Imperial Valley press., 1913-12-11
Haskin Letters
by Frederic ]. Haskinsl

Prominent teachers of the law
throughout the country are urging
that the time has come when the laws
of the United States ought to be
cleared of their uncertainties and their
confusion. Professor Charles p.
Sherman, of Yale University, calls at
tention to the fact that the output OF
new laws throughout the land now
totals about twenty thousand per an
mum, and to these there must be ad
ded the thousands of reported de-
cisions which modify or change form
er constitutions or as many existing
statutes. He declares that the laws
of the United States today are the
NOSE intolerable in the world, if not in
all human history. And al because of
the lack of uniformity.
In showing how serious all this is,
Professor Sherman pictures the plight
of a German, or any other European
iurist, who might come to prosecute
legal research in American law. He
declares that the savant would find
himself hopelessly lost in a maze of
hundreds of thousands of conflicting
statutes and enactments, clarified only
by spasmodic Qualifications as widely
apart as are the states themselves. The
multiplicity of American laws, the
contradiction that result from the en-
actment of one law for one state and
another law for another state, and a
third law for the United States as a
whole, clogs all our courts to such an
extent that oftentimes justice itself is
perverted because long delayed decis-
ions come too late to relieve the liti-
giants.
The laws of the federal government
recently were codified. For years on
end congress had been grinding out
new legislation and the courts had
been evolving new decisions until the
federal law itself was maze of con-
traditions. Congress finally decided
that the time had come to assemble all
the various enactments into one COM
prehensive system of law. A commit
tee on the revision and codification of
the federal laws was appointed, and
after years of labor and research 1T
placed before congress a complete re-
vision and codification, in which laws
which had been interpreted contrary
to the intent of those who had enact
ed them were Strengthened out to rem
edy the misinterpretationS, and In
which the inharmonies and incongruit-
les of the federal law were irOned out
and smoothed down. 1t was a monu-
mental task to thus draw up code
which stands as symmetrical unit
rather than a conglomeration of con-
flicting laws. Congress freely ad-
mitted that good piece of work had
haan lnnn on1 affacfoI Itc
by enacting the new code as a whole.
If the codification of the federal
law was in itself a task of years, it
can easily be imagined that it would be
a tremendous undertaking to codify
the hundreds of thousands of statutes
that the forty-eight states have en-
acted and are attempting to enforce,
and at the same time to cite the cases
in which these laws have been inter-
preted. There are forty-eight legis-
latures in the country, and it would
be difficult to find any two of the
same mind on any given subject. The
viewpoint of these bodies differ, the
needs of the people vary, and the stu
ations to be met are seldom the same.
What Wisconsin supports would not
fit New York, and what Kansas be-
lieves in would be a misfit in South
Carolina. So it happens that there
will ever be clashing of state laws
that even the best efforts of those
who are working for uniformity can
never overcome.
But there are some laws of state
enactments which have a peculiar
bearing on interstate affairs. For in
stance, the marriage and divorce laws
of the various states have made it pos
sible for citizens to violate the laws
of their own state and still go un-
scathed. Uniform railroad laws and
uniform bills of lading are desirable
as are many other laws of interstate
interest, but which are without the
province of federal jurisdiction.
Professor Sherman objects to the
way in which states plunge ahead and
enact laws, each state looking solely
to itself, and without due regard to
the rights of the people of other.
states He says that all this is but the
assertion of the doctrine of states
rights in another form. He would
have one law for the United States,
and declares that the enactment of
diverse state laws is beneficial to
only one class of citizens-i e., the
pettifogging lawyers to whom a con-
flict of laws means augmented liti-
cation. He contends that there is no
good reason why all laws, state and
national, should not be uniform, even
though the United States is country
as large as all of Europe and with
interests fully as diverse. In proof
of this assertion he points to our uni.
form naturalization and admiralty
laws, and insists that uniformity of
law through congressional enactment,
no matter what its nature, has never
worked i'll to the people.
The progress of the movement to-
ward uniform laws in the United
States has been rapid in so far as it
covers matters of vital import to all
the people. Forty of the states have
already passed the uniform negotiable
instrument law, which was first pub
lished in 1896, and half of them now
have the uniform warehouse receipts
law. Ten states have adopted the
uniform sales law, while eight have
taken up and passed the uniform bills