Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1922-08-05
THE ELEMENT OF PERSONAL INTEREST.

. During the protracted tariff debate in the senate
the other day somebody discovered that Senator
Gooding, ewho had urged the imposition of fairly
heavy duties on wool, is the owner of a lot of sheep.
The charge-implied and rather ~pointedly expressed
that he was using his official position to legislate
money into his own pocket nettled the Idaho SEN
.ator, and he came forward with a resolution provid-
ing for the appointment of a committee to inquire
into the business relations of senators generally
which might influence their votes, and also into the
relationships of others outside the senate which
might explain their advocacy of or opposition to any
of the senate schedules.
The legislator occupies a position quite similar
to that of the judge, in that he serves the public gen
orally, and is not expected to permit his personal
interest to influence him in the performance of his
official work. If a Judge has a personal interest in
a case it is not considered proper for him to sit in
judgment on it. 1t is not common for legislators to
be disqualified" for similar reasons, and to abstain
from voting because of their personal interest in the
question being decided. Whether this is due to a
belief that a legislator is better able tina a Judge to
subordinate his private interest to the public wei,
fare, or to some other cause, might provide a topic
for an interesting debate.
If we undertook to have our laws made only by
those who have no personal interest in any of their
provisions we should have very few laws, because
the effect of legislation on business relations is so
general that under those requirements nobody could
qualify.
It is taken for granted, for instance, that we
must have tariff legislation. A tariff bill contains
many schedules and many hundreds of items. No
matter what the private business of the legislator,
he is personally interested in a great many of those
items. If he is engaged in the production of COM
modities which other people use, it may be assumed
that in most cases he will be benefited by duties on
those commodities. And no matter what his occu-
patton, his interest is in low duties on those COM
modities of which he is a consumer and not a pro-
Queer.
What is true of tariff bills is true in greater or
less degree of almost all other bills. The 1awmak-
er, as a citizen and business man, has a citizens in
lterest in the subjects which come before him for de-
cision. We cannot have Our laws made by people
of no occupation, and who have no interests in the
nation. 1t is unfortunately true that in a good many
cases legislation is regarded as a game of grab, fac
ilitated by a system: of exchange in which support
of one private interest is traded for support of an
other.
Apparently this system Of log-rolling is becom:
ing better organized than formerly. It has always
existed, and it, is always vicious. Just now the ex.
istence of the farm bloc" has directed a good deal
of attention to the WHOLE subject. People who have
looked with complasance on the 1og-rolling prac-
Iticed by various interests in the past are Mortified
that representatives of agricultural constituencies
have organized and are taking a hand in it. A farm
blocis no worse than a steel bloc, or q railroad Bloc
or any other bloc-and no better. Such organiza:
tons may be useful or injurious to the nation. The
tendency is for them to become injurious, but there
lis consolation in the thought that when an agency
becomes about 50 injurious, It IS quite apt to 60 e
pieces.
Ccw.~ncr N.e+os, s..~~..tson ~ E.~..>r. X 80