The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-21

our hearts to bring us to this honored spot, and to move us to raise mon ument to commemorate the work of those hardy Christian pioneers, who framed that historic compact; the simplest code that was ever designed ito govern a people, yet do we com ,plaisantly point with pride to our modern Jurisprudence as being a mon Iament to our superior intelligence and to all of those virtues that contribute Ito the making of a good and great Re public
 Is this a fair comparison?
 Is this being perfectly true to them and to ourselves?
 I think not.
 Simple as was their code 1t suff1ced land they obeyed it in spirit and in let tier. How is it today with us? Alas
 We are in too many respects a na- ton of law breakers. What are all all the laws in the world if they are lnot obeved?
 We are forever busy making laws. We are forever busy stopping the VI CNlNO5 tO hGSP Oul NIlillCt IOO iielIy of our laws are like old hats stuffed \ in the window to keep out the weather.
 | What with Federal and State Legis- latlon we have multiplied our laws until no man can count them. lap piled to the Department of Justice to learn how many laws were on our Statute books, and was told that it Twas impossible to estimate them,
 We have multiplied our lawyers un- til they are falling over one another 1 in their strife for business. Congress is great law factory, to turn out new statutes and to repair broken and wornout laws.
 State legislatures are wing with congress and each other in the num- Der of laws that they shall place on their statute books.
 Laws, laws, laws Everywhere we lturn we are met by laws. And while all this law making is going on, the lgreatest legal talent in the country is employed at the highest prices to find ways to evade the law Their efforts are to get around, or or under, or through the law ratlloe than to se- cure obedience to the law. The late Sidney Bartlett said to client: You want me to show you how to do an Illegal thing in legal way"
 There is more ability employed to preak the laws than to make them. say this without presuming to dispar- age the 517 lawyers in the Senate and House of Representatives, numbering l476 members, for l believe the lawyers to be the ablest and most useful mem bers in congress, but is 1t not the fact that we have too much legislation, too many laws and that there is too little disposition to observe them? Certain it is we have too. little power to en- force them. Justice is tardy, or comes mot at all.
 Is there a nation on earth where Justice is so slow as in the United States?
 Too much legislation cheapens the law
 Too much legislation attenuates and liAlHellio lllN NlSOl Cl IAiS Aet"'
 Fewer laws promptly and vigorous ly enforced would diminish crime. While we have three times the pop Iulation we had fifty years ago, a thousand-fold more laws and hum dred times more lawyers, we have no more courts, few more judges and but a few mere prosecuting and executive oflccrs to enforce the law. What won der that crime stalks abroad by day and night What wonder that there were more than hundred thousand homicidds in the last ten years, and that they are increasing every year What wonder that gigantic corpora tions employ their enormous wealth, and the highest legal talent to strain the laws to their utmost. What won der that ill gotten fortunes menace the liberties of the peope What shall be said of the morals of a business community when it practi- cally demands assurance that crim- finals shall not be arraigned and with lthe assurance that a criminal will not be prosecuted gives confidence in stock market values?
 What shall be said of men who ex- tult in the immunity of law-breaker?
 What shall be said of men whose greed for gain has so blunted their lconsciences that they have come to Hook upon the laws as only a restraint Iupon their liberties?
 1 If the monument, whose founda- tion we are laying to-day shall stand flor nothing else, if will certainly re- imind us and future generations that respect for the law. and the rights of lothers. is the cornerstone of a civil Igovernment.
 It is well that we should come here lto-day and be reminded that there lwere times when the minds of men had no thought of the law but to ob- Iserve it, that there were times when fear of the law went hand in hand with respect for the law, that there