The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-11-18
Revision of Kansas Statutes Is
Almost Completed.
For First Time Since 1865
Changes Are Suggested.
900 PROPOSED CORRECTIONS
1t Has Taken Two Years for
Lawyers To Do Work.
S. ID. Pipes, Secretary of the Re-
vision Committee.

For the first time since 1s6s-seven
years after Kansas won her statehood
there is to be a general revision of
the statutes. The report of the three
missioherS-Chester /. Long, OF
Wichita: Fred Dumont Smith, of
Hutchinson, and Hugh P Farrelly, of
Chanute-is now practically COM
pleted. It will go before the legisla-
ture for ratification and will mean the
wiping out of scores of overlapping,
meaningless as well as vague and in
definite acts.
After nearly 30 years of hard work
the commission appointed by the su-
preme court has made practically 800
proposed changes in the Kansas stat
utes. Members of the commission in
clude three lawyers of highest rank
among members of the Kansas bar
and there is apparently little doubt
but that the legislature will adopt,
at least in a general way, their recon-
mendationS.
From the days of the prairie
schooner to the automobile and from
stage coach to express trains, tele-
phones, telegraph and radio, Kansas
has plodded along with her laws of
frontier days. Frequently the 1egis-
lature made change in the statutes.
But the state laws continue to show
evidences of the days when the Indians
and buffalo claimed land rights over
the wheat. grower with his gang of
tractors
S. d. Pipes, Secretary.
In addition to the three well known
lawyers, a strong clerical force was
organized by the revision committee.
S. D. Pipes. who has spent forty years
preparing and publishing law books,
was retained as secretary. Other MEM
bers of the force included G. D. Yetter,
Mrs. Ida Welt and Richard E. Nc
Intosh all of Topeka and familiar with
legislative procedures and prepara-
ton of session l&wS and statute books.
Scores of meetings have been held
and when the legislature comes to To-
peka in January a brand new general
statute will be ready for ratification.
There are more than 900 recon-
mendations in the report of the re-
vision committee or commission.
It was seldom that a report of the
commission involved a mere consid-
Grafton of single section of the ex-
isting general statutes. Always there
were two sections nvolved-usually
many more.
One report covering cities required
commission members and assistants to
examine more than 1,400 sections of
the statutes. The report covering
bonds called for examination of total
studied and revised 70S sections of
the existing state laws before they
wrote their recommendation for the
school laws.
"A l.,
studied in compiling the report COW
ering state boards, commissions, de-
partments, officers and institutions.
In the report on railroads and public
utilities SIG sections of the statutes
were considered.
The commission has been at work
twenty months. In that time it has
examined more than 5000 sections of
the 1915 general statutes. In addi- i
ton to that work it has also gone over
every section of the four succeeding
session laws since publication of the
last general statutes.
For Direct Repeal.
wherever it was found that a sec
ton had been repealed by implica-
tion," says the report, cit was recon-
mended for direct repeal. Where par
TALLY repealed by implication a new
section has been written combing the
part of the old section remaining and
the new section. Where statutes are
conflicting or contradictory, the con-
flict or contradiction has been re-
moved by the writing of a new sec
ton"
In their work the commissioners
solicited suggestions from members of
the state bar association. There was
a general response from the lawyers.
Nearly 1000 suggestions for changes
in the revision of the statutes were
received and considered in preparation
of the report.