The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1917-04-27
Upper House VermifOrm
Appendix
~ Or. FRANK CRANE
copyright. 1915. by Frank Crane)

The hardest part of progress is in get
ting rid of the old outgrown bothersome
husks of the past They had their use
once and now ought to be Topped off.
Unfortunately we cling to them, and
imagine that to destroy the useless and
outworn is to destroy life. 1t is not IL
is to take away the things that interfere
with life.
Monarchy is one Of those holdovers
that the world is now in the painful pro-
cess of shedding.
Another ''vermiform appendix" of gov
eminent is the upper house.
Once an upper house had meaning.
1t represented an extant idea, to-wit;
That there are two classes Of people, no
bles and commons. Hence when a rep
resentative law-makng body was made
1t was composed of two houses, one for
the mobiles, the upper house, and the
other for the commons, the lower house.
Although that idea is long dead the
old outgrown symbol of it, the upper
house, still persists in constitutional gov
ernments.
Every state has its Senate and House
SO has the United States.
Modern government has about as much
use for Senate as a dog has for two
tails. We have senates for just one rea-
son-we always have had them. II our
fathers ploughed with sharpened stick,
why should we risk steam plough?
There are symptoms of cerebration,
however. People will think First Ore
gon proposed a single legislative cham
Der Then Governor Everhardt of Min
nesota proposed it, About three years
ago Governor Hodges of Kansas brought
up the subject in his message to the leg
islature and aroused nationwide discus
sion.
And now, in January, Mr.. Martz offers
a resolution in the Michigan House of
Representatives that a commission be APP
pointed to establish the legislative de-
partment of the state on a commission
basis that is, to have a law-making body
of thirteen instead Of four hundred.
Said Mr. Martz:
1--WE been in the legislature now four
terms. I've seen the cumbersome meth
cd Of doing business, with the attendant
heavy expense attached to a session Of
the legislature. I've seen the log-rolling
and the petty pickering, the great mass
Of fool laws and all that sort of thing
introduced and passed here. I've seen
men with fish to fry mussing up the
statutes without regard to the mass of
the people, and I'm convinced that a
smaller body, and only one body, would
cut down the mass of petty legislation
and give us only such laws as are worth
while and probably would have these
laws so carefully drawn that they would
not be in the Supreme Court every five
minutes or be repealed at the next ses-
sion of the legislature.
This is sound sense. If commission
form is good for cities. why not for
states? Why not for the United States2
AS a matter Of fact, the United States
Senate has been the stronghold of special
privilege since it's incipiency; it is a log
chain around Uncle Sans foot; it is a
useless and obsolete organization. and the
sooner we are rid of it the better.
After kings, senates ought to go next.
About all the good vermiform APP
pendix does it to give the doctors a $500
job.
If some physician in statecraft could
open our body polite and remove our
Senate he would improve our national