Morning journal and courier., 1884-03-12
Wednesday, March 12, 1884.
BIENNIAL SESSIONS AND THE LOBBY

BIENNIAL SESSIONS AND THE LOBBY
 The greatest foe to legislative institutions
 in this country is the lobby. No surer index
 of their corruption could exist than that
 every legislature should be surrounded by 8
 corps of men who make the influencing of
 the votes of the members an art and pro-
 fession. It may not be known to some of
 our readers that the lobby is purely an
 American institution. There is no such thing
 as what is called the lobby known to the
 British Parliament, or to the Corps Legisla-
 tiff of the French Republic OF to the German
 parliameats. It seems to be an exorescence
 which has grown upon our peculiar system
 of representation. The reason usually as-
 signed for it's absence in England-and the
 reason applies with more or less force to the
 parliamentary system of Europe generally-is
 that the country is governed by committee
 of parliament known ss the Cabinet,
 which is directly responsible for
 every bill that is passed. A consequence
 of this system is that no bill has any pros- pect of passage unless it is either proposed or adopted by this parliamentary committee. If anyone wishes to procure legislation in his interest it is of no use for him to attempt to influence the members of the legislative body; he must find some means of influencing the Cabinet, and that is matter of great difficulty. It would of course be poor req son for depriying the members of our leg lslatures of their comparatively great in- dividual responsibility because it subjects them to corrupting influences The cure fof kha l0hhv Ao often been claimed, in transforming our American system of legislation, and in con- verting our representatives into mere voting machines.
 Though our system may make a lobby possible, we hardly think that our mode of leg islation is the active cause in it's produc- tion. The lobby really has it's cause, as it
 finds it's opportunity, in the vast amount of over-legislation that takes place here, or, per haps more accurately, in the great excess of legislatures, or, what is the same thing, the excess of legislative sessions. The Brit ish Empire, if we except few colonial leg islatures that have been organized within a few years, is governed by one representative body. The French Republic is governed by one only. The United States, if we include territorial assemblies, is governed by between forty and fifty legislatures. Of course it is no evil that the legislative work which is done or attempted by one representative body in other countries is divided among many in this country, in other words that our institutions are localized instead of being but when the forty American legislatures meet as often as the one French or English parliament, it is evident that there must be an enormous amount of legis- lation here in excess of the actual need. The truth is our legislatures have often met when they have really had nothing to do. A very clear proof of this Is the fact that thirty-two out of the thirty-eight States have adopted biennial sessions, and have not suffered any 
 Now legislature must do something. It can hardly venture to assemble simply to vote to adjourn. That would be very unprecedented. There is no doubt that an idle legislature finds the lobby a real assistance. It furnishes the business. When there is no honest legislation needed as natural result there is plenty of jobbery. It is as true of representative assemblies as it is of men under other conditions that waste time runs to mischief. If the legisla- lures met only as often as the pressing needs of the States demanded they would not, for they could not, legislate as much as they now do in private interest. Public interest would exclude private interest. In other words, the people instead of the lobby would leeislate. We believe that the best cure for the lobby would be 8 reduction of the ses- sions to the number actually needed. It might not be 8 complete cure, but it is safe to say that the lobby would die of as fast as its opportunity died. Biennial sessions will be but moderate dose of the remedy. In those States where they have already been tried there is talk of a still further reduction of the number of sessions. It is more than probable that the experience of the next twenty-five years will show that the actual needs of legislation will not re- quire sessions oftener than once in four or five years.