The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-03-14
LAWS

Governor strong gave odSN 0H'4 10 the Alaskan legislature when he urged them to pass only such laws as were absolutely essential, for in effect there were already too many laws. In this he re-echoes the almost forgotten dictum of the then Attorney-General Knox. when prose- cutting the Northern Securities co" that the crying need of the hour was not more laws but more geh- eral recognition of such laws as were already on the statute books.
 The main objection to represen- tative government is the facilities that it has opened up to all and sundrv to make laws. And so many solons in these days have an itch for introducing bills that some such counsel as that given by the Govern or of Alaska doubtless is timely, The law maker of today has simply got the habit and he lives under the impression that law can make he crooked straight and the evil good.
 Accordingly his pursuit of this law making instinct is as diversified as the poet who chooses anything and everything as his subject from religion to his mistress's eyebrows.
 There is one general grievance in the nation. It is the law 50 smoke with stern sincerity OhE@ Cromwell to the Parliament whom he fmplored to remedy matters. Ana in truth there are few countrleS where the law itself is not the sub feet matter of general complaint and grievance.
 II is obvious that the remedy TOT this state of things is not as seems -o generally believed 10 be more law. but an amendment or all alter ,f5sn or repeal of such as are the .ubfa,t matter of such grievance,
 If will be conceded that laws lt.eh exasperate the people will ,-.a continual sore if not removed .yhfrh will ultimately threaten the general health of the body polite. Hence if some fine day legislator would enter upon his duties ob- sassed with the notion not of pass ing additional legislation, but ol removing such as is of no avail, sucb as is evil, such as is source of irritation. the country would in deed in many ways be beneatted oE that
 A recent writer paraphrasing the ,.pigram ol the historian "AeA ae said that happy is that country which is without a history says that happier is that country which Is encumbered by few laws, seems to have struck a homely truth that Is not very generally realized.
 IT was Jefferson who contended that that was the best government which governed the least, and truly il is hard thing to deny. Yet so many persons today have made an ;dol of the law. have endowed It with a quasi divine nature that they concluded in this frame of mind the more laws the better. Hence they riot in the luxury of continuous Ia" passing. to the infinite confoundins Of the people who no longer even affect to understand the jargon i'll which the laws are indicted.
 It is a funny thing that there Is "A universal ignorance of what IS ae- tuallv the law on any particular subject. and that the people to avail themselves of the laws protection ar to seek redress under the law have to hire a specialist who Will take refuge in that law which IS to Inn internreted for the people who made it by special jurist,
 If is an extraordinary thing that tha laws should be made by the Deople and for the people, yet the people know so little about. them' even oftentimes that there are such laws. they needs must choose one who makes a study of the matter to aid them in taking advantage or such as they may imagine do exist.
 Of late years every state legis- Nature and every federal congress has been passing multltudes or laws. Volume after volume is pas