The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-08-30
ENDORSES PECK.
Judge Alton B. Parker COmpli-
ments the President
OF American Bar Association on
His Annual Address.
CONGESTION OF LAW.
Is the Title Of His Paper Before
That Body.
Takes Much the Same Ground as
Man He Praises.
CONGESTION OF LAW


ceding it by the following Introductory
remarks:
LAS a member of this bar associa-
ton. proud of the membership therein
and glorying in its unselhsh ambition
to be of service to the profession ana
the public on the broadcast lines, ana,
uttering as I believe the sentiments OF
every member I wish to thank YOU
our honored and much beloved presi-
dent for your address of yesterday. II
was philosophical, statesmanlike ana
eloquent Every man who neafu Il
and all who shall read it-and Wish
every citizen nafRht-will be the wiser
and the better for it. If at times we
thought we detected tone OF ooupu
about the future Of our beloved coun-
try later we were strongly otherwise
assured by expressions or most pro-
found confidence.
seThe forces of good and evil are al
ways at war with each other, one tries
to uplift, another to drag down. 30
whenever an evil tendency of our gov
ernmentaI affairs is found all patriots
should at once grapple with 1t ana
apply the remedy required. whether 1t
be mild or drastic. It IS one OF those
tendencies that I have chosen to
speak today"
The paper was in part as follows:
The Congestion of Law.
"Few questions have been more dis
creasing tendency Of legislative bodies
to propose and to enact new laws.
Scarcely any agitation of public or a
moral question is so unimportant that
1t does not produce, in nearly half a
hundred state capitOls. a series of bills
supposed to represent it in all It's
varied and shifting phases. 1t has
become far more common to look FOR
q new law for the punishment of an
old onense or for defining anew the
relations Of individuals to each other
than it is to invoke those powers or
remedies by which, over many cen
turtles, while law has been gradually
taking fixed FORM men have been able
to punish crimes against society or to
settle their own differences.
And yet every man who has had
occasion to study the question, even in
its narrower bearings, has been forced
to conclude that but small percent
age Of proposed new enactments in
wolves a new principle, or even new
policy, Tt rarely happens that an Of
Tense is committed FOR which no
proper punishment has been provided,
and it Is a long time since. any real
question has arisen between men to
demand legal settlement impossible
under existing law.
Little That Is New.
Most of the laws proposed in such
number and variety are assertions of
the police power. Even the machinery
which they ereate-under the fond de-
ern civilization itself It thus connotes
continual growth from the compare
lively simple conditions of our modern
life. at its best, into the variety COM
piexity and Interference which have
marked all the history Of men. It may
create an Office strange to A given cOun-
ty or state, lodge additional power in
the hands of an executive, attempt to
expand or contract the judicial author
ity, or seek to regulate or modify by
law habits and customs: but it proposes
nothing hitherto untried somewhere.
cit has long been recognized that, If
our legislators were compelled to study
and know the old and settled principles
of jurisprudence there would be fewer
opportunities for mediocre men to make
for themselves regulations, or even to
base careers, outwardly successful upon
laws which have nothing in them that
mankind has not tried. It Is merely an
other Illustration Of the refusal of men
to profit BY the experience of their an
cestors or predecessors, or to take &C
count OF the long line of failures; but
its faulty Is IN claiming credit for
something we'll known already
Juries Do Not Convict.
I'm many cases tde fisdirected or iE-
norant zeal Of an executive officer is
responsible lor many new ana useless
laws Such an official-generally with
the elements in him of the agitatOr, and
often Of the demagogue-has been car
ried into office, after an hysterical can
vass, under the promise to prosecute
certain kinds of accused persons. Once
elected, he takes up his work in the
same spirit that had characterized his
electoral campaign. He indicts with
great facility He tits against classes
or individuals, only to find that juries
do not convict or that if they do courts
viii not sustain. Then comes a new
harvest Of laws in order to justify or
supplement the zeal Of men who may
be honest, but who are wanting either
in Judgment or knowledge. In addition
of Of
Acial, and no form of action which
more surely produces contempt for law,
whether new or old, than those inherent
in spurts among prosecutors.
Another favorite form of legislation is
that for the benefit. or at the behoof of, a
party. The continual tanpering with cleo
ton laws and regulations; the creation of
useless Offices, political or judicial; cru
sades against or favors conferred upon
corporations or interests; the reOrganiza-
tlon OF city governments; the legislation
q one class Of officials out of office in or
state oonstabulary for the purpose Of con- 20 e
trolling the police of great cities for party
opponents q process common TO many
legislative bOdies-au these are product
i've OF such Infinite and far-reaching harm
e. 70 emphasize me Qoctrlne mat no par
fisan legislation. either proposed before
the bodies themselves or pushed in their
committees, or enacted into law can be
fair, just or enduring.
Hope for the Future.
When We shall learn that legislative
pOulss must De maze up or TnediOCritieE
80 long quantity and not quality Of
laws is regarded as the essential requisite.
when some of the temptation TO legislate
shall be removed by less frequent meetings
Of such bodies; when trained official
craftsmen shall be employed to give the
necessary laws legal and literary form;
when executives are forbidden, rather than
Encouraged, by public sentiment to inter
3ere with the orderly course Of Iaw-rnaiCfns,
when these simple steps are taken II
will be permissible to look forward with
hope to the times when hysteria black
mall craftsmanship. personal ambitions
and selfish interests will not add ten new
laws to the statute books when only one Is
needed At all times in history the safe
guards Of the law have been thrown
around life and property. As the result
IF the laws, slowly built up and carefrlixr
tested, men have been able to proEreFs to