Omaha daily bee., 1894-03-05
roo MrCH.l

The ablest statesmen America has produced
concur in the opinion that We are governed
too much. One of the striking features of
American democracy appears to be the ten
dency among the people to regulate every
and Iowa are exceptionally prolific of Wis
ionary and dead-letter legislation. Their
experience with laws intended to repress
the appetites and passions of man, far from
shaking their faith, has only strengthened
their trustful confidence in the efficacy of
law" 1t has never, apparently, occurred
to them In their abiding faith in the
method that certain things are beyond
human regulation. They appear to be
oblivious of the fact that statutory dead
letters and laws that are beyond the reach
Of the sheriff and the court and offenses for
which no jury will bring in a verdict lower
the standard of public morals by lowering
the popular respect for law.
These ineffective legal restrictions upon
individual freedom of action have culmi-
mated in the dead-letter prohibition laws
and in laws that are equally imperative in
every community in which the great mass
of people are not already educated to the
standard of abstinence from drink.
Instead of pruning the statute books of
dead-letter legislation the present legisla-
ture of Iowa appears disposed to add and
multiply these cumbersome and foolish re-
strictions.
Governor Jackson has now before him for
signature or rejection a bill which adds one
year to the term of any prisoner who at
tempts to escape from the penitentiary, no
matter how far his attempt proceeds before
detection. 1t seems to have ESCAPED the
lawmakers observation that the only wit
ness against the prisoner would be the
guard, and that an ordinary penitentiary
Waterman would have little difficulty in pro-
longing indefinitely the term of any pris-
oner for whom he might conceive a dislike.
Another bill awaiting the governors APP
prevail makes hunting with dog and gum
on cultivated ground a felony. Certain
United States statutes concerning the right
to bear arms and to take fish from running
streams, ETC., are overlooked in this delight
full measure. That it will make the owner
of the cultivated land the owner of all the
wild game thereon, creating a system of
private game preserves such as does not ex-
list in America, was probably not consid-
cred by the cultivated owners of the. cult
waited land, who only looked to an inhibi-
ton of the occasional visits from the city
chaps, who with the costly gun and high bred
dog tramped joyfully across the stubble in
September and October, seeking the birds
that had been fortunate enough to escape
the snares and spring guns set by the
farmers son or hired man. OF course the
city sport may trudge along the lane, but
he must not cross the fence or he's a feIon.
1t is not intended to protect the game, only
the cultivated land.
Other bills intended to protect" the
farmer contain provisions equally well di-
gested and about as capable of equitable en-
forcement as the foregoing. Even the
'mulct" bill, which the devotees of sumptu-
airy legislation are working so diligently to
pass, contains such provisions as makes one
end of the prohibitory law contradict the
other, to say nothing of the inconsistency
of permitting the sale but forbidding the
making Of liquor. Unless Governor jack
son uses his veto power with discriminating
determination the present Iowa legislature
will go down in history as one of the great
est associations for the promotion of litiga-
tion and the repression of individual liberty
ever known,