER
cial, political and social intercourse. We
have no confidence in the individual yet
the multitude we trust implicitly. We
insist that legislation deal with every
question that it compel men to abandon
one association for another, that it force
them to train their children in q certain
way, that they limit their personal ex-
penses and habits and desires by legal
standard. Of all ages, this is the most
prolific in schemes of idle men, ignorant
men, unstable men, to make mankind after
a new pattern. 'Sumptuary legislation has
the support of the people as it never had
before.
Nor does legislation stop here it deals
not only with man as unit, but it deals
with him in all his relations to society
Legislation controls education, sanitary
methods, transportation, inter -communica-
tion. We want Government telegraph,
a Government railroad, Government saw
ings bank. Though the experience of the
race shows indisputably that the Govern
ment ia all it undertakes is inferior to the
individual-that it is slow, blind, ignorant
and extravagant-sti we turn to it with q
faith that has in it all of the pathos of su-
perstiti on.
One would naturally suppose that this
all. consuming desire to extend the functions
of Government is due to the fact that in its
own province it has done all things well.
In fact, it has failed utterly. Property is
not safe, life is not protected, crime is not
punished, titles are clouded, jails are mis-
erably mismanaged, the expense of litiga-
tion denies justice to the poor man, and
corruption manifests itself in all the
branches of this organization. 1t does
nothing well, yet we seek continually to
extend it's powers. Writing of the evil of
over-legislation over thirty years ago, Her
bert Spencer said:
" As it is, however, they seem to have
read backwards the parable of the talents.
Not to the agent of proved efficiency do
they consign further duties, but to the
negligent and blundering agent. Private
enterprise has done much and done it well.
Private enterprise has cleaned, drained and
fertilized the country and built the towns
has excavated ruins, laid out roads, dug
canals and embarked railways has in-
vented and brought to perfection plows,
looms, steam engines, printing presses and
machines innumerable; has built our ships,
our vast manufactures, our clocks has es-
tablished banks, insurance societies and
the newspaper press has covered the sea
with lines of steam vessels and the land
with electric telegraph. Private enterprise
has brought agriculture, manufactures and
commerce to their present hight, and is
now developing them with increasing ra.
pidity. Therefore do not trust private en-
terprise. On the other hand, the State SO
fultills its protective function as to ruin
many, delude others and frighten away
those who most need succor it's national
defenses are 80 extravagantly and inefi-
GENTLY administered as to call forth almost
daily complaint, expostulation and ridi.
cule and, as the nations steward, it OBJ.
minus revenue. Therefore trust the
State. Slight the good and faithful ser.
want, and promote the Improbable one
from one talent to ten.
These words are truer and have deeper
significance to-day than when they were
written. The moment man begins to fail
ID his enterprise, when he sees others pass
him, when his pet schemes are put aside as
impracticable by practical men, he appeals
to the Government. He is 3 philanthro-
pist, and insists that the Government take
up his plans and bless the race in spite of
it's protests. He sees the folly of all the
population giving it's attention to agricult-
ure, and he insists that the Government
pass laws forcing them to build mills and
factories. Education and religion do not
progress as he thinks they ought to do, and
he asks for more stringent legislation.
Money is not abundant, and he would have
the Government issue paper. 1t is too
abundant, and he would have the Govern
ment absorb it in so-called public improve
ments. The railroads charge so much for
carrying freight that the farmer of Dakota
does not get fair return for his labor or
competition has so reduced rates that the
AdIAlcI Vi DdkOba, Oh lanU CO6IluB nlu %
an acre, makes more money than the New
York farmer on land which costs him $500,
and the Government is asked to pass laws
to regulate competition and prevent this
wrong.
This disease, this want of confidence
and self.reEance, runs through all the
range of thought, and it paves the way to
empire. 1t undermines popular govern
ment, it weakens individual character, it
centralizes power and destroys freedom.
1t is the work of dresmers, mere theoris-
ers, empirical statesmen and political
oharlatans. The result is evil, and only
evil, and against it should the Democratic
party be arrayed as a unit. 1t is not more
legislation, but less and better, that we
want. Government, State and National,
should be confined strictly to its proper
function. The principles of the Demo-
cratic party are broad and comprehensive,
applicable to all times and to every
emergency.-[ Louisville Courier. Journal