The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-29

graphs of the great men of all races and conditions: of all ages of history
 Some one has lilkened the law to a vast and ever-growing tree, having It's tap root in the subsoll of prmeval life cast ing it's shade over the universe, protect ing the feeble and oppressed and re- straining with iron hand the predatory instincts of the rich and powerful, It's sap, human needs and necessities. A law, in the words of Mir. Bigelow, is the resultant of social forces at war within a state, the ruling force as deflected by the con flict, but in its ultimate and last analysis a law Is no more than the expression of some need of mankind expressed by a
 legislature or a court; for the dominant few is the will of the people. With the increase of the population of the world, with the increase in human knowledgs comes an increase In wrongs, and frauds; existing laws become inadequate to meet the changed conditions until such time as the people awake from their apathy and neglect and realize the conditions which have grown into being with their neglect, for as soon as a law Is put upon the statute books, shrewd crooks begin to plan and devise how it is possible to evade the statute and escape the penalty inn posed upon the lawbreaker and too often exercise their ingenuity, but too well for the good of the state. Thus new laws must be passed, new legislatures called, new decisions announced to meet the ever changing, ever-shfting, mutifarious needs of man. With the passing of the need comes the passing of the law for when the law has served its purpose and the crea- ton of the statute, or law, or the rule an- nounced to meet the changed conditions, or rather new laws would be announced. were the eyes of the lawmakers open to the evil and they were uninfluenced by AL n ..p people. But owing to the inadequate compensation usually paid legislators men of inferior calibre find their way into the law-making bodies and do not realize the evil existing and others are legislators for their own good and not for the good of the people. As result like cancerous growth. a good cell gone wrong, growing with tremendous energy, contaninating other healthy cells. the evil grows and takes firm root in the soil and is allowed to flourish until such time as the people are awakened from their apathy and in- difference by some gross wrong or fraud which diffuses such stench of rotten ness and corruption that 1t can be ignored no longer to find that the evil has grown to such an extent that to cut off the evil member would greatly injure the nation. From the cell of the protective tariff of the republican party, a party having for its creed the good of the few as opposed to the many, which in its original concep- ton was perhaps a good cell" the can cerous growth which threatens the well fare of the nation. the great interstate corporations having power so tre- mendous, Gas yet scarcely recognized by the people) that the growth cannot be cut away from the nation without im- mediate and serious injury to the nation. Had the party in power searched in the Illuminating light of past history in. our predecessor republic Rome in which the corporation with it's long-drawn and far fetched theory of separate individuality. q body distinct and several from the stockholders which create it and who manage and direct 1t either in person or by representation, was invented that the patrician might dabble his fingers in what was considered shame to him with out soilng them in the least they would have seen that corporations began 10 grow almost from their inception until such time that they had to be abolished for the good of the republic for they be- came at this early stage of their growth tremendous power for evil. The old Roman was wiser than our law makers for they saw the evil and suppressed 1t, ours guarding zealously their own Interest failed to take note of the history of the corporation and busied themselves with matters which their constituents demand ed and which were immediately under their noses. AS result we have food-' stuffs higher than ever before in the his- tory of the world, clothing in the same altitude and wages lower in proportion to the price of commodities than ever before. The result of this is plain and clear. poverty and hardship: practically peonage for the unskilled man, and this number is growing greater and greater every year for the door of opportunity is harder and harder to open and creaKs Iustily on it's hinge when disturbed, and the development of a moneyed aristocracy. so-called "upper class" class not even having the only merit of the French aristocrat. prior to the French revolution.