Weekly journal-miner., 1911-09-13
LEGISLATION BY COMPARISON


 Governor Wilson of Kentucky is urging on governors of states the de. sirability of formal interchange be. tween commonwealths and their off cials of information that will avoid duplication of effort and expense in carrying on government Like r. W. Taylor, he believes that there Is 2 right way Co make and Co execute law which, once known to any state. should be at least brought to the at. tention of other political entities, and initiated by them if they are wise. To this end he would have each Gov. ernor kept more in touch than he now is with Legislation originating beyond tbe state of which he Is executive Something more than the discussions of the annual governors conference Is needed. \ bureau or clearing house, in operation all the time. con. centrating on any given capital all the available information relative to any given issue, is what Governor Wilson would create and put at the service of state executives. The plan recalls somewhat the system by which the American colonies, through the committees of correspondence, educated the communities along the Atlantic seaboard to unity of ideal and action that made the revolution and the new national constitution possible.
 But does not the machinery already exist in several of the states for carrying on this process of compara. tive study of legislation Wisconsin for some time, through its alliance of state university, state library and state legislature, has made no move in legislation that has not been the result of the most thorough study of American. European and Australian laws and social experience. Other states have openly copied Wisconsin 's method of making accessible to leg. islators all that they need to know | if they are disposed to make laws in the light of failure or success else. where in the world. What is needed is that all the states should model their state library's functioning after the Wisconsin plan, and then any executive, at any time, can have at his command data for wise personal and official action.
 Governor Wilson is quite right in calling attention to the folly that is displayed in present methods of dup. lieation of investigation. New York and Massachusetts have recently gone over the ground of employers, lia. bility and workingmen compensn. ton in way that makes it super. flnons for other eomm0nwenltbs to order similar research before 1egisIat. ing. The human element throughout the nation is SO uniform, methods of doing business and administering jus. tice are SO alike, the motives and rewards of living are SO similar, the ethical code is 60 generally patterned after the same model, that persist. ence in variation of statutes and in details of getting justice decreed and done becomes increasingly absurd each decade of national life. Through comparison of such statutory differ. ences as are still legitimate and by careful watching of their effects on social conditions, there will come the uniformity of standard and of law toward which the nation is being swiftly drawn, but which it cannot depend upon congress to define in fields of legislation from which that body is debarred by the constitution in it's present form. Christian Sci. ence Monitor.