Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-07-10
REGULATION LUNACY

THERE are unmistakable signs of
sharp reaction in the United
a States against the propaganda
of reform" which has upset and
disorganized almost every department
of human activity. Men and women
have been drawn into the maelstrom
of radicalism to such an extent that
they can neither think clearly nor act
sanely and as a result the very foun-
dations of society are threatened. In
an article commenting on this phase
of our present day life, E. S. Martin,
in the current issue of Life. discussing
people who spend all of their energies
in accumulating wealth and the others
who give all of their attention to re-
forming the world, says that neither
group knows where to stop. AS to the
regulative people he says:
Almost all their reforms have
good in them. and are desirable to
certain extent. But there is no
moderation in average reformers.
Reform is their business. and they
work at it all day and when one
reform is finished they open books
on another. They never stop volun-
tive people do. What happens is
that when we common dirt have
been reformed all our unregener-
ate natures can endure. we rise up
in our misery and get clubs and
drive the regulative people off their
job, and make them climb trees
is called reaction. When we have
done it, we have comfort in living
for a while, and take a drink on
occasions, and go to horse races
sometimes. maybe, until we fall in
to courses sufficiently appalling to
give the regulators courage to come
down from their trees and out of
their holes, and then they come for
us again. And so life ripples along
in a troubled course between the
devil. of acquisition and the deep
sea of regulation.
Mr.. Martin has hit the nail squarely
on the head There is reform that is
not reform and reformers who are
merely fakirs. Self-hypnotized these
men and women go blathering up and
down the earth annoying their fellows
and destroying the systems which have
been the outgrowth of generations OF
experiment. Too much regulation is
quite as serious as not enough, and
what Congress does not do the legls-
to provide in all kinds of enactments
that only serve to disconcert and over
turn that which is founded on some.
thing like stability, Mr.. Martin says
further:
The regulative people make laws
on laws, and multiply commissions
to watch and boss everybody, and
the, patient regulated folks sweat
Inr md 90 an
and try to get along, until pres
emily there rises a great cry that
life is being so perfected that 1T
costs too much to live. and that
over-regulated existence is not
worth having, anyway.
At every session of the Legislature
of Pennsylvania, and the experience
of this State does not differ from
that of others, bills upon bills are in
troduced for every possible reform.
Most of these propositions are silly
inasmuch as they propose to regulate
everything from the wearing of a ha
to the cutting of the hair. reducing
to an absurdityy the more sane ant
needful legislative suggestions whicl
are lost in the avalanche of popula
| disapproval. Unfortunately, however
too many such propositions are en-
acted into law and the very thing tina
is suggested by Mr.. Martin happens
reaction sets in and our last estate
worse than our first.
Under these conditions small-bor
politicians issue what they are please
to call platforms or declarations o
principles and with this propaganda
go before the people asking that the
be given place and power to do tn
fool things which they propose il
their pronunciamentos which ar
simply high-sounding phrases to de
ceive the gullible.