Evening star., 1924-02-24
SPEED|ER JUSTICE
URGED BY HUGHES
Simplifying of Laws Also De-
Clared Immediate Need
in United States.

Sounding a call for law enforce
ment. simplified laws and procedure,
Secretary of State Hughes last night
declared: brutality on our high
ways, in our great cities. a paradise
of bootleggers. an absolute disregard
for the sanctity Of the law in all our
communities. can only be remedied in
one way-simplifying the criminal
procedure.
THE great duty of the hour" he
said, rs not to make law, but to
enforce law, to establish the funda-
mentals of security of life and prop
erty and to maintain by enforcement
respect for law in our great cities"
The Secretary. in an address at
the American Law Institute banquet
at the City Club. explained that this
country has ''the greatest law factory
the world has ever known" with the
federal government. and forty-eight
states turning out each year thou
sands of new laws while at the same
time the courts in the performance
Of judicial duty are giving us
thousands Of precedents."
Purpose of Institute.
This institute represents a move
ment of hardheaded idealists-with
faith to remove mountains" con-
tinued the Secretary. I'VE are seeking
first of all to aid in the simplifica-
tion Of the law, as announced by the
courts, through an analytical and
constructive restatement. not as
code, not to have an illusory GER
tainty of a legislative enactment. but
as an authoritative source to which
Judges and lawyers may resort for
precise and comprehensive informa-
tion, possessing the only lasting
authority, that of learning, analysis
and accuracy"
But the trouble, Secretary Hughes
went on to say. 'is with the legisla-
lures far more than with the courts.
For generations we have talked of
the evil of multiplying laws, but they
multiply all the more. Lawyers de-
cry the multiplication in the meet
ings of bar associations and then.
sitting in legislative halls, do their
full share to increase it. The evil
resides not merely in the number Of
laws. 1t is in badly drawn laws.
Burden ON Courts.
ut is also in the compromises Of
legislation where the contests of op-
posing policies are satisfied by am
biguous phrases which transmit the
difficulties Of legislative bodies to the
courts, who are left with the bur-
densome task Of discovering the
legislative intent when actually there
has been no defined legislative in
tent"
There was also special trust"
the secretary said. for lawyers to
use their full influence to assure in
expensive, speedy, expert administra-
tion of justice where the courts most
frequently touch the lives of the
plain people," meaning "the minor
courts, the magistrates courts. mu-
nicipal courts, the tribunals, that
are we'll called the poor mans
courts"
Secretary Hughes paid tribute to
the ideals Of the legal profession, and
concluded by saying: "In the great
task this institute has assumed we
are pledging our service to the high
est of causes. as in perfecting the un-
derstanding and in facilitating the
administration of the laws we are
buttressing the foundations Of justice,
which cannot be established by any
arbitrary devides or by confiding the
interests of liberty to an uncontrolled
official discretion. but only through
laws reasonable, understandable, and
impartially and effectively admins
tered"
Frederick F. Faville, Justice Of the
supreme court of Iowa, praised the
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