Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1893-02-16
The New Legislature. Needs.
BOLTON HALL.

60LAOS HALL
The New Yorker has his daily con-
duct regulated as nearly as can be esti-
mated, by twenty-three thousand one
hundred and ninety-four laws About
eight hundred and thirty law-books are
needed to interpret them; and, lest he
should nevertheless err, their true
meaning Is fursher set forth in over
sixty five Thousands decisions arranged,
Tor convenience, in nine hundred vol
umes Besides these, he has only the
rules of the board of health, police,
hre department., department of streets
and other local laws, and q couple of
hundred series Of law periodicals. You
could not carry the indexes alone
Iowa has about as many.
The crying need, then, of our legisla-
ture is to make some more laws, which
viii certainly do to the extent of sever
Al hundred chapters
At one time we lawyers brought to-
gether and arranged q part of these
laws in Q '.code'' containing nearly
thirty-fJur hundred sections, for the ex-
PLANTATION of one of which we have since
procured from the judges lat our cli-
ents' expensel some Thousand decisions
Most of these decisions and laws are
to limit or change or patch some other
law or to provide for some unseen case.
The need for all these laws is due to
bad conditions of life, mostly made by
laws themselves.
AS the struggle for life becomes hard
er, ingenuity gets over or round our
laws faster than we can make them, and
over none more surely or easily than
any laws designed to tax personal eff
fectS
For much Of the hardship of life tax
laws, and especially personal tax laws,
are to blame. They drive away bust
ness, make employment hard to get,
corrupt the conscience of the people,
and overcrowd the city. Says my read
er, II do not pay any personal taxes.
how do these laws affect me?' This
way: they are the last straw on the
breaking back of the farmer; they help
to make success in the village nearly an
impossibility, and SO drive the rural
population into the city, there to COM
pete for every job and to crowd every
tenement and every slum-
What will make employment plenty?
Plenty Of business Why, plenty OF
goods and plenty of people to buy them.
Then why drive away the goods or the
people to other cities by taxing them
when they come here?
What q boom in business we might
have were it known all over the world
that the man or the merchandise that
touched the soil of this state is free
from taxes! How the people, not the
poor or the lazy, but the rich and saw
ing, would flock here to bring their
brains, their goods and their expendi-
ture to enrich us!
We have q supply of paupers from
other lands, made so by the laws of 9TH
er lands; they do our toughest, hardest
work here; let us not tax our ownscoun-
trymen into poverty!
Taxes of q hundred dollars a year
on q farmers stock, machines and be-
longings look like small matter. Year
by year they force him to the brink
over the brink-into ruin; they height
en- his sense of injustice and discomfort,
and make him resolve that his boys
shall have at least a chance to save and
get on in the towns. 1.-THE little bur-
den is heavy for the little man."
There are many other reforms need
ed, some of them radical, perhaps,
mostly consisting of repeating laws; but
first things first" said John Swinton.
Stop making laws, listing bill laws. in
heritance laws, income tax laws; re-
store natural conditions Reform our
system of land transfer, SO that the la
borer may easily get piece of land
Let the people get employment
Let us have freedom to breathe, to
work, to play; then we will not need
the sweating system law, nor the labor
conspiracy law, nor a 1.-THE of the thou
sands on thousands of laws with which
socialists and charities seek to fetter